Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition
Ruyi cloudside marigold, Nanjing Museum collection.
Earth Lion Horn Stone, collection of Beijing Stone Carving Art Museum. All images in this article are courtesy of the Grand Canal Museum of China
Zhao Mengfu "Self-Written Small Portrait", collection of the Palace Museum.
Egg white glaze print "Wang Bai" inscribed goblet, Capital Museum collection.
On the bank of the Grand Canal in Yangzhou, Jiangsu, there is a new thematic museum built in 2021 - the Grand Canal Museum of China. This summer, the special exhibition "Dadu: Beijing City in the Yuan Dynasty" held here was very popular and received praise from many audiences.
Xu Xiaohu, head of the exhibition department of the Grand Canal Museum of China, said that this exhibition is the second exhibition in the "Canal City" series of the Grand Canal Museum of China after last year's special exhibition "Zhongzi Shenzhou: The Splendid Luoyang City of the Tang Dynasty", opening up the perspective of urban development from the perspective of the canal. The exhibition displays the creation of Yuan Dadu, the supply of canals to Dadu, the culture and art of Dadu through three parts: "City of Great Khan", "Herun Dadu" and "Kyushu Elegance", bringing together 259 pieces (sets) of Yuan Dynasty fine cultural relics from 22 cultural and museum units such as the Palace Museum, Shanghai Museum, Capital Museum, and Nanjing Museum, including nearly 70 cultural relics unearthed from the Yuan Dadu site.
The City of the Great Khan is magnificent and magnificent
From the fourth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1267), the Yuan capital broke ground, and it was completed in the thirteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1276). Dadu Mongolian is called "Khan Bali", which means "the city of the Great Khan". Most of the capitals built by Kublai Khan included the outer city, the imperial city and the palace city, and according to the regulation and construction of "left ancestor and right society, facing the future city" in the "Zhou Li Kao Gong Ji", it not only affected the pattern of Beijing in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but also affected the urban planning and construction of today's Beijing. The capital of the Yuan Dynasty, Beijing, was an important turning point in the history of the development of the Grand Canal. The Grand Canal of the Yuan Dynasty ran from Hangzhou to the north to the Tonghui River Wharf in Dadu, where materials from all over the country converged through the Grand Canal, opening the era of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal ending in Beijing.
"The Emperor's residence in the West Mountains of the East China Sea, the imperial capital of the South Ship and the Northern Horse." This is the magnificent capital in the eyes of Zhao Mengfu, a calligrapher and literary scholar in the late Song and early Yuan dynasties.
The entrance of the exhibition hall is designed in the shape of the Yuan Dadu and Yimen Urn City Gate, entering the "city gate", a group of honor guards and horses are lined up neatly, imposing and majestic. There are 11 gates in Yuandadu, 3 each in the west, east and south walls, 2 in the north, and 1 in the middle of the west wall. In the exhibition hall, there are "Pingzemen" stone frontal extensions, double hook book "Pingzemen" three characters, and the small print on the left side is inscribed "Hongwu 6th May Hitachi". The original stone is hidden in the Beijing Stone Carving Art Museum, which is the earliest surviving city gate stone in Beijing. During the Ming Dynasty, the repair of the city gates was completed, and the Pingzemen was renamed Fuchengmen and is still in use today.
The center of the exhibition hall is a restoration scene of the palace of the Yuan Dynasty, and displays most of the architectural components unearthed, such as white jade unicorn stone carving components, dragon and phoenix stone carved balustrades, and lion-shaped corner stones.
The architectural design of the Yuan capital was influenced by the grassland culture, and the imperial palace was located on the east and west banks of Tailiuchi (present-day Beihai) and Qionghua Island (present-day Baita Mountain, Beihai), and a Guanghan Hall was built on Qionghua Island. The capital museum's collection of inlaid fragments of the Guanghan Palace lacquerware was unearthed at the site of Houyingfang in the Yuan Capital, with the character "Guang" on it, which is generally believed to represent the Guanghan Hall on Qionghua Island. The picture is inlaid with screws, rich in color changes, and in the middle of a two-story pavilion, a cloud rises from the upper floor, sweeps over the roof, and rushes straight to Xiaohan. This is the earliest flat-depleted snail artifact found so far, and it is also the only Yuan dynasty screw lacquerware unearthed so far, proving that the thin snail inlay process has appeared in the Yuan Dynasty.
The construction of Yuandadu is inseparable from a large number of skilled craftsmen. Liu Bingzhong, the designer of Dadu, Fan Wenhu, who participated in the construction of the Tonghui River, Ren Renfa, who repaired the Tonghui River Lock, Zhang Hongluo, who was responsible for the construction of the palace city, and Yang Qiong, who was in charge of masonry carving... Through the funerary objects and epitaphs of these builders, you can imagine the hard work and sweat they put into building this magnificent capital.
