Do you believe that Tiananmen square is a proper post-70s building? Even in 1969, it mysteriously disappeared for a while, but when it reappeared in people's vision, it was completely new. Why did the Tiananmen Tower disappear and rebuild, and what secrets are hidden in it?
The origin of Tiananmen
Before exploring the reconstruction of Tiananmen, let's learn about the history of Tiananmen. After Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne, he renamed the capital of Yuan Dadu to Beiping Province, and Zhu Yuanzhang's fourth son Zhu Di was crowned the King of Yan at the age of ten, and Beiping Province also became his fiefdom. Under the operation of Zhu Di for many years, Beiping has a better development, and after Zhu Di ascended the throne, he has always had the idea of moving the capital to Beiping.
Because of his living habits in Beiping, he felt that he was comfortable in Beiping, and after arriving in Beiping, he renamed Beiping beijing, and according to the development of Nanjing City at that time, there was Chengtian Gate in Nanjing City at that time, and after Ming Chengzu moved the capital to Beijing, he gathered skilled craftsmen to build according to the Chengtian Gate of Nanjing City. Hence the name of Beijing is also known as the Chengtianmen Gate. And Chengtianmen is the main gate of the Imperial City, responsible for the construction of Beijing Chengtianmen is, the famous architect at that time, Qu Xiang, Who inherited all the mantle of his father, deeply under the weight of Ming Chengzu, when the Chengtian Gate in Beijing was completed, it made Ming Chengzu Long Yan Great Joy, calling it "KuLuban".
According to historical records, the Chengtianmen Gate built at that time was a yellow brick cornice, a three-story wooden archway, and the solemn Tiananmen Tower that we see now is completely different, so why did it change so much? Not really.
It should be known that at that time, the main gate of the Imperial City of Beijing was called the Chengtian Gate, in addition to imitating the Chengtian Gate of Nanjing City, there was another layer of meaning, implying the fortune of the Heavenly Apocalypse, and Ming Chengzu hoped to inherit the Mandate of Heaven here and make the country prosperous. The meaning of the Chengtian Qiyun is very good, but it may be that this city tower cannot afford such a major meaning, and the Chengtianmen Gate in Beijing, as the face of the Forbidden City of the Ming Dynasty, has been "fateful" since its completion.
During the Ming Dynasty, a fire was caused by being struck by lightning. The Chengtian gate was built of wooden materials, and the fire extinguishing technology at that time was low, resulting in serious carbonization of building materials, and later the imperial court also spent a lot of manpower, material and financial resources to repair. Of course, this repair also laid the basic structure for the future, although there were modifications later, but it was also on this basis for minor repairs.
At the end of the Chongzhen Dynasty, Li Zicheng, the king of the invasion, revolted and led his troops into Beijing, and before the dragon chair was hot, Wu Sangui led the Qing army into Shanhaiguan. Li Zicheng's army was all peasants, did not have good military quality, and naturally was not an opponent of the Qing army, so it was defeated again and again, and when the Qing army came to the city, Li Zicheng had to retreat from the Forbidden City, but at the time of retreat, Li Zicheng set fire to a large number of buildings in the palace, including the Chengtian Gate. This is also the largest man-made damage suffered by Chengtianmen.
After the Qing army entered the customs, it was also ready to set the capital in Beijing, but due to the destruction of Li Zicheng, a large number of palaces in the imperial palace needed to be repaired, so the Shunzhi Emperor ordered that the buildings including the Chengtianmen Gate be repaired, and the Chengtianmen Gate was changed to Tiananmen, which has been used until today. There are actually two theories about changing the Chengtian gate to Tiananmen, one is that after Li Zicheng, the king of the intruders, entered the customs, he saw the plaque of the Chengtianmen Gate, and on a whim, he took a bow and arrow in front of the soldiers and was about to shoot the heavenly character.
