Nanjing is one of the four ancient capitals of China, from 473 BC "Yuecheng", Nanjing has a history of nearly 2500 years of city building.
Since the Eastern Wu Dynasty and the Song, Qi, Liang, ChenNantang, Ming, Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Republic of China of the Song Dynasty and the Southern Dynasty have built capitals here, with a total history of about 450 years, so Nanjing has always enjoyed the reputation of "the ancient capital of the six dynasties" and "the capital of the ten dynasties".
According to a rough count, there are more than 30 important dynasties and regimes in China's history, and 10 have been established in Nanjing. As a famous ancient capital, Nanjing is an important witness to Chinese history. From a historical point of view. Nanjing and Beijing are on a par with each other. The Forbidden City in Beijing is famous all over the world, so how should the imperial city of Nanjing be magnificent?
1. The ancient imperial city of Nanjing
Nanjing is an ancient and civilized city, as early as more than 600,000 years ago there were footprints of "Nanjing Ape Man".
At the beginning of the Warring States period, the King of Yue destroyed Wu and built the city of Yue in ancient Changganli, which was the beginning of the founding of Nanjing. In the thirty-sixth year of King Xian of Zhou, king Of Chu Wei sent troops to destroy the Yue kingdom and built a city on Stone Mountain to set up "Jinlingyi", and Nanjing had an administrative plan for the first time, which is also the origin of the name of "Jinling" in Nanjing.
At this time, Nanjing was still only a small city in the "Land of Hundred Yue", which could not be compared with large cities such as Luoyang.
It was not until the sixteenth year of Jian'an at the end of the Han Dynasty that Sun Quan, who had divided Jiangdong, moved the seat of government to Nanjing, and the following year renamed Nanjing, which was originally called Socks Tomb, to Jianye, making the city the administrative center of the Eastern Wu regime.
In 229 AD, Sun Quan declared himself emperor in Wuchang, and the situation of the Three Kingdoms was formed. In September of the same year, Sun Quan moved the capital to Jianye, which was the beginning of the establishment of the capital of Nanjing. Since then, Nanjing has begun large-scale urban construction as an imperial city for the first time.
This time, the urban construction is quite large-scale, the planning is more rigorous, and it has characteristics, which has initially laid the foundation for the future Nanjing City.
Regarding the urban form of Jianye City, there are not many records in the historical materials, only mentioning the circumference of Jianye City of 20 miles, if Jianye City is square, then the size of the capital city of Wu also reaches 25 square miles.
At this time, there was no clear distinction between the imperial city and the outer city in Jianye City, only the Taichu Palace and Zhaoming Palace were built in the north of the city, and there were Garden City and Cangcheng Behind the Palace, and the shape was very magnificent. In addition, there is also a chi road built at the gate of the Taichu Palace, which can directly lead to the Qinhuai River.
At this time, although there were only two palaces in Jianye Imperial City, it already had the basic functions of the Imperial City, which could meet the needs of the ruler to work, rest and play here. And this time the planning layout not only had a decisive impact on the Eastern Jin Dynasty and the Southern Dynasty, but also had a reference for the construction of Luoyang in northern Wei in the future.
In 211 AD, the Jin army broke the city in eight ways and died. The Jin soldiers entered the city and did not destroy the Jianye Imperial City much. More than a hundred years later, due to the "Rebellion of the Eight Kings" of the Jin Dynasty, the Wuhu Chaos hua was caused, and the Central Plains fell. However, during this period, the Jiangnan region was relatively stable, and the Central Plains people moved south to avoid chaos.
In 317 AD, Sima Rui, the king of Langya, the patriarch of the Jin Dynasty, rebuilt the Jin Dynasty in Jiankang, known as the Eastern Jin Dynasty. After more than a hundred years, Jianye City has once again become the capital of a country, but this time, the city has changed its name to Jiankang.
Second, Jiankang's style is heartbreaking
After Sima Rui built the capital of Jiankang, he did not change the basic form of Jiankang City and continued to use the old site of Jianye in Wudu. However, in order to resettle the northern displaced people in the southern crossing, the Eastern Jin Dynasty court set up a number of overseas Chinese counties and overseas Counties in and around Jiankang, forming a special administrative division, making the political districts around Jiankang particularly complex and changeable.
More immigrants from the north inside and outside Jiankang City than the Wu people of their native origin have changed the city's customs and traditional culture, and since then Jiankang City has evolved from a simple Jiangdong city to a national metropolis integrating the styles of the north and the south.
