Beijing, January 27 news The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is the world's longest mileage, the largest ancient canal, but also one of the oldest canals, together with the Great Wall, Qanerjing and known as the three great projects of ancient China, and used to this day, is a great project created by the working people in ancient China, is one of the symbols of China's cultural status.
The picture shows the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal - Beijing section (courtesy of the enterprise, issued by the Central Broadcasting Network)
Editor's Note:
The Grand Canal has a pivotal position in the city of Beijing, there is a saying in history that "beijing city is drifting", and the "Drifting Beijing City" planned and published by the Hanlin Cultural Development Center of the Grand Canal in Beijing has a detailed history of the canal. As the main traffic trunk connecting the north and south of China, the Grand Canal delivers the required materials to the capital, it can be said that "without the old canal, there is no old Beijing", at the same time, the canal has also bred many famous cities and ancient towns along the route. Today takes you into the old canal, old Beijing, the new story of "Tiananmen".
The picture shows the "Jingmen Jiuqu Map" display data map (courtesy of the enterprise, issued by the Central Broadcasting Network)
In the new era, protect, inherit and make good use of the Grand Canal, let history flow to the future, and integrate cultural inheritance into the pulse of the times.
The "Nine Qu Map of Jingmen" and the "Ancient Transport Lookback Map" are exactly such cultural projects. The old Beijing City Gate has the saying of "Inner Nine Outer Seven Imperial Cities and Four Cities", "Jingmen Nine Qu Tu" is based on the Kangqian dynasty of Beijing City, with the traditional Chinese painting "work and writing" technique, artistically reproduced the six dynasties ancient capital of Beijing twenty city gate towers, showing the Qing Dynasty heyday (Kangqian prosperous) political, military, economic, cultural, architectural, sports, folklore and other aspects of the magnificent scene.
The picture shows the "Ancient Transport Lookback Map" display data map (courtesy of the enterprise, issued by the Central Broadcasting Network)
The three thousand miles of Caoyun customs can be seen from all sides, and the five thousand years of Chinese civilization are highlighted. Based on the detailed historical materials, the "Ancient Transport Retrospective Map" shows history from the cross-sectional angle of the history of the Ming Dynasty, starting from Dongbianmen and Tongzhou Ancient City, twisting south to the end of Yuhang, artistically reproducing the bustling scenes of shipping and river management, agriculture, handicrafts, industry and commerce, folk culture and other prosperous scenes that stretch for 1794 kilometers and are along both sides of the canal.
The two scrolls vividly depict the story of "the Grand Canal drifting to the city of Beijing" in the form of traditional Chinese paintings, which can be described as a "Map of the Qingming River" of old Beijing. The Grand Canal contains the secret of beijing's "drifting". Let us follow the guidance of the long scroll together, enter the old Beijing civilization, and crack the code of the middle way of civilization development.
Tiananmen Square was the main gate of the Imperial City of Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties
Tiananmen Square, located in the center of Beijing and the southern end of the Forbidden City, is across Chang'an Avenue from Tiananmen Square and the Monument to the People's Heroes, Chairman Mao's Memorial Hall, the Great Hall of the People, and the National Museum of China.
The picture shows the segmented picture scroll of "Jingmen Jiuqu Map" - Tiananmen Appreciation (courtesy of the enterprise, issued by the Central Broadcasting Network)
Tiananmen Square is the main gate of the imperial city of Beijing in the Ming and Qing dynasties, which was built in the fifteenth year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty (1417), and was originally named "Chengtian Gate", which means "inheriting the fortune of heaven and being ordained by heaven". The designer is the Ming Dynasty royal architect Ku Xiang. In the eighth year of Shunzhi (1651) of the Qing Dynasty, it was renamed Tiananmen.