But who knew that there was no shot, a little off, at that time the atmosphere was once awkward to the extreme, at this time, a subordinate stood up and said to Li Zicheng, the king of the intruder, "There is a mandate of heaven for people to do their own thing," The original intention of the subordinate was to say that the king Li Zicheng was the emperor identified by heaven, and there was no need to care about these small things. But Li Zicheng doubted his archery skills, and at the same time speculated about the meaning of this sentence, plus he was from a peasant background, not orthodox, and began to suspect his subordinates, was satirizing his lack of destiny, and he was going to kill him at that time, so he was finally stopped. Subsequently, after the Qing army entered the customs and heard about this incident, it changed the "Chengtian Gate" to "Tiananmen".
Secondly, after the Qing army entered the customs, they knew that they were foreigners in the eyes of the Han people, and in order to pray for the blessing of heaven, they changed the names of many buildings, among which Chengtian changed to Tian'an was taken from the word Tian'an in the rule of Tian, anbang, and prayed to Heaven to bless the rule of the Manchu Qing for long-term peace and stability. In the Qing Dynasty, on the basis of the original Tiananmen Gate, a moat was added, and seven stone bridges were built on the river, which are now the Jinshui River and the Jinshui Bridge.
And the record of all this is the Qing Dynasty court builder family style Lei family, this family is the ceiling of the architectural world at that time, laymen may not know much about this family, but people who are obsessed with tomb robbery notes should know that in the tomb robber notes, the designer of the Zhangjia Ancient Building is the style Lei. One is the royal architect, the other is a brilliant building carrying the Mandate of Heaven, but unfortunately, the style Lei only carried out some repairs to Tiananmen, and did not really participate in it, but for the construction of the later palace building, the style Lei still left the design drawings for Tiananmen at that time. You know, this drawing played a huge role in the later reconstruction of New China.
In 1900, the Eight-Power Alliance launched a war against the Qing court, and in order to force the Qing government to sign a series of unequal treaties, it also shelled Tiananmen Square. At that time, the Qing government was already crumbling, and with the signing of an unequal treaty such as the Treaty of Xinugu, 450 million taels of silver were required to be compensated to various countries, and the total principal and interest exceeded 980 million taels. Therefore, even if Tiananmen Was the face of the Qing government at that time, the Qing court did not have any extra money to repair Tiananmen and complete the so-called face project. Later, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, China has been in a period of war, people have no heart and money to repair Tiananmen, this situation continued until the founding of New China, only to get comprehensive repairs, it can be said that Tiananmen also witnessed the birth of our great new China!
In the autumn of 1948, the People's War of Liberation entered a decisive stage of victory over the whole country. Because of the particularity of Beiping, if liberated by force, it will not only damage many cultural heritages on the mainland, but also damage the lives and property safety of the people. In order to avoid the displacement of the people, after consultation with the Party Central Committee, it was decided to peacefully liberate Peiping. Of course, the peaceful liberation of Peiping was not simple, and the Kuomintang general at that time, Fu Zuoyi, still wanted to resist stubbornly, but with the insistence of our party, after three negotiations, Peiping was finally liberated by peaceful means.
A few days later, the Beiping Military Control Commission and the municipal government began to formally enter the city to take over Beiping in an all-round way, when the Cultural Takeover Committee was ordered to take over Tiananmen, but at this time, Tiananmen was no longer as magnificent and brilliant as before, and when it was taken over, there was only a rusty iron lock that would fall at any time, which made people sigh. Due to its disrepair and war, the situation in Tiananmen can be described as "devastated." Traces of the Eight-Power Coalition shelling still exist, the walls peel off, the doors and windows fall into disrepair, the original glazed tiles are covered with dust, overgrown with weeds, bird droppings are everywhere, and the castle towers are full of broken bricks and tiles. The Jinshui River is also full of silt and emits an odor.
