The history and architectural form of the Xingyun Bridge in Datong

The history and architectural form of the Xingyun Bridge in Datong

Journal of Shanxi Datong University (Social Sciences Edition), June 2008, Vol. 22, No. 3, Li Shuyun

Abstract: The Royal River is the most important river in Datong City, which flows from north to south outside the east gate of the city. As a necessary way out of the east, the construction of bridges on the Royal River Bridge has a long history. At present, according to archaeological excavations and references, it can be known that the construction of the bridge on the Royal River began in the Jin Dynasty, which is a five-arch stone bridge and named "Xingyun Bridge" when it was rebuilt in the Yuan Dynasty. The Royal River Bridge of the Jin Dynasty lasted more than 400 years through the second dynasty of the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and was rebuilt into a nineteen-hole stone arch bridge in the eighth year of the Wanli Dynasty, which is still known as the Xingyun Bridge and fell during the Qing Jiaqing period.

Yuhe, also known as The Jade River, is one of the most important rivers in Datong. It stretches from north to south outside the gate of Datong Dongcheng, because "the dynasty will be transferred, the east will move to the Beijing Division, and it will be more than Yan", so since ancient times, the construction of bridges on the Royal River has been the key to maintaining the smoothness of the East Exit Road of Datong.

In 2003 and 2004, the Datong City Ecological Park began construction in yuhe outside the east gate of the city, and a large number of bridge components were found at the construction site of the Yuhe River, including a large number of stone arched components, thirteen railings carved with character stories and sacred beast patterns, five pillars carved with lotus flowers and tangled flowers, three iron squat beasts, two stone beasts and a 6.30-meter-high Huabiao composed of Sumire seat, octagonal stone pillar, backed lotus seat and squat beast. These rich relics of the stone bridge were excavated about 50 meters south of the current Yuhe Bridge, thus confirming that this is the former site of Xingyun Bridge. The characteristics of the excavated relics and their age have been discussed in a special article, and this article further explores the history and shape of the Mikawa Bridge.

First, the history of Xingyun Bridge

The name of Xingyun Bridge was first found in the "Xingyun Bridge Stele" [1] written by Shi Yuji of the Yuan Dynasty University, which details the construction of a new bridge in the east of Datong Road in the first year of Taiding (1324) and the inscription "Xingyun Bridge", and the inscription also has "If the muddy water follows the east of the city and travels south, the river is strong, and the rain is strong, and it is beneficial to obstruct the walkers." Therefore, from the Yuan Wei to the Tang Dynasty, the rivers were divided and merged differently, and the rate of building bridges to reach the record" is recorded. It is uncertain whether the Northern Wei built bridges on the Ruhun River or where the bridges were built, but in recent years a large number of Northern Wei tombs have been found on the east bank of the river, including the tomb of Song Shaozu of Dunhuang during the Taihe period and the tomb of Sima Jinlong, the king of Langyakang.

Archaeological data confirm that south of Mapu Mountain and east of the Royal River are the burial areas of Northern Wei nobles, bureaucrats and other upper-class figures, and at the same time, in the investigation of the Northern Wei city site, it was also found that not far east of the bridge site, there are rammed earth remains of the Northern Wei period, and it is conceivable that people traveled to and from the banks of the river during the Northern Wei Dynasty, such as when there were bridges on the Hun River to reach the east and west. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the gradually powerful northern Turks often took datong to the south to harass the Central Plains, Datong became the military frontier of the northern Tang Dynasty, then called Datong Military City, and the Liao Dynasty Datong was the capital of Xijing, the political and economic status was very important, so the Tang and Liao Dynasties should also build bridges on the Royal River to facilitate the involvement, and in the 1950s, the Datong City Museum successively found a number of Liao Dynasty mural tombs east of the Yuhe River to confirm this.

