Drive along the Sui and Tang Grand Canal Tongji Canal Old Road, roll down the window, the wind blows. In a trance, I felt that I had pushed open a window of history and seen the Grand Canal in the depths of time, flowing all the way, confident and calm.
One
China's three linear world cultural heritages: the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, and the Silk Road.
As one of these three linear world cultural heritages, the Grand Canal of China is currently the longest and largest canal in the world. The Grand Canal was built in the late Spring and Autumn Period, with a total length of nearly 3200 kilometers, including three parts of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the Sui-Tang Grand Canal and the Zhejiang East Canal, spanning 8 provinces and cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Henan, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and connecting the five major river systems of Haihe, Yellow River, Huaihe River, Yangtze River and Qiantang River. Chinese spent more than 2,500 years working with nature to complete this magnificent spectacle. On 22 June 2014, the Grand Canal was inscribed on the World Heritage List by the 38th Session of the World Heritage Assembly.
But for many Huaibei people, before 1999, the Grand Canal was passed down from generation to generation, "the legend of the dragon boat passing by when the Sui Emperor went down to Yangzhou to see the Qionghua flowers", which was the poet Bai Juyi's poem "Sui Di Liu" in which "West to the Yellow River and east to Huai, green shadow 1,300 miles." In the spring and dusk of the last year of the Great Cause, the willow color is like smoke and snow". Because in Huaibei, there is no longer a "living" Grand Canal flowing on the ground.
Sui Causeway, located in Baishan, Tiefo, Linzhuo, Sipu and other townships in Suixi County, Huaibei City, borders Henan in the west and Huaibei and Suzhou in the east, with a total length of 41.5 kilometers. Along the Sui Causeway in Suixi County, Huaibei Province, there are still legends such as the Sui Dynasty Emperor's Sui Causeway planting willows to protect jiaowa, wooden geese testing the depth of the water, and giving the liu surname Yang Tui Huang'en. Even the town of Baishan, where the ruins of the Liuzi Canal, which were rated as the top ten archaeological discoveries in the country in 1999, and the place names of Liuzi Village are also related to these legends. According to the Taiping Huanyu Chronicle, the place name "Baishan" was "for the ancient Hundred Battles Daoye", and later generations passed it on to take its similar sound, and "Hundred Battles" became "Hundred Virtues". However, in Baishan Town, for thousands of years, there has been another version of the folk: "Baishan" was originally "Bai Shan", when the Sui Emperor's Dragon Boat passed through this place, the local officials reported that the people here were simple and kind, and the Sui Emperor was very happy, so he changed "Bai Shan" to "Bai Shan". As for "Liuzi", legend has it that the Sui Emperor planted willows on the river embankment, and the dragon boat at this time, facing the smoke willows on both sides of the river, the Tianzi improvised poetry, so it was named "Liujiangkou", which was later called "Liuzi". At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the literati Mao Wenxi once wrote "Willow With Smoke and Sui Di Liu": "Sui Di Liu, next to the Bian River, the bank is green and yin for thousands of miles." Dragon boat phoenix magnolia incense, jinfan Zhang. Because of the good spring scenery in the south of the Dream River, all the way to the fringe feather bao. Sheng Song did not finish the cross-current, lock spring sorrow. ”
Time envelops the wind and sand of the years, erasing the memory of history, but leaving the imprint of the gray line of the grass snake. In the process of walking the Sui Causeway, we always hear the legends of the old farmers in the fields, and we can also find distant information from the thick historical materials.
