Liang Heng | the city god in the sand pile

Don't forget the original intention Keep in mind the

Jingbian Ming Great Wall Camp Fort Ruins photo by Li Guiwen

Western mythology is a number of distant goddesses, dionysus, eros, etc., even if you help people find a partner, it is also to send an angel to hide in the shadows and shoot an arrow from a distance, similar to the current zoologist in the depths of the dense forest with an anesthesia gun to shoot at the tiger or sika deer, the other party will fall softly. In Chinese mythology, God is always around people, like a shadow, never leaving the twilight, protecting you all the time. You need to talk about love, and there will be a red line for a month; if you want to do business, there is a god of wealth standing at the door of the store; if you want to cook, the stove king will stick to the pot table; when it is dark, you will sleep, and there will be two door gods standing guard at the door. Man is comfortable, and God is warm.

What I didn't expect was that at the foot of the distant Great Wall, on the edge of the desert, there was also a god and man. In September 2021, I went to northern Shaanxi to collect wind, and when I heard that a city god temple was being unearthed in Jingbian County, I immediately rushed to the scene.

The world-famous Great Wall is easily referred to by locals as the "border wall" in the Yulin area, and it sounds like a short wall between two families. The counties along the Great Wall are all given the character "Bian": Jingbian, Anbian, and Dingbian. There are people in the sky, inside the wall and outside the wall, Hu Han and the two big people. From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Ming Dynasty, there were many stories inside and outside the wall, sometimes wolf smoke billowed and flames were thousands of miles, and sometimes they switched to each other's markets, trading grain, tea, fur, cattle and horses - because regardless of the Hu people and Han people, they always had to live at home. Thus this side of the wall has two functions, wartime military engineering, peacetime treaty port, similar to the current customs. It is a strange scenery for thousands of years, both the army and the people, the war and the peace, and the enmity and resentment for thousands of years.

In order to adapt to this situation, the Ming Dynasty built 36 forts along the border wall of the Yulin line, which was both a fortification for Tibetan soldiers to resist the enemy and a yard for opening and closing mutual markets. Slowly, the fort gathered its population and became a small town, so it was necessary to invite a god to take charge, and the most practical god was the city god. Chenghuang has nothing to do with getting rich, nor does he talk about love, he is a comprehensive god at the grassroots level. Say that the small dot is a virtual village chief, and say that the big dot is a virtual district chief and mayor. It is called the Land Temple in the country office, and the City God Temple in the town. The fort, which is now being excavated, is called "Qingping Fort", which was built in the Ming Dynasty, with a circumference of less than two kilometers, and there is also a city god inside. With the change of history, the whole fort was gradually buried by the wind and sand, and now the sand surface has been solidified into cultivated land, grass slopes, shrubs, and there are large trees in between, and the city god is buried below. I guess this is the northernmost city in China, because one step further is to step out of the "wall", a vast grassland, and of course there is no "god" without a city.

In general, the excavation of ancient tombs and ancient cities is to dig pits on the flat ground, and archaeologists should be very careful to explore down the steps layer by layer. In case of important places, in order to prevent the destruction of cultural relics, it is also necessary to put up a hanging board and hang in the air. This time, just peeling off the layers of sand, the temple walls, courtyards, galleries, and temples are gradually exposed, just like Italy dug out a Pompeii from volcanic ash. We calmly stepped into the courtyard and entered the room.

Photo by Liang Heng

The most visible thing is the main hall on the north side, where the city god is sitting on a high platform, and the literati are dressed in military uniforms, with both ears and shoulders, white face and red lips, and a majestic and kind face. He has a wide robe and large sleeves, his right hand is clenched in a fist and knees, and his left hand is slightly stretched into the shape of a joint, looking ahead. The samurai under the porch has a high nose and deep eyes, and stands tall, and at first glance, he is a bearded person, making a vicious appearance to drive away evil spirits. The samurai held his hands weakly, estimating that the original weapons in his hands had decayed over the years, but they still did not reduce their prestige. These statues, sitting or standing, are not all exposed to the sand, and archaeologists have only roughly swept out their silhouettes, preparing to be treated with plastic masks for weathering. We are just in time for the rare sight of the Buddha's light to appear. The red robes, black boots, blue cuffs, and even the cloud patterns on the golden belt of the City God and the people of the wenwu were all vividly remembered. It was just half covered in sand, some had just revealed a head, and the lower body was still a large mound, like the egyptian sphinx; some half of the body was drilled out of the earth, and the eyes were shining, just coming from ancient times. In short, after 600 years of wind and sand, I can't hide the joy of seeing the sky again. I also saw the deceased, I could not imagine reading history books and myths since I was a child, but today I meet the gods at the foot of the Great Wall where there are basil and sand willows.