At present, there are historical records of bridge repairs beginning in the Jin Dynasty, and Yu Ji clearly records the construction of bridges on the Royal River in the Jin Dynasty in the "Xingyun Bridge Stele": "Jin Tianhui Nongzi (Tianhui Decade, 1132 AD) Gao Qingzhi built, Tianhui thirteen years resident Gao Ju Anxiu, Yuwen Xuan Zhongji", "Jin Dading Xin Ugly (Dading Twenty-one Years, 1181) was destroyed by heavy rain and electricity,

Dading stayed behind for twenty-two years to complete the reconstruction of Yan Zhen, Bian Yuan Zhongji". It can be known that the Royal River Bridge of the Jin Dynasty was built in the early Jin Dynasty, and was organized by Gao Qingyi, who was the retainer of Xijing at the time, Yin of Datong Province, and the governor of the Terracotta Army of Benlu. In the 21st year of Dading (1181), the bridge was damaged by heavy rain, and the following year it was rebuilt by Guanyan Zhao, who was then the retainer of Xijing. Bian Yuanzhong had an inscription on the construction of the bridge during the Dading period, Bian Yuanzhong was a native of Dading, and the Datong County Chronicle contains another of his inscriptions, "Xijing Left behind Li Gongde Zheng Monument", and the Bian Yuanzhong Monument erected by the Yuhe Bridge is no longer extant, and Zhang Qin of the Ming Dynasty recorded in the "Datong Fu Zhi · Volume 1 Water" written by Zhang Qin in the tenth year of Zhengde (1515) that "if muddy water, a jade river ... There is the Bianyuan Zhongbei Stele erected in Jin Dading", and the "Datong County Chronicle, Volume IV, Territory" written by Li Zhongfu in the Daoguang Decade (1830) of the Qing Dynasty also has "like muddy waters... The description of the Boundary YuanZhong Monument in the Jin Dading of the Eastern Path of the Water and the Liugang Monument in the West confirms that the Jin Dynasty Bianyuan Zhongbei Lijin, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties have been standing on the Ruhun Water for nearly 700 years, and the narrative of the Yuan Dynasty Yu Ji, datong Fu Zhi and Datong County Chronicle about the jin dynasty repairing the bridge should be derived from this stele. The second record of the repair of the bridge in the Yuan Dynasty is found in the "Xingyun Bridge Stele Record" written by Yuan Yuji, the first time was in the third year of the Yuan Dynasty (1310), the bridge was damaged by the flood, the official family funded the repair, and the second time was the maintenance of the First Year of Taiding (1324) with a continuous rate of Tubian, "it was quarried under the Hongshan Mountain, and all the pillars were twenty-four, flowing from top to bottom, standing on the wall." Then the stacks of stones, the planting of fences, the gates of the table, the decoration of the shrines, and the genus of the official houses are all secondary." Lian Limian inscribed the newly repaired stone bridge "Xingyun Bridge", and the name of Xingyun Bridge began from this point on. The Xingyun Bridge of the Ming Dynasty has many repair records, and the Chronicle of Datong Fu [2] includes the "Record of the Reconstruction of Xingyun Bridge in Datong Province" written by Liu Jue, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty University, which was made for Li Minzeng, the inspector of Ming Chenghua in the thirteenth year (1477), who repaired the Xingyun Bridge, and this maintenance was mainly to widen the bridge deck, that is, the inscription said that "it was withdrawn and widened", after the bridge was repaired, "the east and west are straight and one zhang, the north and south are three zhang, the empty one is five, the middle height is two feet, the second zhang is one foot, and the second zhang is one foot, and the width is as wide as it is." and wings with railing stones". The inscription also mentions that hongwu thirteen years (1380) was "followed by the old ways and replenished for it". In the eighth year of the Wanli Dynasty (1580), the general soldier Guo Hu demolished the old bridge, "expanding the old foundation and creating more", the ring under the bridge was nineteen urns, the upper square rail was tolerated, the height was three zhang, the east and west were more than 100 zhang, the north and south were more than ten zhang wide, and the wing was stone railed, still known as the Xingyun Bridge. This matter is recorded in the "Datong County Chronicle, Volume 5, Construction" Bridge Strip, and the "Datong County Chronicle, Volume 6, Rank Official", which also contains Guo Hu's "Repair of xingyun bridge to benefit from the involvement", and is also mentioned in the "Record of the Reconstruction of Shanghuayan Temple" in the ninth year of the Ming Dynasty (1581). The Records of Yunzhong County, Volume XIII, Yiwen Zhi, which includes the Ming Dynasty Huo Peng's "Record of rebuilding Xingyun Bridge", records that in the thirty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar (1606), the general Jiao Chengxun and the senator Yang Yikui rebuilt the Xingyun Bridge. The specific circumstances of this repair are not mentioned in the inscription, only the inscription "The green dragon has a mill hub on its back, and the iron bull presses the water tribe in the ear" (press: The iron bull is still alive and is hidden in front of the five dragon walls of Datong Shanhua Temple). In the Qing Dynasty, the Xingyun Bridge was repaired in the years of Kangxi and Qianlong, and according to the bridge article of the "Datong County Chronicle, Volume 5, Construction", the Xingyun Bridge in the sixth and tenth years of Jiaqing (1805) was finally collapsed due to heavy water, and the Yuhe Bridge could not be built until the Qing Dynasty.