Two
However, the Sui-Tang Grand Canal, which really awakened the Sui-Tang Dynasty, which was lost in the years, was a road construction in 1999. In that year, during the construction of the Siyong Highway along the Sui Causeway (S303) in Baishan Town, a large number of porcelain and other items were found. In May of that year, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, an archaeological team jointly composed of the Anhui Provincial Archaeological Research Institute, the Huaibei Museum, and the Suixi County Cultural Management Institute conducted a six-month archaeological excavation of the Liuzi Canal site. The excavation area of 900 square meters, unearthed eight Tang Dynasty wooden boats of various shapes, a stone platform of the Northern Song Dynasty, and more than 4,000 ceramics from more than 20 kilns in the north and south of the continent during the Sui, Tang and Song dynasties, others are copper coins, iron tools, stone tools, etc. The kilns that are initially identified from the glaze color and shape of porcelain are Shouzhou kiln, Xiao kiln, Jizhou kiln, Yaozhou kiln, Cizhou kiln, Jingdezhen kiln, Jian kiln, Ding kiln, Yue kiln, Changsha kiln, Jun kiln and other kilns of the Sui, Tang and Song dynasties. As a result, the question of the route of the Sui-Tang Grand Canal Tongji Canal, which has been plaguing the archaeological community, finally has a clear answer, and this archaeological discovery was rated as one of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in The country in 1999. On April 8, 2000, Zheng Xinmiao, then deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said after a field visit in Liuzi: "The archaeological excavation of the Site of the Grand Canal in Liuzi, Sui and Tang Dynasties is a major achievement in the archaeology of The Chinese Canal, which proves the flow route of the Grand Canal and fills the gap in the archaeology of China's canals. ”
Located on Museum Road in Huaibei City, the Sui and Tang Grand Canal Museum looks like a boat riding the wind and waves. Of the more than 10,000 cultural relics in the museum's collection, more than 70% are cultural relics excavated from the Liuzi site in Huaibei, the Sui and Tang Dynasties Grand Canal. The most attractive of the 6,000-square-meter exhibition hall is the three exhibition halls with the theme of the Grand Canal, namely the Canal Relic, the Prosperous Streamer and the Grand View of Liuzi. Through the display of cultural relics and the restoration of the ruins, the bustling grand scenery of the Sui and Tang Grand Canals is reproduced.
In the first year of Daye, the Sui Emperor ordered the excavation of the Grand Canal running through the north and south, from Zhuo County (present-day Beijing) in the north to Yuhang (present-day Hangzhou) in the south, divided into four sections: Yongji Canal, Tongji Canal, Hangou and Jiangnan River. According to expert research, the Tongji Canal starts from Xingze, Henan, and enters the Huai River in Xuyi, Jiangsu, with a total length of 41.5 kilometers in Huaibei, which is mutually corroborated with the Sui Causeway, and the Liuzi site is located in the middle of the Tongji Canal. Since its excavation, the Tongji Canal has become the main artery of economic and cultural transportation between the sui, Tang and Song dynasties, "connecting thousands of miles one after another", when "the wealth of half the world and the department stores of Shanze are all entered by this road".
In the canal relics exhibition hall, a Tang ship is displayed. The remaining hull of the ship travels through the millennium with the rudder, witnessing the sparkling and oaring lights in the canals of the past. Once the yin and yang of history, it settled at the bottom of the Grand Canal and became part of the history of the Grand Canal. After a thousand years, it reappeared in the sky, and ancient ship experts gave it a landmark name - Huaibei Rudder.
At the Ruins of the Liuzi Canal, we pedal down the wooden staircase to the very core of the site, where we can see the eastern section of the riverbed. The Sui and Tang Grand Canal, which uses the water of the Yellow River as the water source, is stacked layer by layer into the sixteen clear cultural layers in front of us, recording the evolution of the river and recording the continuation of civilization. This thick canon is carefully read by today's people. The stone platform that was discovered in 1999 was designated as the site of Liuzi Wharf. However, in the second archaeological excavation in 2002, experts confirmed that this was not a wharf, but a bridge at the mouth of the Tongji Canal, a rainbow bridge with the same shape as the one on the Qingming River Map, based on the physical objects such as the piers excavated successively and a large number of stone mounds scattered in the river channel. Standing on the pier of the bridge, I think that thousands of years ago, this place was once "rainbow shadow lying on the waves, ascending to the far side".