The canal goes north and gathers curiosities
In the 23rd year of the Yuan Dynasty (1286), Kublai Khan ordered Cheng Wenhai to go to Jiangnan to "search for the remains", and he found Zhao Mengfu, a descendant of the Southern Song Dynasty and a 32-year-old descendant. In December of the same year, Zhao Mengfu set out from Huzhou and then took the canal from Hangzhou to the north and headed for the capital of Yuanda.
Zhao Mengfu, who first arrived in Dadu, described the scene he saw in Dadu in verse: "Spring on the sea is deep and willowy, and Penglai Palace is in the five clouds." The "sea" written in the poem is the pond, which, together with the Gaoliang River and the Tonghui River, forms the Yuanda capital water transport system. Yuanda is a world-class metropolis, and in order to meet the living needs of urban residents, the government transports a large amount of materials from the south to Beijing every year. In the 28th year (1291), Guo Shoujing proposed to dig a canal from Tongzhou to Dadu. After the completion of the project, the boat can enter the southern city wall of Dadu through the Tonghui River, along the east wall of the imperial city, under the Wanning Bridge, and moor in the pond. The pond is full of boats and sheltered water, and the east and north banks are bustling commercial areas.
In the third year of Emperor Yuanwuzong's reign (1310), Zhao Mengfu was ordered to go north to the capital, and on the way he obtained a five-character version of the "Preface to the Dingwu Lanting Pavilion" from Elder Dugu, and along the way he often flipped through it, inscribed 13 paragraphs successively, so it was called "Lanting Thirteen Ba". Zhao Mengfu also wrote this book, and the writings written by Lanting 13 and his Lin were included in the "Kuixuetang Post". It was burned after the thirteenth march, and the fragments are now in Japan. This time, the Palace Museum's collection of Qingtuo's "Kuixuetang Post" volume five Lanting thirteen bows was exhibited, and a multimedia interactive wall of "Zhao Mengfu on the Canal" was created, which showed 7 scenes of Zhao Mengfu receiving the edict from the north, Nanxun Beide "Orchid Pavilion Preface", writing in the boat, exhibiting the scroll in the boat, Jeju rushing to board the ship, Hubei waiting for the gate, and arriving in Dadu. Visitors can click the button on the display case, and the points on the map will be highlighted, and they can enjoy the scenery along the canal with Zhao Mengfu.
The "Shipwreck Relics" video tells the story of the ancient shipwreck in Heze, Shandong. The wreck was found on the north branch of the Yellow River at that time, when the northern branch of the Yellow River was connected to the Huitong River, and all ships going north to Yuandadu or south to Hangzhou needed to pass through this section of the river from Xuzhou to Jining. More than 160 cultural relics including porcelain were released from the wreck, among which the porcelain was mainly Jingdezhen blue and white porcelain, blue and white glazed porcelain, Cizhou kiln porcelain, Longquan kiln porcelain, Jun kiln porcelain, etc., all of which were common types of porcelain in the Yuan Dynasty.
In the Yuan Dynasty, the "Floating Beam Magnetic Bureau" was set up in Jingdezhen, which played an important role in the development of the porcelain industry. Yuanren is still white and blue, and Jingdezhen Chuang burns an egg white glazed porcelain and fires mature blue and white porcelain. Yuan blue and white porcelain is rare, and 15 pieces of Yuan blue and white porcelain are displayed in this exhibition, which is very rare, including the Nanjing Museum Tibetan blue and white lotus pond mandarin duck pattern plate, Zhenjiang Museum Tibetan blue and white cloud dragon pattern porcelain jar and other famous items. The mackerel algae pattern high-foot bowl from the Heze wreck is a wine vessel, decorated with blue and white throughout, with a lotus pattern along the outer wall mouth, a deformed lotus petal pattern on the lower abdomen, and a three-week string pattern at the protruding bamboo section of the foot body. The inner wall is decorated with curly grass pattern, string pattern, fish algae pattern. Because the Yuan people liked to drink booze, the porcelain at that time was relatively large.
The capital museum collection egg white glaze printing "Wang Bai" Ming goblet carcass is thin, the glaze is thick and warm, the glaze color is similar to the color of goose eggshells, representing the highest level of egg white glaze porcelain in the Yuan Dynasty. The upper part of the inner wall of this cup is a back pattern, and the lower part of the back print is printed with the words "king" and "white". The characters "Shu" and "Fu" on the egg white-glazed porcelain are porcelain fired by the Privy Council of the military institution of the Yuan Dynasty in Jingde, so it is also known as "Shufu porcelain", and the "Wang Bai" print is extremely rare and is the first new model found in China.