Second, the shape of xingyun bridge

The Royal River is a seasonal river, the tide rises and falls over the years, the water flow is different, and the construction of bridges is not the same. The construction and scale of the Xingyun Bridge before the Jin Dynasty have not yet been verified due to the lack of historical materials, but the "Xingyun Bridge Stele Record" written by Yu Ji in the first year of the Yuan Dynasty (1324) is quite detailed, and the inscription says: "Next year, Ren Yin, stay behind and finish Yan praise and rewrite it." Things to do Bian Yuan Tadatomo, Imabashi is also. Yu Ji's "Imahashi is also" tells us that the bridge rebuilt by Dading in the twenty-second year of The Bridge was built from 1182 to 1324 for more than 140 years, and the shape of the bridge has not changed from Jin to Yuan. After the hailing king established the capital zhongdu (present-day Beijing) in 1153, in order to strengthen economic and military control over northern China, several measures were taken in terms of north-south transportation, and the construction of Xingyun Bridge should also be one of them. Datong in the Jin Dynasty is still Xijing, not only has a unique geographical location, but also plays an extremely important role in the military, yuhe bridge is the only way for Datong to move east to Beijing, and its construction is an important project in the construction of road traffic in Datong, Xijing. Yuhe is a seasonal river, every rainy season the river surges, causing a huge impact on the bridge, which is also the key to the repeated construction and destruction of bridges on the Royal River, the bridge in the Dading period is not bad for 140 years, it can be known that the construction of the year is quite strong. In addition, for the bridge, the most vulnerable parts are the bridge deck and the railing stem, under normal circumstances, the number of bridge decks needs to be replaced once every 10 years, and the railing trunk needs to be replaced frequently, but the earliest maintenance record after the construction of the bridge between Jin Dadingjian is the third year of the Yuan to the Great Three Years (1310) 130 years later, which also confirms the solidity and importance of this project at that time from another side. One of the main reasons for the damage to the Xingyun Bridge in the early Yuan Dynasty was the continuous natural disasters in the Datong area at that time, and in the ninth year of Dade (1305), "Summer april ... The earthquake on Datong Road was as loud as thunder, and more than 5,000 bad officials and people were killed"[3],"In June, jinning, Jinning, Xuande, Longxing, and other counties had heavy rain and hail, harming crops"[4], from the third year of the great year (1310) the bridge was damaged by floods, and the official government only made some simple repairs, and the damage to the bridge at that time was not serious. Seven years of Yanyou (1320) "... Is it a year,...... Datong rain and hail, the big one is like a chicken egg"[5]. In the first year of the reign (1321), there were two heavy rains in Datong, "June ... Datong Road rain and hail. ...... Autumn july... Hail on the same road"[5], and the bridge was once again damaged by frequent flooding. Yu Ji describes the situation as follows: "There are seven bridges in twenty, and there are two in the west that are not bad." It can be seen that only a very small part of the eastern railings of the bridge built by the Jin Dynasty were destroyed in the first year of the reign, and the main reason for the construction of the bridge twice in the Yuan Dynasty was that when the bridge was first repaired, "the east was the trend of water, and the pillars were all wood, and the villagers took it easily, regardless of their vulnerability" and successive natural disasters. In 1321, when Lian ZhiTumian and his deputy grandson Hou Hou built the bridge, "it was so bad that it was long", so "the stone was quarried under the Hongshan Mountain, and everything was a pillar for twenty-four ,...... Then the stacks of stones, the planting of fences, the gate of the table, the decoration of the shrine, and the genus of the official house are all secondary", [6] "The beginning of the August Jiazi, the Bi September Jiazi, where a number of days". From the account, we can clearly know that the maintenance replaced twenty-four pillars, placed railings and stacks, repaired the bridge deck, the table gate, decorated the shrine, and named the "Bridge of Xingyun". At the construction site of the Royal Riverbed, we found a complete Huabiao, which, judging from its shape and pattern characteristics, should be a relic of the golden dollar, and it is most likely the "table gate que" object mentioned in this maintenance. This is a large-scale repair, but the main body is still the bridge built by the Jin Dynasty. In this regard, although the Yuan Dynasty had two repairs of the Royal River Bridge built in Dadingjian on different scales, the structure and shape of the bridge did not change.