In the sediment of the river, there are scattered pieces of triangular stones with holes drilled on them, which are the stone stones used to tie ships when passing ships docked here, which can also be seen from the large number of ships and the prosperity of shipping in those years. As early as the Tang and Song dynasties, Liuzi became a political, economic, military and cultural town in huaibei, "transporting merchants and traveling endlessly". According to the "Suzhou Chronicle", "Liuzi is a giant town, with 99 temples and a hundred eyes. "It is conceivable that the Liuzikou Canal was lined with boats one after another, with many stores along the coast, merchants gathering, and people rushing shoulder to shoulder.
Three
As a world-famous cultural heritage, China's Grand Canal has always attracted much attention, and the study of the Culture of the Grand Canal has ranged from government officials and archaeologists to university scholars and even folk people. But there is one thing in common, as Professor Wu Xin of the Canal Research Institute of Liaocheng University said: the "transport" of the canal is in the social system, and with the help of the operation of water, the canal has become the carrier of grain transportation, cultural dissemination, market construction and social balance; in the cultural system, the transport of the canal is closely related to the national lefto and cultural context of traditional society.
The Tongji Canal flows and flows from the Sui Dynasty. The years wrapped around the river, the river is wrapped in sediment, and the riverbed is deposited and raised year after year, and finally inadvertently becomes a suspension canal. During the Southern Song Dynasty, with the regime moving south, the management of the canal gradually relaxed, the Yellow River broke several times, the mud and sand fell, and the Tongji Canal was silted up, and the prosperity and civilization of this place also declined, and eventually, it was buried deep underground, until it was awakened again, and it was used as a dazzling pearl on the necklace of the "Grand Canal Cultural Belt" and regained its glory.
As a journalist, I have more opportunities to document the grand canal application process:
In December 2007, a delegation from the Grand Canal Protection and Heritage Application of the CPPCC National Committee, headed by Xu Kuangdi, then vice chairman of the NATIONAL COMMITTEE of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, came to Huaihuai to investigate. As an important node of the Sui-Tang Grand Canal, Huaibei City has attracted great attention at home and abroad, laying an important position for Huaibei City in the field of Grand Canal protection and heritage application.
In February 2008, the Leading Group for the Protection and Application of the Grand Canal in Huaibei City was established.
In October 2009, Huaibei City adopted the "Grand Canal Heritage (Anhui Huaibei Section) Protection Plan (2009-2030)". In November, the 5th China Grand Canal Cultural Festival Grand Canal Protection and Heritage Application Summit Forum was held.
In September 2010, the Grand Canal Heritage Selection Team of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage went to Huaibei City to carry out the selection of the World Cultural Heritage Sites of the Huaibei Section of the Grand Canal, and the ruins of Liuzi Wharf, Liuzi Town, the section site of Baishan Old Street of Suitang Canal and the site of Baishan to Liuzi Suitang Canal were successfully selected into the World Cultural Heritage List declared by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
At the end of 2011, the demolition and relocation of the archaeological excavation site of the second phase of the Liuzi site was fully completed.
In March 2012, the Provincial Archaeological Institute entered the site to carry out archaeological excavations.
In March 2013, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage identified 31 heritage areas for the Grand Canal. Huaibei City is one of them, including the Sui-Tang Canal Liuzi Bridge Site in Suixi County, and the Sui-Tang Canal Liuzi Ruins Section "One Point One Section".
In September 2013, experts from the World Heritage Centre visited the Site of the Liuzi Canal for an on-site inspection and assessment.
On 22 June 2014, the Grand Canal was inscribed on the World Heritage List by the 38th Session of the World Heritage Assembly. At this point, Huaibei has its first world business card.
History shines into reality. Standing on the ruins of the Sui and Tang Dynasties Grand Canal, pushing open a window of history, we see the past and see the present. Through this window, we also see the world, and let the world see us...