Tiananmen Square is composed of two parts, the city tower and the city platform, with the White Jade Sumire Seat, with a total height of 34.7 meters. The Tiananmen Tower is 66 meters long and 37 meters wide, with a majestic and solemn shape and grand momentum. The Tiananmen Tower is a traditional Chinese heavy eaves hilltop building, that is, it is composed of four sloping top faces, one positive ridge, four vertical ridges, four ridges (one folded at the lower end of the vertical ridge) and the upper part of the sloped layer on both sides is turned into a vertical triangular wall, forming a mixed form of two-slope and four-slope roof. Therefore, it is known as "eight eaves and nine ridges". The castle tower is a wooden structure, and under the cornices of the main hall are orderly arrangements of bucket arches and beams. The bucket arch is unique to the traditional Chinese wooden frame system, and is a wooden component with the characteristics of warp, ang and arch composed of bucket-shaped wooden bow-shaped horizontal wood. Liang Fang is also divided into foreheads and eaves, and the bottom of the bucket arch is the forehead, the painting and the golden dragon pattern on the top, and the components between the pillars are called eaves, and there will be golden dragon and seal patterns.
The picture shows the "Jingmen Jiuqu Map" - a picture of the creation of materials (courtesy of the enterprise, issued by the Central Broadcasting Network)
The main building of the castle tower is divided into two floors. The upper floor is a majestic city tower with heavy eaves and a yellow glazed tile roof, with a wide nine-tree tree in the east and west, and five deep rooms in the north and south, taking the number of "Nine Five-Year Plan", symbolizing the dignity of the emperor. The front has 36 rhomboid-style doors and windows. Most of the wood used in the castle tower is nan wood, and the main hall has 60 red lacquered wooden columns with a diameter of 92 centimeters, which bear most of the gravity of the roof building. Neatly arranged, the top of the column has a moi and a beam, painted with auspicious paintings of golden dragons and tuanlong motifs. The 36 doors and windows on the front are in the traditional Chinese rhombus flower format, the ceiling on the roof is painted with tuanlong motifs, and the beams crisscrossed by the halls are painted with golden dragons and seals; 17 quaint large palace lamps, the largest one called the main lamp, has 8 faces, a total height of 6 meters, a diameter of 2.8 meters, and weighs about 450 kilograms; the remaining 16 are auxiliary lamps of 6 faces, each 6 meters high, 2.2 meters in diameter, and weighing about 350 kilograms. There is a small umbrella-shaped lamp in the corner of each lamp. The floor is paved with gold bricks and covers an area of about 2,000 square meters. The front and vertical ridges of the roof are decorated with snouts, immortals, and beasts.
The lower level is a 13-meter-high scarlet city platform surrounded by a low wall covered with glazed tiles, and the lower part is a 1.59-meter-high beautifully carved Hanbai jade Sumi pedestal, on which is a red pier more than 10 meters high, made of large bricks weighing 43 kilograms each. The base of the castle tower is surrounded by white jade balustrades and balustrades, and carved with lotus vases.
The total area of the city terrace is 4800 square meters, and there is a 100-step staircase for the upper and lower city towers on the east and west sides, commonly known as the horse road. There are also 5 arched door openings, the middle of which is the largest, 8.82 meters high and 5.25 meters wide, which was originally only accessible to the emperor.
The glorious canals of the Forbidden City are indispensable
When it comes to Tiananmen, we have to mention the Forbidden City. It is a special museum. Formerly known as the Forbidden City, the Forbidden City is located in the center of Beijing's central axis, the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and is the largest and best-preserved wooden palace-like building in the world. It is said that the total area of the Forbidden City is more than 720,000 square meters, and it is said that there are 9,999 palace rooms in the temple, known as the "Sea of Temples", which is magnificent and spectacular.
For such a magnificent building, it is obviously not enough to rely on local building materials in Beijing. So how will the rest of the masonry, wood, etc. arrive in Beijing? That is, "floating" along China's Grand Canal. Of course, this "drift" is a more figurative statement, which means that they are transported by the river, and the book "Drifting Beijing City" curated by the Hanlin culture of the Grand Canal has been recorded in detail.
Ming Chengzu Zhu Di ordered the construction of the Forbidden City, and millions of craftsmen participated in the construction of the Forbidden City. Take the Yudao stones in front of and behind the three halls of the Forbidden City as an example, these stones are each 16 meters long, 3.17 meters wide, and weigh more than 200 tons, and more than 20,000 migrant workers are used to transport these boulders. Speaking of wood, at that time, the first timber harvested for the Forbidden City was a precious wood produced in the mountains and mountains of the southwest region, Nanmu. Taking the Qianqing Palace of the Forbidden City as an example, according to the old craftsmen's estimates, about 5,000 cubic meters of wood were used from the ground to the top floor, and the number of materials used in a palace was so amazing, not to mention the wood required for the palace of the entire Forbidden City. The amount of masonry and stone used to build the Forbidden City was equally enormous. According to statistics, the entire project uses as many as 80 million bricks alone, many of which are from Linqing, Shandong. The gold bricks that pave the floors of the Taihe Hall, the Zhonghe Hall and the Bohol Hall are produced in Suzhou and are made after undergoing a tedious firing process.