After the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee, the Party Central Committee decided to move the office to Beiping after consultation, and discussed holding the founding ceremony at an appropriate time. But where to hold the founding ceremony has become a headache. In fact, there were two venues to choose from at that time, one was Nanyuan Airport and the other was Tiananmen. But there are pros and cons in both places. Nanyuan Airport held a military parade not long before the founding ceremony, the venue is large enough, it is far from the city, it will not affect the traffic, but it is also because it is too remote from the city, the traffic is really inconvenient.
And at that time, Nanyuan Airport did not have a "parade platform", and to hold the founding ceremony, a new parade platform had to be built, which not only cost a lot, but also did not necessarily have time. Tiananmen is a ready-made "parade platform", convenient transportation, but the unfavorable factor is that it will affect the traffic situation in the urban area, and because of its disrepair, Tiananmen seems to be dilapidated.
Later, both plans were reported to the Party Central Committee, and after repeated deliberations by Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and others, it was finally decided to hold the founding ceremony at Tiananmen Square. When the Beijing government was notified, it began to repair Tiananmen Square so that it did not look so dilapidated. At that time, the citizens of Beijing knew that when the founding ceremony was held in Tiananmen, they also spontaneously went to help, so the entire time for cleaning up and repairing Tiananmen was relatively short.
On October 1, 1949, the founding ceremony was successfully held on the upper floor of Tiananmen Square, where Chairman Mao solemnly announced the founding of New China, and the Chinese people stood up. Tiananmen witnessed this great moment, and the founding ceremony gave this ancient city tower a new meaning. Since then, major events have also been arranged on the Tiananmen Tower, and important festivals will be held here to celebrate, and the chairman and prime minister will climb the tower, so the safety of the tower is also a top priority.
After the founding ceremony, experts were invited to study the plan for the repair of the Tiananmen Tower, but after the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the Chinese Volunteer Army went to Korea at the request of the DPRK to fight alongside the Korean People's Army, so the repair of the Tiananmen Tower was delayed until 1952.
The renovation was the first major renovation since the 29th year of the Kangxi Dynasty. The decaying beams and columns were replaced, and the mutilated paintings and frescoes were repainted. In the process of this repair, three unexploded shells were found on the wooden beams on the west side of the city tower, and after expert identification, they were believed to be unexploded shells left behind by the Eight-Power Coalition When they shelled Tiananmen Square.
After that, the repair of Tiananmen Square was only a problem where there was a problem, and the appearance was slowly getting better. However, the Tiananmen Tower has a history of more than 300 years since it was built in the Ming Dynasty, and it has experienced the impact of artillery fire in the middle, and the Tiananmen Tower as a whole has been damaged, and it is still a serious safety hazard to rely on simple repairs and repairs. After testing by experts, it was found that the foundation of the Tiananmen Tower as a whole showed signs of sinking. The superiors decided to rebuild Tiananmen, but this idea was only regarded as a proposal at the time, and was not really implemented, because except for some subjective factors, there was no problem with the Tiananmen Tower in the eyes of outsiders.
The attention to this was brought to the attention of the 6.8 and 7.2 magnitude earthquakes in Xingtai, Hebei Province, on March 8 and March 22, 1966, which affected many surrounding cities, not to mention Beijing, which was only more than 400 kilometers away from Xingtai. The earthquake made the already deteriorating situation of the Tiananmen Towers increasingly serious. To this end, the Beijing Municipal Government organized a "physical examination" of the Tiananmen Tower, did not check and did not know, an inspection was startled, many purlins and fir were falling off or broken, coupled with some design unreasonableness, as well as cutting corners during construction, and long-term maintenance was not in place, and the overall structure was seriously deformed. During the inspection, a problem that made people sweat was even more found, that is, a large pillar behind Chairman Mao's resting place in Tiananmen Square, which seemed to be intact, but there was a 10-meter hollow inside, which was very dangerous.