In the thirteenth year of Ming Hongwu (1380), after following the old and slightly supplementing the old, another large-scale repair of the Xingyun Bridge was in the thirteenth year of Ming Chenghua (1477) 156 years later. The repair was not due to the damage to the bridge, but because "the soldier's attendant Xiangcheng Li Gonggong mian fengfu patrolled Datong, on the outskirts of The Parade, saw the non-commissioned soldiers who wade into the bridge, and squeezed The Fu Rong"[7], so it was decided to "withdraw and expand", "starting in the autumn and July Gengshen, and ending in the winter october". At that time, the university scholar Liu Jue wrote an inscription entitled "Records of the Reconstruction of Xingyun Bridge in Datong Province", and Li Zhongfu's account of this bridge repair in the Qing Dynasty was "Inspector Li Min zengxiu". Whether it is a reconstruction or an addition, it shows that this is still only a widening of the bridge deck, not a reconstruction. In the 295 years from the 22nd year of Jin Dading to the 13th year of Ming Chenghua, although the Xingyun Bridge was repaired many times, the shape of the bridge did not change. So what is the shape of xingyun bridge? Liu Jue's inscription gives a clear description: "The bridge is straight from east to west, ten and one zhang, three zhang wide from north to south, five for the empty, two feet in height, one foot in the second zhang, and one zhang in width. And the wings are stone bars. "In the Ming Dynasty, one foot is about 31.10 centimeters in the present metric system, that is to say, Xingyun Bridge is a five-hole stone arch bridge, the two ends of the coupon arch are symmetrical, the central arch span is 3.83 meters, and the span of the two end arches is 3.42 meters and 3.11 meters in turn. The bridge is 34.21 meters long from east to west, and 9.33 meters wide from north to south after widening.

Generally speaking, in the description of the bridge, "between" refers to the distance between the two columns of the stone pillar bridge, and the other refers to the stone railing trunk. Located three miles from Xi'an, Liqiao is a stone pillar bridge, built in the 20th year of Ming Yongle (1422), "a total of 27 bridges, each column of six stone pillars, each two joined together, and connected by iron hoops" [8]. The longest ancient stone arch bridge in North China, lugou bridge, is an eleven-hole joint arch stone bridge, built in the 28th year of Jin Dading (1188), "there are 279 stone railings,...... There are 279 columns and 281 pillars". The Xingyun Bridge stele after the reconstruction of Yuan Taiding in the first year of the yuan said that the bridge built by Jin Dadingjian was "seven of the twenty-seven", and some researchers believe that this is the twenty-seven stone pillar bridges, which is not the case. After the Xingyun Bridge was added between Ming Chenghua, Liu Jue commented that its scale was magnificent, and it was ugly in the past, and the length of the Xingyun Bridge at this time was only 34.21 meters. The length of the Jin Dynasty Yuhe Bridge will not exceed 34.21 meters, if it is a twenty-seven stone pillar bridge, then the width of each column plus the span is only 1.2 meters, and it is unlikely that twenty-seven stone pillar bridges will be built within a range of only more than 30 meters. The Jin Dynasty's Royal River Bridge "Fan Twenty-Seven Rooms" refers to the column version, which has 27 railings and 29 pillars on each side. We collected 7 pieces of pillars and 13 pieces of railings at the construction site of Yuhe, the width of the columns is 120-125 cm, the width of the pillars is 30 centimeters, the width of the slots is 8-12 centimeters, and the length of 27 columns plus 29 pillars is nearly 35 meters, which is consistent with the 34.21 meters long of Xingyun Bridge in Liu Jue's monument. That is to say, the Royal River Bridge of the Jin Dynasty is the same in shape as the Lugou Bridge built in jinding, all of which are stone arch bridges with railings on it, the difference is only the scale of the bridge, and the Royal River Bridge was built 6 years earlier than the Lugou Bridge.

