In the early years of the Spring and Autumn Period, "Zhou avoided the dogs, migrated eastward, and Xianggong sent King Zhou Ping with soldiers." King Ping made Xianggong a prince and gave the land west of Qi". Since Qin Xianggong (777 ~ 766 BC) first established the capital in Xiinuqiu (Xicheng), after more than 500 years, the Qin State gradually moved eastward, through Qinyi, Wangyi, Weizhihui, Pingyang, Yongcheng, Jingyang, Liyang and Xianyang and many other capitals, cities, and towns, known as "nine capitals and eight moves" in history. According to the current academic research on the respective functions and hierarchical structure of Qin's "nine capitals", from the first year of Qin De (677 BC) to the 12th year of Qin Xiaogong (350 BC), Qin placed the capital Yongcheng for 327 years.
Yongcheng, located in the territory of Fengxiang in Shaanxi Province today, as the capital of the country with the longest construction time, is a milestone in the prosperity of the Qin State. The life deeds and achievements of the Qin princes who have ruled in Yongcheng have witnessed the gradual development of the Qin State from small to large, from weak to strong. The Qin State developed its military in Yongcheng, built a city defense system, and improved the support of the economy to meet the cost of foreign wars, and it was through war that the Qin State created space for its own development. If it is said that the Qin State opened the historical prelude to its own development in the Longdong region, then later it went east out of Longshan and advanced to Guanzhong, especially after repeatedly choosing Yongcheng, the capital of the city, to have the dream of unifying the six countries.
The Yongcheng city site area was partially restored
The historical documents record Yongcheng is relatively brief, and some aspects of the review are still biased, so before the 20s of the 20th century, the world knew little about this Qin capital. Archaeologists who began in the 1930s and the excavation of Baoji Doujitai stationed in Yongcheng have gone through several periods of work enlightenment, initial exploration, comprehensive glory and consolidation and transformation, and it is the 80 years of generations of archaeologists who have gradually unveiled the mystery of this ancient city. The large number of materials obtained from continuous archaeological work shows the multifunctional elements and characteristics of the city, which not only reflects the general principle of the early city to take the natural environment as the adaptation condition, but also reflects the Qin state's own characteristics of the first choice of complete urban defense facilities in the face of complex external disturbance environment. The general pattern of Yongcheng, the capital of Qin, is formed by the city site, the cemetery of the Qin Dynasty, the tombs of the Chinese people (referring to the commoners and ordinary officials, who generally live in the city), the suburban buildings, and the settlements of the "wild people" in the suburbs (different from the Chinese people, who generally live outside the city and have a lower status), as well as their respective layout rules, which can be used as a reference for the construction of the capital city in later generations.
Urban pattern
The Yongcheng city site area is about 11 square kilometers, with a length of 3,300 meters from north to south and a width of 3,200 meters from east to west. Various cultural relics have been discovered, including the surrounding fragmented natural city walls and artificial moats, roads, palace buildings, settlements, workshops, and various natural environmental factors in the city, such as inland rivers. The cultural relics and the natural environment with different functions constitute the space, which is a typical feature of this Qin capital.
The position of the Qin capital Yongcheng in the "Nine Capitals and Eight Relocations".
Why did the Qin State choose Yongcheng as its long-term capital? The answer can be found from the external environment of Pingyang City before: the migration across Longshan to Guanzhong had a certain passivity, and the main reason was to get rid of the military harassment from Rongdi in order to find a safe living environment. Although Pingyang is located in the Weihe River valley and has convenient transportation, it lacks such a "condescending" strategic defense advantage as Yongcheng, so the geographical environment around Yongcheng meets the preferred requirements of Qin to choose the capital in a specific period, which is also the main reason why the Duke of De moved the capital to Yongcheng after the two generations of monarchs of Qin Xiangong and Wugong stayed in Pingyang for a short time.
Yongcheng is the intersection of the traffic avenue
Aerial view of the ancient road excavation area in Yongcheng
Urban expansion
During the more than 300 years of Yongcheng Capital, from the initial "temporary residence experience" to "long-term settlement", that is, from the early defense as the primary purpose to the later urbanization process, the scale of the city has been increasing, expanding and renovating. According to the distribution and chronological relationship of the remains of the entire urban site area, the urban expansion and evolution can be divided into three periods.
The moat is on the verge of the river
In the early period, it was the period of "entrenchment and river verge" with military defense as the primary purpose, that is, the period of the reign of the three monarchs of Degong, Xuangong and Chenggong (677~660 BC). Although Yongcheng, the capital of the Qin Dynasty, chose a large environmental space, surrounded by large rivers, which laid the foundation for the gradual expansion of Yongcheng later, the actual scope of use at first was limited to the southeast corner of the entire city site, that is, the area of Wayaotou Village, with an area of less than 1 square kilometer.