After the central authorities learned of this situation, they attached great importance to it, but fortunately this problem was discovered in a timely manner, and if an accident occurred, the losses caused would be immeasurable. The central government also knows that the repairs and repairs of the past are only a small fight for this old building, which cannot solve the fundamental problems, and will always treat the symptoms rather than the root causes. After several demonstrations by the Party Central Committee, a prudent decision was finally made: the Tiananmen Tower was rebuilt on the original site according to the original scale and the original architectural form. As soon as this decision was announced, it caused a sensation in the circle, because this is the largest ancient construction project since the founding of New China, and coupled with the special geographical location of Tiananmen, how can it not be shocking.
In 1969, the city tower, which has experienced more than 300 years of history, which has witnessed the rise and fall of countless dynasties, was finally ordered to be demolished. But it was already winter when this decision was made, and the winter weather in Beijing was cold, and the freshly mixed cement would quickly solidify in the cold wind, making it unsuitable for construction. However, the following year, on Labor Day in 1970, there was also a celebration in Tiananmen Square, and Chairman Mao and other national leaders would climb the Tiananmen Tower, so construction must be carried out as soon as possible, and in order to ensure the smooth progress of the project, Premier Zhou personally commanded it.
In the beginning, engineers wanted to leave it to foreign engineers. Because at that time, there was still a certain gap between the domestic construction level and the international level. However, it turns out that even the architecture of the ancients can make foreigners breathtaking.
When foreign engineers saw the real scene of Tiananmen Square and our request to complete it by May Day the following year, they felt that this was an impossible project. Because in the plans of these foreign engineers, to complete such a huge project, even if it takes four or five years, it can only be barely completed. Since the foreigner engineers are unreliable, let's do it ourselves. It should be known that during the War of Resistance Against Japan, in order to transport materials to China, the emergency construction of the Yunnan Burma Highway took only more than 9 months.
At that time, after rigorous discussion by the world's top engineers, it was believed that the most advanced technology at that time could be completed in three years. However, at that time, the time given by the superiors was one year, and Wang Longyun of Yunnan led the ethnic minority compatriots in Yunnan to complete the project ahead of schedule with backward tools and hands. Unfortunately, due to the chaos of the war, the inheritance of the style lei line to the eighth generation was almost cut off, otherwise, with the participation of the style lei, this project must be more effective with half the effort.
At that time, the task of rebuilding Tiananmen Square was the Beijing Fifth Construction Company. But the reconstruction of Tiananmen Square is not an open project, it needs to be kept strictly confidential, so it is also very rigorous in the selection of workers, in addition to good technology, it must be absolutely reliable politically, and all of them must pass the political trial. At that time, after the five construction workers were selected, according to the organization of the army, they formed a carpentry company, a tile company, a color glaze company, a shelf company, and a mixed company, and each company had corresponding platoons and shifts, requiring these workers not to tell their parents, their wives and children, each worker had his own badge, the two companies were not allowed to inquire about each other, and in these construction companies, a part of the People's Liberation Army was also randomly mixed in to ensure that the project was foolproof.
Because this is a secret construction, before the demolition began, a huge canopy was built around the perimeter to wrap Tiananmen Square tightly. The material of the ceiling is made of reed mats, and after the mat shed and the shelf are connected to each other, it takes a week to set up the ceiling, and the people outside do not know what is being done inside. In order to overcome the cold of winter, a boiler room was also built in the shed to keep the shed warm as spring.
Even now I have to admire the wisdom of the ancients, no one can say exactly how much wood was used on the upper floor of Tiananmen, and in the dismantled things, no matter how big or small, there is not a single nail. After the project was officially launched, the central government required the newly built Tiananmen Tower to be consistent with the previous form and scale, in order to dismantle the things that can be put back as they are, all the dismantled structural parts are drawn as is, but also clear the specific orientation, and then taken into photos, handed over to the China Academy of Architecture to draw drawings for production, and then according to the drawings left by the style of the year, the two are compared, and the demolition work is also carried out more smoothly, almost a week, The Tiananmen Tower was completely demolished.