Multicultural exchange and coexistence
The Yuan Dynasty was a rich and colorful era in Chinese history, where diverse cultures coexisted, exchanged and influenced each other. The third part of the exhibition presents precious artifacts from cities along the canal, reflecting the inclusive atmosphere of the Yuan Dynasty.
Zhao Mengfu has considerable achievements in poetry, music rhythm, calligraphy, painting, etc., and his concept of "using books into painting" opened a new style of painting in the Yuan Dynasty, which had a profound impact on the development of calligraphy and painting in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The Palace Museum's collection of Zhao Mengfu's "Self-Written Portrait" shows his style for posterity, and the self-titled "Self-written Small Portrait of Dade Ji Ziang" in the upper right corner is the author, who was 46 years old at the time. A clear stream flows between the rocks of the bamboo forest slope, and a scribe wears a black scarf and white shirt, and stands near the water with a staff. The color of the picture is elegant, the penmanship is stable, and it is fresh and ancient.
Xian Yushu, who is as famous as Zhao Mengfu, is good at cursive writing in large characters. The cursive "Self-Written Five Exquisite Poems" in the collection of the Palace Museum is strange, strong and strong, quite Tang Dynasty charm, the first half is mainly based on Xingshu, and the second half is mainly cursive, which is a rare calligraphy masterpiece.
The site of Yingfang after the Yuan capital unearthed a purple gold stone inkstone platform used by the Song Dynasty calligrapher Mi Fu, and there are 5 lines of inscription on the back of the inkstone, the characters are incomplete, and the word "Yuanzhang" is dropped. This inkstone is mentioned in Mi Fu's "History of Inkstone". Along with the inkstone were also Neolithic artifacts, which experts speculate were collected as curios by the Yuan Dynasty nobleman.
Yuan miscellaneous opera is a brilliant pearl in the history of Chinese literature and art, and plays such as "Tales of the West Wing" have been passed down to this day. The porcelain pillow of the Nanjing Museum shows the farewell scene of Changting in "The Tale of the West Wing", which shows that this play was very popular at that time. In the exhibition hall, the "Daxing Sanle Zhongdu Show Here as a Mural Painting" is displayed in the form of projection in Guangsheng Temple, Hongdong County, Shanxi Province, and the characters in the picture move: on the stage, a performance is about to end, Zhongdu Xiu leads all the actors to make a curtain call, the audience applauds, unfinished, a harlequin actor improvises and performs a short piece of funny ventriloquism, causing the audience to laugh.
Southern gold and silver ware in the Yuan Dynasty continued the fashion of the Song Dynasty, and the shape was mainly flowers, melons and fruits. Nanjing Museum collection of Ruyi cloudside marigold from the joint burial tomb of Lv Shimeng and his wife in Suzhou, Jiangsu, is a four-out diamond flower pattern, composed of 4 Ruyi head patterns superimposed on the top and bottom, the heart of the instrument hammered out of 4 relief small Ruyi heads, like a stamen, the body is full of entwined lotus flowers, exquisite.
The silver frame in the Suzhou Museum is cleverly designed, consisting of two brackets, front and back, which can be folded and folded at will, and uses hammering, openwork and other processes to produce rich ornaments such as phoenixes, peonies, tuanlong, jade rabbits, ruique, fairy grass and so on.
The textile industry was quite developed in the Yuan Dynasty, and the rich gold brocade was loved by the Mongolian nobility. According to experts, the dripping beaded rabbit-patterned gold brocade from the China National Silk Museum is speculated to be a fragment of a women's large-sleeved robe, the main body of the fabric is made of turtle-shaped four-petal flowers, and two rows of drop-beaded patterns are distributed on the ground, one with a built-in rabbit pattern and the other with a built-in flower, both of which were popular patterns in the Yuan Dynasty.
In 1368, Xu Da, a general under Zhu Yuanzhang, led an army to conquer the Yuan capital, ending the reign of the Yuan Dynasty. At the end of the exhibition, the Wuxi Museum's collection of "King Wu's Edict", which was a personal letter written by the then Wu King Zhu Yuanzhang to Zuo Xiang Xu Da, talking about Zhang Shicheng's escape from prison. Zhu and Zhang competed for the world, and in the end, Zhu Yuanzhang defeated Zhang Shicheng and established the Daming Dynasty, which also opened a new chapter in Beijing's urban development. (Reporter Yin Xiaoyu)
People's Daily Overseas Edition (Version 07, 2023-08-29)