At that time, the river was abundant and the river valley was deep, and the natural river became the main city defense facility of "using water to resist the enemy outside the city", which was the same as the defense system of the Dabaozi Mountain site and its tomb group in Lixian County, and the Qinxi Inuqiu City in the Dome Mountain. This should be the "entrenchment of the river" mentioned in the literature, that is, to encircle the city with water, and dig the river valley near the water deep, so that the river embankment is steep and straight, and the river bank is increased to strengthen the safety factor of the city defense, and at the same time, it also plays the role of resisting the river water. Archaeologists have found through the investigation of the Yongcheng site and its surrounding geographical environment that the layout of the city conformed to the constraints of the natural environment at that time.
The ruins of the weir pond found outside the west city of Yongcheng were restored
Yongcheng is high in the northwest and low in the southeast, and the water in the Yongshan area in the north flows into many rivers such as the Baiqi River and passes through the city, making Yongcheng become a city in the "water" at that time, thus forming the layout of the city of "building along the river and living along the river". Archaeological investigations have found that the settlements built near the river at that time formed a number of relatively concentrated areas. At that time, the river became a convenient water passage in the city, and there were often riverside roads along the embankment, and the various land routes in the city crisscrossed and connected with each other. The river water is diverted to various sections of the city through an underground water diversion network, and is used for things such as workshop production, settlement life, and water for ponds and marshes. The river not only brings water supply and transportation convenience to the settlement, but also facilitates the drainage of flood water in the settlement area. At the beginning of 2015, archaeologists discovered the ruins of a large "weir pond" on the Yongshui River in the west of the city, and judged that its purpose was to ensure the flow of water in the rivers in the city during the dry season, without affecting the normal flood discharge, and raise the water level in the large rivers outside the city, so as to let the water flow into the connected small rivers in the city, so as to facilitate the smooth flow of water transportation.
During this period, there were medium-sized wooden houses in the vicinity of the large buildings, probably inhabited by the aristocracy, and on the periphery of the two types of buildings, there were three relatively concentrated semi-crypt dwelling units with a large number of living ash pits and cellars and wells for workshop production, which were considered plebeian settlements. Although the builders of different grades were divided into high and low, and had the characteristics of their own concentrated settlements, the Yongcheng settlements of this period did not have facilities that were isolated from each other, and all people lived in the same large settlement area as members of the city who lived in harmony.
The foundation of a large settlement building
castle
In the middle of Yongcheng, it was in the period of continuous development of the capital city with the primary purpose of planning the "city wall" structure with comprehensive defense as the primary purpose, that is, the reign period of Mugong, Kanggong, Gonggong, Huangong, Jinggong, Aigong, Yigong and Huigong (659~491 BC). While Qin Mugong expanded through foreign wars, he gradually strengthened the national strength with the policy of "promoting both virtue and power, and conquering Germany by force", and finally formed a situation of "benefiting the country twelve, opening up thousands of miles, and then dominating Xirong". In the face of the changes of the new situation and the rapid increase in the population of Yongcheng, the scale of the earlier urban construction had to be expanded because it could not be accommodated; secondly, because of the competition for hegemony between the nations, wars were frequent, and the strategy of attack increased; thirdly, the confluence of the Lintasi River, the Yongshui River and the Zhifang River in the interval where the city was originally built was flooded when the river embankment was overflowing, which posed a threat to the safety of the city. Therefore, the Qin State abandoned the area of present-day Wayaotou and moved to the middle of the entire city site, that is, the area of present-day Majiazhuang, to form a new area.
The remains of the Yongcheng city wall
The relationship between the second and third phases of the Yongcheng city site and the city wall
Archaeological surveys and excavations have confirmed that this area is about 3 square kilometers, and there are the ruins of Qinzong Temple in Majiazhuang and several other large buildings excavated in the early years. The above-mentioned site is surrounded by a ring moat connected by a natural river and an artificial ditch, and another ring moat is formed on its periphery, and most of them are artificially excavated on the basis of natural rivers, covering an area of about 7 square kilometers. These two ring moats form a relatively regular "Hui" shape. The inner moat is the distribution area of the large palace and its ancillary buildings, which should be inhabited by the Qin duke and the nobles, and the settlement area of civilian production and life is distributed between the inner ditch and the outer ditch, which is just like the symbol of the inner city and the outer city, and has also become a significant symbol of the division and rule of the urban settlement.
Ōjō
The later period of Yongcheng was the formation period of the Dacheng system of re-expansion of the city scale, from the reign of the Duke of Mourning to the Qin capital moved out of Yongcheng (490~350 BC). "Historical Records of Qin Benji" contains "mourning the second year of the duke, the city Yong", 200 years after placing the capital Yongcheng, with the re-expansion of the city, the rammed city wall appeared for the first time. After archaeological investigation and exploration, a trench on the inside of the built city wall formed a multiple defensive barrier with the city wall. So far, Yongcheng has developed into a fully functional metropolis with a scale of 11 square kilometers, and its coverage is now determined as the city site area. During this period, after the formation of the rammed large city circle, the urban subdivision that used to be separated by two moats, the inner and outer moats, became the area of the main city, with various large buildings and aristocratic settlements, and the area between the outer heavy moats and the city walls was the settlement of the common people.