At the time of demolition, yao Laiquan, a carpenter's worker, led the workers to the highest point of the ridge tile to count the number of ridge tiles, and found a square box carved from about 30 centimeters of gold silk nan wood, which was engraved with the pattern of the Erlong Play Bead. After prying open the box, it was found that there were gold yuanbao, precious stones, soybeans, sorghum, black beans, millet, corn, after consulting experts, I learned that this is a treasure of the town tower, which should be the sacrifice left here after the emperor sacrificed the heavens, although it is not precious, it is of great significance, used to ward off evil spirits and pray for peace. Later, the city tower was newly built, and the central government approved the placement of a new "evil repellent" object in the original place: it was a piece of White Jade stone with a length of 17 centimeters, a width of 12 centimeters, and a thickness of 3 centimeters, and the words "Rebuilt from January to March 1970" were engraved on it, which was a witness to the reconstruction of Tiananmen Square.
It is worth mentioning that the demolition of the entire Tiananmen Tower can be called a surprise, "happy" is to find the treasure of the town tower, followed by surprise, when a wall was demolished, the workers actually found a shell, everyone quickly evacuated, and then after expert identification, this shell was left by the Eight-Nation Alliance, but it is strange that this is a complete shell, because the expert said that if it is not exploded, it should be only the warhead without a shell, but it is completely placed here. We can't speculate on the implications. In the subsequent dismantling, several identical shells were found, which were taken away by the public security organs in view of the secrecy work at that time.
The Tiananmen Tower was previously made of wooden materials, and there were as many as 16 pillars alone, and each one was 12 meters long and weighed several tons, and one car was needed to pull it, and after demolition, it was necessary to find the right wood. People found that Hainan Island and Xishuangbanna have suitable wood, because the biggest feature of this wood is that in case of fire, it will not catch, but it will smoke, which will be very helpful for fire prevention, and finally choose wood imported from overseas.
For this project, Premier Zhou has always paid attention to the overall process, and many important decisions are decided by Premier Zhou. Because Tiananmen Square was the façade of the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty, there were strict rules for the paintings and patterns in various places on the castle tower. In later reconstructions, there was some controversy about these motifs and paintings, with some arguing that the ancient scheme should be followed, using golden dragon and seal paintings, while others believing that those were feudal relics should be abandoned and using sunflowers and yan'an pagodas.
After reading it, Premier Zhou held that the dragon is the totem of the mainland and the symbol of the Chinese nation, and should be used, and instructed: The Tiananmen Square paintings as a whole adopt simple "dahlias and seals", and small glazed tiles such as hook heads can use sunflower patterns, and everything else is as usual, and no structure can be changed. It is worth mentioning that in the process of tiananmen reconstruction, only a part of the upper part was demolished and rebuilt, and the base did not move much. Although it has a history of hundreds of years and is still a brick-concrete structure, the technique of the ancients is admirable, and at that time, bricks made of glutinous rice soup and mixed soil were still very strong and difficult to dismantle after a long period of use.
On April 7, 1970, the reconstruction project of Tiananmen Square was completed, passed the acceptance of the state, and after the dismantling of the mat shed and the scaffolding outside, what appeared in front of the world was a brand-new Tiananmen Tower, so the people of the world at that time did not know.
From December 15, 1969 to April 7, 1970, it took only 112 days to complete, and the project was said by foreign experts to be impossible at that time. Among them, there are not only demolition, reconstruction, painting and painting, but also on the basis of the original, the addition of elevators, heating, communications and other facilities, the speed is fast, the quality is high, in the world are few and far between. Just like at the beginning of the outbreak, the construction of Vulcan Mountain and Thunder God Mountain, one took 9 days, the other took 12 days, the speed is fast enough to see our unity and efforts. Chinese people will always have the spirit of perseverance and never give up. No obstacle can stop us from moving forward. Having difficulties to solve difficulties and finding ways to solve them is the spirit we have always wanted to pass on.