Photo by Zhang Zhongping (People's Photo Network)
On March 8, 2022, at the jiangkou ancient battlefield site in Pengshan District, Meishan City, Sichuan Province, aerial photographs of archaeologists working on the site of archaeological excavations. Recently, due to the flood period of the Fuhe River, where the Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site is located, the 2021-2022 annual archaeological excavation of the site will enter the end of the excavation.
Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site is one of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in the country in 2017, Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site has been excavated since 2017, and a large number of gold and silver cultural relics have been excavated, including gold and silver books of the Ming Dynasty and Zhang Xianzhong's concubines, Xiwang Reward Gong Coins, Da Shun Tong Bao, gold ingots, silver ingots, etc., as well as a large number of rings, earrings, hairpins and other gold and silver jewelry and some remaining weapons.
Tiger button "Yongchang Grand Marshal" golden seal
Photo by Li Qingyu, reporter of the government portal of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism
Changsha Province", "Year for the Royal Palace" fifty-two gold ingots
Jiangkou Shenyin - Exhibition of Archaeological Achievements of Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site in Pengshan, Sichuan
"West King Rewards Merit" money
Canonized Gold Book
Double quicksilver ingots
Three-eyed fire hammer
Panorama of the excavation area of "Jiangkou Shenyin"
On June 26, 2021, the "Jiangkou Shenyin - Exhibition of Archaeological Achievements of Jiangkou Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Sites in Pengshan, Sichuan" co-sponsored by the National Museum of China, the Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics and the People's Government of Meishan Municipality, Sichuan Province, opened at the National Expo. The exhibition lasted for three months, with the purpose of "witnessing history, learning from history, and enlightening future generations", and comprehensively displayed the archaeological achievements of Jiangkou ancient battlefield sites through more than 500 cultural relics.
Sichuan Pengshan Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site is located in the Minjiang River channel of Jiangkou Town, Pengshan District, Meishan City, and is one of the "Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in China in 2017", with a total of more than 42,000 cultural relics found. In 1646, Zhang Xianzhong, the leader of the peasant revolt at the end of the Ming Dynasty, led his troops from Chengdu and moved south along the Min River, and when they reached the pengshan river estuary, they were attacked by the Ming general Yang Zhan, who burned the ships and sank a large amount of property at the bottom of the river. Since the 1920s, important cultural relics have been discovered in the channel of the Minjiang River at the mouth of the river. In order to fully understand the distribution range of the site and the preservation status of underwater cultural relics, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, together with the Underwater Cultural Heritage Protection Center of the National Cultural Relics Bureau and the Pengshan District Cultural Relics Protection and Management Institute of Meishan City, conducted two excavations of the Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site in 2017 and 2018. This is currently the largest internal water archaeology project in China, which provides a working paradigm and reference experience for the future excavation of tidal flat archaeology and shallow water burial sites.
The exhibition is divided into three parts: "Preface Hall", "Shenyin Out of the Water" and "New Archaeological Chapter", which introduces the relevant situation of the ancient battlefield site and archaeological excavation in Jiangkou, shows a large number of precious cultural relics found in the ancient battlefield site of Jiangkou, and highlights the initiative of new archaeological methods and new technologies in this excavation and the importance of public participation in this excavation through physical objects, pictures, videos, immersive projections and other display methods. In the exhibition, there are not only the golden seal of the tiger button "Grand Marshal of Yongchang", the fifty-two gold ingots of the "YearLy Offering To the Royal Palace" of Changsha Province in the first year of the Apocalypse, the 1002 silver ingots of the "Dushui Si Zhengyin" of Wugang Prefecture in the twenty-seventh year of the Wanli Calendar, as well as a number of "Western King Reward Gong" coins, gold albums of the sealed harem, exquisite gold and silver jewelry, silver ingots engraved with the year number of "Great West", tax types, and Sichuan place names, as well as a large number of weapons related to the Battle of Jiangkou. These cultural relics span a large age span and a wide geographical distribution area, which not only proves the authenticity of Zhang Xianzhong's legend of "Jiangkou Shenyin", but also the most direct display of political, military and social life in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.
The archaeological excavation of the Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site is a new exploration and challenge. In view of the complex situation that the site is in the minjiang river channel, for the first time, mainland archaeologists have adopted a new model of cofferdam archaeological excavation, established a working platform, and innovated management ideas during the excavation process. The excavation also used a large number of scientific and technological means, not only the combination of archaeological excavations and scientific and technological means, but also the collaboration between archaeologists and scientific and technological workers. In the stages of site exploration, information extraction, and cultural relics protection, it has received strong support from many scientific and technological units to ensure that all work is carried out scientifically and effectively.