In the eighth year of the Wanli Calendar (1580), the Xingyun Bridge, which has experienced countless winds and rains and traumas, has stood on the Ruhun Water for 400 years, and the Ming Dynasty's Datong is a barrier of Yanjing and a border pass, due to the large-scale construction, it is indiscriminately cut down and felled in the upper reaches of the Muddy Water, resulting in serious loss of water and soil, the river often floods, and the Xingyun Bridge suffers an unprecedented impact. Guo Hu, who was the commander-in-chief of Datong at the time, "expanded the old base and created more", and the Datong County Chronicle has a precise description of the shape of the bridge, "the lower ring nineteen urns, the upper square rail, the height of three zhangyu, the east and west length of more than 100 zhang, the north and south width of more than ten zhang, the wing with stone railings, still known as xingyun bridge" [10]. At this time, the Xingyun Bridge is a nineteen-hole stone arch bridge, which can accommodate two cars in parallel, with a height of 9.3 meters, an east-west length of 310 meters, and a north-south width of 31 meters, which can be described as a grand scale. From these data, we can see that the length of the bridge has increased by nearly 10 times. Later, in the thirty-fourth year of the Wanli Calendar (1606), the chief soldier Jiao Chengxun and the senator Yang Yikui once rebuilt and cast a huge iron bull to stand on the side of the bridge, in order to suppress the water tribe and ensure peace. During the Qing Kangxi and Qianlong dynasties, there were some repairs to the Xingyun Bridge between the Ming Dynasty and the Wanli Calendar, and in the Jiaqing Decade (1805), the Ming Dynasty Nineteen Kong Xingyun Bridge, which existed for more than 200 years, was dumped by heavy water.

III. Conclusion

Yuhe is a very important river in Datong City, because it meanders outside the gate of Datong East City, the construction of bridges on it has become an important construction project of Datong since the establishment of the city, and the discussion and research on the geographical location, architectural form and historical evolution of Xingyun Bridge have become an important part of the archaeology of Datong City. The excavation of the relics of the Yuhe River Bridge determined that the location of the Xingyun Bridge of the third generation of Jin Yuanming was about 50 meters south of the current Yuhe Bridge, and the Xingyun Bridge, as the only way out of Datong City in the east, speculated that in terms of layout, it should be on an axis with the east-west trunk road of the city, which also provided strong evidence for the determination of the location of Jinyuan Datong City. For a long time, previous researchers have believed that Xingyun Bridge was built in the Yuan Dynasty as a twenty-five-hole stone pillar bridge, and new archaeological data has revealed a completely different appearance for Xingyun Bridge. Studies have shown that

At present, there is historical evidence and archaeological relics supported by the Datong Yuhe Xingyun Bridge was built in the 22nd year of Jin Dading (1182), is a five-hole joint arch stone bridge, the bridge length of nearly 35 meters, Yuan Tai Dingjian rebuilt named Xingyun Bridge, after which there have been many repairs, the Middle Ming Dynasty Xingyun Bridge is lined with trees and pleasant scenery, Yuqiao Guanliu became one of the eight scenic spots in the clouds, experienced 400 years of wind and rain, to the Ming Dynasty Wanli Eight Years (1580) demolished. The bridge rebuilt by Guo Hu is still named Xingyun Bridge, which is a nineteen-hole stone arch bridge with a length of more than 300 meters, which was washed away during the Qing Jiaqing period due to the surge of the river. The determination of the Xingyun Bridge site provides powerful physical data for the archaeology of bridges and the study of urban layout in Datong.