China has a vast land and different customs and beliefs in various places, but the city god is a universal god without distinction between north and south. The county official is not as good as the current management, and his biggest feature is to work according to the jurisdiction and bless the safety of the people, similar to the current square management. All gods are man-made, so it is customary to always take a real person as a shell, just like writing a novel has to have an archetype. For example, Guan Gong was elected as the god of wealth, and Qin Qiong and Wei Chigong were chosen to be the god of doors. As for the substitute for the city god, there is no uniform regulation, and it is elected by the local people themselves. I checked on Baidu, and they are generally characters with excellent character, outstanding political achievements, and trustworthy characters. For example, Hangzhou was once the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, and its city god was Wen Tianxiang, the national hero of the Song Dynasty, whose heaven and earth were righteous enough to ensure the eternal peace of the people. So, this small castle of the Ming Dynasty at the foot of the Great Wall, who should be chosen to be the city god? The most famous figure in the history of this line is Fan Zhongyun.

The Northern Song Dynasty and the Western Xia outside the Great Wall faced each other for many years, and suffered repeated defeats, and the military generals guarding the border were already afraid of the enemy like a tiger, so the emperor sent the civilian minister Fan Zhongyan to lead the troops. Fan Bao's family was really loyal to the country, and he took his 16-year-old eldest son to personally fight and built an earthen city overnight. He also carried out drastic reforms to the military service system, reused local generals, and fought several victorious battles in a row, finally consolidating border defenses and making the people live in peace. Song Renzong said that with Fan Zhong drowning in the front line, I could sleep peacefully. Fan has been sleeping here for many years, staying on his pillow, as evidenced by his famous poem "Fisherman's Pride": "The scenery in the autumn is different, and the hengyang geese go without noticing." The four sides are sounded in one corner. In a thousand hills, the long smoke and sunset are closed. A glass of turbid wine is a thousand miles away, and Yan Ran has not returned to the house. Qiang pipe slow frost all over the ground. People do not sleep, the general white hair Zhengfu tears. He thoroughly practiced his idea of "worrying first and then enjoying", and he still sits in this small temple. I carefully examined the city god in front of me, his square face was round, a winter melon-style face, and it really looked like the portrait of Fan Gong left in history. Interesting to say, Fan Zhongyan's family has a family tree, and there is also a Fan clan association that has activities every year, and I am listed as a consultant for academic reasons. At every gathering, I wonder how the Genes of the Fan Family are so powerful, although it has passed a thousand years, they still have a wide face and big ears, resembling the ancestors. The city god seen today is also like this, no wonder as soon as you enter the door, you seem to be familiar, such as meeting the deceased.

I carefully studied the excavated inscription, which first explained the setting of the city god: "The city god has a shrine, all over the world, not only the capital is huge but also." Although there is one village and one well, it is not possible to worship it without images. The "Emperor of the Ancients" Punished the evil of the people and established the worship of the hundred gods of heaven and earth, so that the people could persuade themselves without teaching, and could not help but punish themselves. He also explains the role of the city god: "Set up officials to rule where they can be governed; set up gods to rule where they can't reach." Heaven is deep and deep for those who are worried about the people! "It turns out that the politicians of ancient times have long understood that simple administrative management cannot solve all problems, and it is necessary to govern the country according to law and the people according to virtue." What is the cure?" Political, economic, social, life and other aspects of reality. What is "beyond the reach of the cure"? It is what each person thinks, their worldview. This is a boundless world, a huge potential force. The goodness of one thought turns the spring wind into rain; the evil of one thought overturns the river and the sea. So Kant said that there are two things that are always awe-inspiring, and that is the starry sky above the head and the morality in the heart. In ancient China, the city gods scattered throughout the city and the countryside were the last mile of this moral popularization. You cannot but say that this is a great invention of the ancients, and it can be educated in beauty, shaped by people, presented to the people in an artistic way, and passed on to posterity. You see how vivid those clay sculptures are, 600 years old, still dressed like water, god clear eyes. The city god is not only to persuade people to do good, but also to teach people aesthetics, but also to be a beautiful god.

