Starting from Zunyi City, after a 28-kilometer journey, we arrived at Hailongtun, the only world cultural heritage in Guizhou and the most complete medieval military castle in Asia, located in Gaoping Street, Huichuan District----, Zunyi City.
At the 39th World Heritage Conference held in Bonn, Germany in July 2015, the Hailongtun Ruins of Zunyi Bozhou, together with the ruins of Laosicheng In Yongshun in Hunan and the tusicheng ruins of Tangya in Hubei, were successfully included in the World Cultural Heritage List with the "Chinese Toast Ruins".
In the reasons for the selection at that time, it is written: "The Hailongtun Toast Site was originally built in the fifth year of the Southern Song Dynasty (1257 AD) and destroyed in the Battle of Pingbo in the 28th year of the Ming Wanli Calendar (1600 AD), the site is located in the present-day Gaoping Town, Huichuan District, Zunyi City, and is an important relic of the Yang toast culture in southwest Bozhou during the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, with an area of 12.9 square kilometers including heritage areas and buffer zones. ”
Unlike the other two toast sites that were also claimed, the Hailongtun ruins existed as a military castle and were destroyed in the great war of that year. It has witnessed the changes in the political system of ethnic minority areas throughout ancient China, from the rule of restraint to the toast system to the return of land to the land.
Hailongtun was originally built to resist the Mongol army, and was jointly built by the central government of the Southern Song Dynasty and local forces. By the time of Yang Yinglong, the 30th Toastmaster of Bozhou, a large number of servant craftsmen were recruited, and the HailongTun was rebuilt, nine stone passes were placed in front of and behind the tun, the three city walls were built on the tun, the palace was built, and the heavy troops were stationed in the tun grain, as a military base camp, to resist the Ming Dynasty officers and soldiers who were suppressed.
Finally, in the "Battle of Pingbao", one of the three major marches of the Wanli Calendar, it was baptized by war and left a site that is still spectacular today.
Although Hailongtun is recorded in the History of Ming, zunyi fuzhi, and pingbo quanshu, it is only simply pointed out that it is in the north of Zunyi City, so that for a long time Hailongtun was not known to the world.
In the winter of 1979, there was a young cultural relics officer named Ge Zhenya at the Zunyi County Cultural Center, who was extremely interested in the hailongtun recorded in the history books and the unprecedented fierce battle of Pingbao, and wanted to see this magical castle with his own eyes.
At that time, Ge Zhenya did not know where Hailongtun was hidden in the Zunyi Mountains, and he had traveled almost all over Zunyi County in search of Hailongtun. There was a village north of Zunyi called Hailongba, and he decided to try his luck there.
After Ge Zhenya came to Hailongba, he took a short rest, wrapped in thick cotton clothes, wore straight rain boots, and braved the biting cold rain to walk while asking his fellow villagers about Hailongtun news.
The local villagers told him that Hailongtun seemed to be on the highest mountain, far away from here. Along the way, Ge Zhenya climbed the mountain and waded through the water, and came to shuanglong village under Longyan Mountain when it was dark.
Liu Guang, the secretary of the village party committee, saw that it was late in the day, and there was no road on the mountain, so he persuaded Ge Zhenya to rest at his house for one night and show him the way up the mountain after dawn.
After staying at the home of Liu Guangyuan, the secretary of the village party committee, when chatting around the fire at night, I heard the legends of "Yang Yulong" and "White Dragon Prince" mentioned in the mouths of the villagers.
Ge Zhenya was suddenly shocked, and the Yang Yulong in the villagers' mouth should be Yang Yinglong, the thirtieth Toastmaster of Bozhou. Because of the relationship between dialects, people passed on Yang Yulong when they passed it on. Hearing this news, Ge Zhenya was excited all night, lying on the bed and turning over and over and unable to sleep, hoping that the sky would be bright and he could go up the mountain to find the lost castle.
After dawn, Ge Zhenya hurriedly called Liu Guangyuan and used his scythe to drive up the mountain. The Emperor Did Not Pay Off, in the cold and freezing rain of Zunyi, Ge Zhenya found the faintly recognizable Feilong Pass, Feifeng Pass and other passes. Ge Zhenya quickly used the camera he carried with him to take the first photos of Hailongtun discovery. Ge Zhenya also became the first person to discover Hailongtun.
After discovering Hailongtun, Ge Zhenya hurriedly began to take notes on the investigation of Hailongtun, make rubbings, draw maps, and report to the cultural relics department at a higher level.
In 1982, Hailongtun was designated as a cultural relics protection unit in Guizhou Province. Subsequently, the archaeological work on Hailongtun was almost at a standstill, and the villagers were not aware of the protection of cultural relics.
In 1999, the state organized a preliminary excavation of the Hailongtun site. At the excavation site, a small cleanup of the cornfield on the mountain can find a large number of human bones. Twenty thousand people died in the battle of Pingbo, and on the day that Hailongtun was breached, Yang Yinglong hanged himself. In order to strengthen the rule of the southwest and prevent future generations from using Hailongtun to divide the side, the Ming army burned a fire in Hailongtun, and the Yang toast that ruled Bozhou for 725 years was also buried along with Hailongtun, leaving only the stories and legends passed down from the villagers. In 2001, Hailongtun was listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit.
Until April 2012, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Guizhou Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics appointed Li Fei, deputy director of the Guizhou Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, to lead the archaeological team to conduct a long-term large-scale excavation of Hailongtun, and after more than 1,000 days of excavation, tens of thousands of blue and white porcelain pieces were excavated at the site of the New Royal Palace in Hailongtun alone. Among them is the "Star Cultural Relics" Fair cup excavated by hailongtun archaeology.
The "Fair Cup", cleverly using the principle of siphoning, tells the truth of "the contented person has water, and the greedy person has exhausted". When used, the water injection needs to be flush with the shoulder of Gao Shi in the cup, if the water level exceeds, it will leak clean from the small hole at the bottom of the cup, and The Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang named it "Gongdao Cup".
Just like the "thick, clear, sauce" three kinds of harmonious symbiosis of the alcoholic wine, the "drunkard" here does not refer to the greedy drunkard, let alone the flow of drinking to dispel sorrow, "drunkard" and "ghost talent", representing detachment from freedom, mind and wisdom, not willing to be mediocre, representing extraordinary, not living in the temple, maverick.
With its unique historical background, Hailongtun was rated as one of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in China in 2012, and in 2015, it was rated as one of the "World's Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries".
Hailongtun as the only world cultural heritage in Guizhou, the epitome of Qianbei toast culture. The city walls and proudly towering passes here are all relics of toast culture, and they are also another proud symbol in this land of Qianbei in addition to the red culture!