In 330 AD, Xie An, a minister of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, built an imperial palace on the basis of the yuancheng behind the original Eastern Wu Taichu Palace and named it Jiankang Palace. Located at the northernmost tip of the central axis of Jiankang City, this palace is made up of more than a dozen palaces of different sizes. In the history books, the palace city is described as "poor and magnificent, crowning ancient and modern".
Of these dozens of palaces, there are places where the emperor and his ministers discuss the government, there are rest places for the emperor to feast and sleep, and there are more than thirty royal gardens. These palaces are not distributed in a haphazard manner, but symmetrically along the central axis of Jiankang City. This form of imperial city had a major impact on later generations, forming the characteristics of Miyagi in East Asia that basically followed the central axis of construction.
After the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the four dynasties of the Southern Dynasty, Song, Qi, Liang and Chen, also successively took Jiankang as their capital. During this period, the Jiankang Imperial City was built for all generations, and the scope remained unchanged but sturdy and complete. Therefore, the overall planning pattern of the emperor has not changed significantly. However, the expansion and reconstruction of Miyagi Castle from generation to generation has become more and more luxurious.
In these four generations, Song Yu built the Forest Garden on the north of Xuanwu Lake, Liang Jia built the third palace wall, Qi Yili built the six gate walls, and Chen paid attention to the beauty of the palace and transformed the palace. After more than 300 years of transformation, Jiankang Palace became the largest and most magnificent imperial city in the world at that time.
Unfortunately, after the Sui Dynasty attacked the State of Chen, the Imperial City of Jiankang was burned clean by a fire, and the entire Imperial City became flat, and was even converted into farmland. This imperial city, which has been unstructed for more than 300 years, has since disappeared.
3. The capital of the Ming Dynasty, the worship of all nations
After the Southern and Northern Dynasties, both the Sui and Tang Dynasties suppressed Jiangnan, and the city of Nanjing was silent for a long time during this period. Until the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, after more than three hundred years of unification, the world once again entered a division, and the city of Nanjing also became the capital of the Southern Tang Dynasty at this time, known as Jiangning Province.
After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang took Nanjing as the capital and called it the Beijing Division, which was the first time that Nanjing became the capital of a national political power.
After the capital was nanjing, the Ming government disliked the original Six Dynasties and did not want to build an imperial city on the site of the Jiankang Palace, but chose to build a new imperial city to the east of the old city.
This imperial city is in the eastern part of the imperial city, around the miyagi castle, and its buildings are collectively called the "Imperial Palace". Its scope is roughly east of the present-day Yixian Bridge, west of the Nanjing Museum, north of Daguang Road, and south of the Foxin Bridge. The imperial city is about 2500 meters long from north to south, 1500 meters wide from east to west, and has a circumference of about 9000 meters.
The imperial palace follows the traditional ceremonial layout of "former dynasty and rear court" and "left ancestor right society", and the central palace offices are also "left and right", neatly arranged on both sides of the royal road on the south side of the palace, becoming the political center of The Square. In the middle of the Imperial City, there is Miyagi Castle.
On the north-south axis of Miyagi Castle, there is a five-dragon bridge, the north of the bridge is the Fengtian Gate, and then to the north are arranged in turn the three halls of Fengtian, Huagai and Zhensheng called "Former Dynasty", followed by the Qianqing Gate for the emperor and empress to live, and the qianqing and Kunning second palaces with offices are called "Hou Ting". The combination of the two is the "imperial court"
On both sides of the central axis, the East Road has built Wenhua Hall, Wenlou, East Sixth Palace and other halls, and the West Road has Wulou, Wuying Hall, Chunhe Hall, West Sixth Palace, Royal Garden and other buildings. This pattern of miyagi is not only a model for the moat city of the ming dynasty, but also the blueprint for the later Beijing miyagi.
However, this splendid Ming Palace was destroyed by a fire by Zhu Di after the Battle of Jingnan. Since then, Beijing has replaced Nanjing as the capital of the Ming Dynasty, and no dynasty has built an imperial city in Nanjing. Even if the capital of the Republic of China still chose to be in Nanjing, but at this time the country was already a republic, and it was impossible to build an imperial city.
Today's Ming Forbidden City is the former site of Miyagi Castle, and only the Noon Gate, the Inner Five Dragon Bridge, the Outer Five Dragon Bridge, the Donghua Gate, and the Xihua Gate are the original Xi'an Gate and the stone pillar foundations of the temple.
The once incomparably glorious Imperial City of Nanjing can only exist in memory, which makes the world feel extremely sorry.
Text/Leyu
References: "The Spatial Art of Jiankang City", Wang Cuiping, Wang Yuxin