In the history of Chinese civilization for more than 5,000 years, a small castle in the Ming and Qing dynasties is not very old, but it is precisely because of its ordinary and ordinary that Qingping Fort typically represents that period of history and outlines the changes in the rivers and mountains in this area. Standing in this mound, we saw a living specimen of history. If you look at the city walls and gates, especially the urn city dedicated to ambushing and killing the enemy, it seems to reproduce the shouts and swords and swords of the city. I can't help but think of the famous "Hanging Ancient Battlefield Text": "Vast, flat sand is boundless, and no one is seen." The river is haunting, the mountains are disputed. The gloom is miserable, and the wind is sad. The grass is dry and frosty. Birds can't fly, beasts are dead. The pavilion chief told Yu Yue: "This ancient battlefield also often covers the three armies." Often ghosts cry, and the sky is cloudy and smells. The Great Wall, China's largest and oldest war fortification, was built from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Ming Dynasty, and never stopped. It was not until the Qing Dynasty produced a Kangxi Emperor who announced that the Great Wall would never be built. He said: "Since Qin built the Great Wall, the Han, Tang, and Song dynasties have often repaired it. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the great soldiers of our Taizu Commandery drove straight in, and all the roads disintegrated, and none of them could be done. It can be seen that the way of defending the country is only to cultivate the hearts and minds of the people. The people's hearts and minds are happy, the state is intrinsic, and the border is self-reinforcing, and the so-called 'unity of purpose' is also. "He not only abandoned the construction of the Great Wall, but also opened the border to benefit the people. In the early days of the Qing Dynasty, in order to avoid the contradiction between Mongolia and Han, the inside and outside of the Great Wall were demarcated into a buffer zone of fifty miles wide and one thousand miles long, commonly known as the "Imperial Forbidden Land". Kangxi ordered the opening up, and named after the Confucian classics of "benevolence", "righteousness", "etiquette", "wisdom" and "faith", set up five walled cities, which can be regarded as the earliest economic development zone, and thus began the great integration of nationalities "walking west", and also laid the foundation for the later development of a multi-ethnic country. He understood that we should not rely on the Great Wall of Brick and Stone, but should rely on the people's will to "rule beyond the reach of the rule." So from war to peace, from military to economy, Qingping Fort will always be peaceful, and the city god testifies.

In China's 9.6 million square kilometers of land, this two-kilometer-long fort is only a small point, but it is the intersection of the Great Wall, Saiwai and the desert, representing a landform, a climate, and a cycle of natural ecology. You only have to look at the city, a temple, a god buried deep under your feet, and you will know what kind of sand and dust were raging here. There is a representative work in the local tradition book, "Blowing The Wind": "The wind lady released a wind, and the wind blew the sky and was afraid of dying." Scrape that big mountain without a roof, and scrape that hill flat and flat. Thousand-year-old trees are uprooted, and ten thousand-year-old stubborn rocks are tumbling chaotically. Scrape the pan and burn the cake, scrape that rolling meteor, oops so windy. "Far from it, when I was working in this area 40 years ago, I woke up one night and couldn't open the door with the wind and sand. Go to the countryside to interview, when the wind blows, it is dim to drive the lights. But now? Looking up, the green is full of the sky, and the blue sky is like a mirror. Xinhua News Agency published a 2020 article announcing that the Maowusu Desert, which spans both inside and outside the Great Wall, has disappeared. Before coming, I visited Niu Yuqin, a hero of sand control in her 70s. As soon as she married into the depths of this sand nest, she planted trees one by one in front of her house until an oasis was planted, so she was invited to the United Nations to give a report. Locals jokingly called her "planting trees to the United Nations". There are countless such sand control people from generation to generation. In 600 years, the city god had a long dream under the deep sand, until one day the archaeologists gently woke him up, and he was blinded to see the stars falling, the rising sun rising in the east, and the vast green sea.

Mao Wusu Wuding River Desert Grand Canyon high cloud photo

Walking out of the excavation site, I had a small regret. Next to the pit was a large pile of freshly dug old tree roots, twisted and twisted, and the roots were already a hug thick. It turned out that there was a stage opposite the main hall in this city god temple, and these trees grew in the sand on the stage. They stubbornly wrestle with the wind and sand, the sand buried a point, the tree is an inch long. In this way, it was buried for a long time, and finally there was no suffocation and no death. When cleaning up the site, workers felt that they were in the way, so they sawed them all off and dug them up. I choked my feet and cried out in pity. Ancient temples are ancient, ancient trees are also ancient, they are the memory of our nation, but also a period of nostalgia! Just imagine, in this desolate place, the grass was sparse all year round, the birds and beasts died, the military and the people could not enjoy it, only during the New Year's Festival, the temple sang a play to the city god, Hu Han traded, people and gods played together, and the noise was full of courtyards. These old trees also spit out green leaves in the yellow sand, soothing the bitter hearts of the border guards. Why not leave these ancient trees behind and turn the whole temple into a tourist place, with the city god returning to the seat, the samurai raising their eyebrows, and the green trees shading. Let the foreign tourists roar on the mound for a burst of letters and heavenly tours, and then invite the city god to sit and drink a pot of horse milk wine, sing a "out of the plug song", and watch a local drama from 600 years ago, that should be more delicious!

(This article was published in Guangming Daily, January 14, 2022, page 15)

Hosted by Jingbian County Bureau of Culture, Tourism, Cultural Relics, Radio, Film and Television

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