Four
Some scholars believe that the Grand Canal culture is born of water transportation, and "living state" is its most significant feature. But for thousands of years, the Grand Canal has been diverted, dredged, cut off and even abandoned, just like the ruins under my feet, before it was excavated, who can think of a thousand sails here? For more than 2,500 years, the Grand Canal has played an important role in maintaining national unity, prospering social economy and promoting cultural exchanges, vividly recording the succession of the national pulse from generation to generation and inheriting the brilliant civilization of the nation. Even if the route is changed and the flow is cut off, the culture of the Grand Canal is still flowing!
In 2016, I followed the "Between Cities" interview group organized by the Propaganda Department of the Huaibei Municipal Party Committee to Cangzhou City, Hebei Province. The ancient Grand Canal flows through Cangzhou for 253 kilometers, and the canal still runs through the city. When archaeologists in Huaibei excavated the Tang ships that were sleeping underground at the Liuzi site and exhibited the exquisite porcelain of the Song Dynasty at the Sui and Tang Grand Canal Museum, the archaeologists in Cangzhou were also busy at the Xiejiaba site on the east bank of the Dongguang County Canal. Like the Liuzi site in Huaibei, the Xiejiaba site is one of the 58 sites on the World Heritage List of the Grand Canal of China.
The flow is cut off and even the Tongji Canal, which has been buried deeply underground by the years, has continued to flow for thousands of years. The Grand Canal is like a dazzling chain of Chinese civilization, connecting the brilliant multiculturalities of the north and south of China, carrying the rich time memory and cultural genes of the Chinese people, strengthening our cultural self-confidence, and better building the Chinese spirit, Chinese values and Chinese strength. Just for a day, we pushed open a window, and she flowed to us vividly...
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the Grand Canal is a precious heritage left to us by our ancestors and a mobile culture, which should be well protected, inherited and utilized. How to do a good job in the Grand Canal is a big article that Huaibei has been exploring.
In 2019, the National Grand Canal Cultural Protection, Inheritance and Utilization Plan was introduced, and Suixi County, Xiangshan District and Lieshan District of Huaibei City were included in the core area of the planning. Among them, the Liuzi site was listed in the national "Cultural Heritage Protection and Display Project"; Linzhuo Ancient Town was listed in the "Construction of Historical and Cultural Ancient Town" and "Boutique Routes and Unified Brand Actions"; the Sui and Tang Grand Canal Museum was listed in the "Grand Canal Museum System Construction"; and the Xunhe River was listed in the "River Water System Resource Condition Improvement Project". Huaibei City actively protects, inherits and utilizes the three articles, solidly promotes the construction of the Huaibei section of the Grand Canal Cultural Belt, and helps cultural tourism and rural revitalization. Nowadays, the stone slab street of Suixi Old Town and the Sui-Tang Canal Ancient Town are full of tourists every day. Sui Tang Cao City in Canal Ancient Town was rated as one of the top ten night tour blocks in the province and became a landmark spot for leisure tourism in Huaibei and its surroundings. Located on the north side of the embankment of the Liuzi section of the Tongji Canal of the Grand Canal, liuzi cultural park is an environmental remediation project of "World Cultural Heritage Liuzi Canal Site" approved by the state.
Walking the Sui and Tang Grand Canal has also become a cultural consciousness of many Huaibei people. In September 2013, Zhang Bingzheng, a 66-year-old retired professor at Huaibei Normal University, launched a three-year historical and cultural expedition to the Sui-Tang Grand Canal, and in 2019, he paid tribute to and expressed his affection for the Sui-Tang Grand Canal, a world cultural heritage, with a book of nearly 600,000 words of "Canal China: Sui-Tang Grand Canal History and Culture Investigation". This is a scholar's cultural journey, more people are not under the vision of the world cultural heritage, but are accustomed to at any time, along the Sui and Tang Dynasty Grand Canal route that has flowed through the glory of the millennium, maybe you may not feel your inner feelings of home and country, but you can definitely feel a force invisibly pulling you, through this open window, to find roots...
Source Huaibei Media Center | Author Feng Dongmei
Edited by Xie Yongli
Process Editor Liu Weili