It can be seen that many of the materials used to build the Forbidden City can be called the collection of "the most in the country". If nothing else, when you ascend to the Taihe Hall, the panlong pillars you see are very tall, and their weight can be imagined. A large number of masonry, behemoth-like nan wood, if you take the land, the transportation work is so cumbersome.
Therefore, the ancient Chinese civil wisdom perfectly solved this problem, during the Ming Dynasty to transport the engineering materials of the Forbidden City, the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal played a great role, such as huge timber from Yunnan-Guizhou and other places, cut down and then turned into the Yangtze River through the local river, and then drifted to the canal, and finally arrived at the Tongzhou wharf, and then transported to the construction site. Interestingly, those huge pieces of wood floated all the way in the river, and when they arrived in Beijing, due to the long soaking, the gum contained in the wood itself had been washed away, killing two birds with one stone. On this basis, coupled with some other auxiliary means, the huge stones and so on were finally transported smoothly to the construction site.
The picture shows the current data map of the Palace Museum (courtesy of the enterprise, issued by the Central Broadcasting Network)
More than 600 years ago, it was with the help of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal that the large number and huge materials were smoothly transported to Beijing, and finally turned into a huge palace complex under the skillful hands of craftsmen, which still attracts the attention of the world.
Today, it is still the site of major national celebrations
Tiananmen Square was the place where emperors issued edicts during the Ming and Qing dynasties, known as the "Golden Phoenix Edict". In the event of major celebrations such as the new emperor's ascension to the throne, the big wedding, and the emperor's parents entering the palace, Tiananmen Square must be used. Only when the heavens, the earth, and the grain are sacrificed every year, they enter and exit through this gate. In addition, major ceremonies such as the emperor's wedding, the flag sacrifice when the general goes out on the expedition, the sacrifice road during the imperial conquest, and the autumn trial of the punishment department are also held here. At the same time, it is also the place of "Golden Temple Transmission".
The appearance of the Tiananmen Tower is stable and heavy, but it does not lose its beautiful curves, and it is a rare masterpiece in ancient architecture. Its ingenious structural layout and exquisite architectural craftsmanship embody the wisdom and great creation of the working people in China over the past thousand years, and epitomize their superb architectural level and artistic expression. It is not only a brilliant masterpiece in the history of ancient Chinese palace architecture, but also a symbol of the long history of Chinese civilization.
In August 1949, the first meeting of representatives of All Walks of Life in Beiping City (later renamed Beijing Municipality) unanimously decided to renovate Tiananmen Square and Tiananmen Square. At that time, the government of Beiping City (later renamed Beijing Municipality) mobilized the people of the whole city to carry out a thorough clean-up of the urban area and usher in the birth of New China with a new look.
The picture shows the current Tiananmen Square data map (courtesy of the enterprise, issued by the Central Broadcasting Network)
Later, Tiananmen has long since become a symbol of modern China and was designed to be incorporated into the national emblem. With its rich historical connotation of more than 500 years and a highly condensed ancient and modern Chinese civilization, Tiananmen Has become a place for the world and the people of all ethnic groups in China to aspire to. "Without the old canal, there would be no old Beijing." If you want to explore and understand the old canal, old Beijing, and new stories, please continue to pay attention to our exciting content in the next issue.
Sectional Scroll of "Nine Qu Diagram of Jingmen Gate" - Tiananmen Appreciation:
About the Editors
(Courtesy of enterprises, issued by CCTV)
Gu Jianhua is a member of the 10th, 11th and 12th CPPCC Beijing Municipal Committee, and a member of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th CPPCC Committees of Tongzhou District, Beijing. Chairman of Beijing Grand Canal Hanlin Cultural Development Center, Director of Grand Canal Hanlin Folk Customs Museum, Director of Oriental Cambridge Hanlin Huaxin Education Group, Former Editor-in-Chief of China Net Grand Canal Channel.