It is worth mentioning that the scientific research team of the Information Geography Characteristic Research Center of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China used electronic information technology to help the archaeological excavation. The team used comprehensive detection technologies such as water resistivity imaging, amphibious geological radar, high-precision magnetic method, and frequency domain electromagnetic method to scan and image the detection area of more than 100,000 square meters, detected the location of the ancient river channel, and analyzed the undulations of the riverbed bedrock, providing strong evidence for the delineation of the "favorable reservoir area of sinking silver". The new ideas and new technologies adopted in this exploration have important reference significance and promotion value for underground exploration in rivers, lakes and shallow beach environments. Hu Guangmin, dean of the School of Resources and Environment of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, said that the team will further summarize the experience and strive to create a new situation of "electronic information + archaeology" and make "CT for the land" more simple and efficient.
Gao Dalun: The ancient battlefield of Jiangkou can be dug for another thousand years
2019-01-07 West China Metropolis Daily
(Cover news reporter He Xiyu) "Stone cow to stone drum, gold and silver ten thousand and five." Whoever can see through it, buy all the Chengdu Province. "This folk song circulating in the Chengdu Plain has been confirmed with the archaeological excavations of the ancient battlefield site in Jiangkou." Jiangkou Shenyin - Sichuan Pengshan Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site Archaeological Achievements Exhibition" During the exhibition at the Sichuan Museum, the admiring audience surrounded the exhibition hall. The enthusiasm of the audience continued to the selection of the Hall of Fame 2018 exhibition list, and 4810 people voted for the Jiangkou Shenyin Exhibition, making it the top three of the annual exhibition list.
At the beginning of the new year, Sichuan archaeologist Gao Dalun visited the Sichuan Museum and shared the little-known story of Jiangkou archaeology.
The legend of Shen Yin was confirmed
Since the defeat of Zhang Xianzhong's soldiers in the third year of Shunzhi (1646) on the Baomin River, for more than 370 years, the story surrounding Shen Yin has never stopped.
Since the 1980s, the relevant departments have jointly surveyed The town of Jiangkou in conjunction with the Professional Geological Exploration Institute and found that a large number of metal objects are scattered in the channel of the Minjiang River. In 1993, the local government again secretly invited geophysical expeditions to investigate and identified several metal foreign body deposition sites. However, due to technical limitations, it is still not possible to determine the precise location and the amount of sediment.
"The real turnaround came in the summer of 2015," Gao said. This year, Peng Shan cracked a major case of reselling cultural relics: the case of illegal excavation of cultural relics in Jiangkou.
Borrow money to excavate the Jiangkou ruins
About 60 kilometers southwest of Chengdu, there is a dangerous river mouth. This is the confluence of the Fu River, the Wuyang River and the Min River, and the place is also named Jiangkou Town. Jiangkou Town has a secret old tradition: digging for treasure.
In 2015, the case of cultural relics excavation in Jiangkou was successfully solved under the direct command of the Ministry of Public Security. Archaeological sites have been excavated, and the safety of cultural relics is at stake. At the end of 2015, two months after the case was solved, Gao Dalun, then president of the Sichuan Archaeological Research Institute, quickly organized a seminar to report to his superiors to prepare for the excavation of the Jiangkou site.
In May 2016, the excavation of the Jiangkou site was approved by the higher authorities. "No money can't dig", Gao Dalun thought of ways to dig with money, "a pad is ten million, which is the project with the most money in the country's archaeological excavations."
Cofferdam archaeology lasts at least 5 years
The second problem facing the archaeological team is how to dig. The rapid flow of the river estuary and the uncertain location of sediments have brought great difficulties to surveys and archaeological excavations.
In September 2016, the archaeological team determined the plan: cofferdam, directly drain the water, and then carry out excavations. For this unprecedented practice, Gao Dalun shouldered all the responsibilities, "digging out a hairpin is also a harvest."
In December 2016, the archaeological 2,000-square-meter cofferdam of the Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site was completed, and more than 300 cultural relics were excavated at one time.
From January to April 2017, the first archaeological excavation of the Jiangkou Ancient Battlefield Site, with a cofferdam of 20,000 square meters and a total of more than 30,000 cultural relics, confirmed the legend of Zhang Xianzhong's Sinking Silver at the mouth of the Jiangkou River.
The excavation of the ancient battlefield site in Jiangkou is the largest number of gold and silver artifacts unearthed in China so far. At the same time, cultural relics are rich in connotation. The effluent artifacts cover all aspects of the emperor's life and the people's living; the source of the cultural relics covers most of China in the Ming Dynasty from Henan in the north to Liangguang in the south.
Gao Dalun said that the entire jiangkou site has an area of about 1 million square meters, and only 2% of the excavations have been carried out so far. Therefore, the entire archaeological excavation will last at least 5 years, "assuming that we can excavate 1,000 square meters of archaeology every year, and the ancient battlefield of Jiangkou will take 1,000 years to dig to finish, which is worth looking forward to." ”