Yongcheng tile kiln head large-scale combined palace restoration
After 300 years of evolution and development, the urban pattern and multi-functionality of Yongcheng, the capital of Qin, have been fully formed, and it has become one of the representative capital cities at that time. In addition to the inner city of the monarch in the early days of the establishment of Yongcheng, which was not specially demarcated in the early days of the city, there has always been a city system that reflects the combination of the inner city and the outer city - that is, the inner city is the city, which is the place where the palace, the official office and the nobles live, and the outer city is Guo, which is the place where the people in the city live. Yongcheng gradually expanded from south to north in 300 years, and its urban planning layout was completed during the mourning period. The city system conforms to the city-building idea of "building a city to defend the monarch and building a country to defend the people" recorded in the "Wuyue Spring and Autumn Period".
The ruins of ceremonial architecture
"The major affairs of the country are in worship and Rong". At that time, many important ceremonial and sacrificial activities of the Qin people were held in the palace, and in addition to the palaces in the city, many were built in the suburbs of the city. In the eighties and nineties of the 20th century, archaeologists successively found the distribution of palaces and other ruins on both sides of the Yongshui River in the southern suburbs of Yongcheng, the east bank of the Huanghe River and the eastern suburbs of Yongcheng. Outside the city, the ruins of the palace construction area in the south of the Sun family are particularly rich, and the Qinian Palace, Laigu Palace, Luquan Palace, Zhuquan Palace and Yuyang Palace of the Warring States Period have been discovered one after another. In addition, clues of other palaces were also found in the west of Yongcheng City.
With the eastward relocation of the capital, the original Yongcheng palace has been abandoned, but Yongcheng is still a "holy city", and many major ceremonial activities in the Qin and Han dynasties are still held here. For example, the coronation ceremony of Qin Shi Huang when he ascended the throne was still held in the Qi Nian Palace. Several emperors of the Western Han Dynasty before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty often visited the suburbs of Yongcheng in person, so they repaired the symbolic building of the "group palace" with many palaces on the basis of the original Qinian Palace, the purpose of which may be to consider that the emperor only came to Yongcheng once a year, but needed to complete different seasonal sacrifices.
Qin Gong Cemetery and Chinese cemetery
The Qingong Cemetery is located in the south of Fengxiang, which is divided into two parts: the South Command Mausoleum Area and the Sancha Mausoleum Area, with an area of about 23 square kilometers. The South Command Mausoleum area is composed of 13 cemeteries, is the largest known Qingong Mausoleum Park at present, has been explored in the cemetery in the Chinese zigzag, A-shaped, eye-shaped and convex shaped tombs and carriage and horse pits a total of 43 and 2 Chinese cemeteries, in addition to a number of cemetery Zhaogou remains. The Sancha Mausoleum area is located around the three groups of villages in Sancha Village, Guodian Town, and a cemetery has been discovered so far, consisting of 3 large tombs in the shape of Chinese characters and 2 carriage and horse pits. Compared with other pre-Qin princely state cemeteries, Yongcheng Qin Gong Cemetery is not only large in scale, but also has a regular layout, it has formed a Qin State cemetery system with persistence, inheritance, integrity and uniqueness with the previous and later Qin Gong Cemetery, and its characteristics of the whole Qin Cemetery "from the centralized cemetery system to the independent cemetery system development process" are very obvious.
Yongcheng suburbs Sunjia Nantou M191 funeral carriage pit partial
The excavated Qin Gong No. 1 tomb, the plane is in the shape of a Chinese character, sitting west to east, with a total length of 300 meters, an area of 5,334 square meters, and a depth of 24 meters, which is the largest one among the excavated pre-Qin tombs. The burial chamber is composed of the main coffin chamber, the auxiliary coffin chamber, 72 coffin corpses, and 94 box burials. Although the tomb has been seriously disturbed repeatedly, more than 3,500 pieces of various cultural relics such as copper, iron, gold, pottery, jade, lacquerware and textiles have been unearthed. According to the stone chime inscriptions unearthed in the tomb, it is basically determined that the tomb owner of the tomb is Qin Jinggong in the late Spring and Autumn Period. Although the No. 1 tomb of Qin Gong has been repeatedly calamitized, the earliest "yellow intestine inscription" coffin, a large number of burial slaves and stone chimes with characters, wooden "tombstones" used for burial, various types of iron tools, etc., have been found in the pre-Qin funeral system and the social politics, economy, and culture of the Qin State.
The medium-sized tomb on the outside of Yongcheng No. 6 Cemetery is attached to the carriage and horse
Since the beginning of the 21st century, in accordance with the "micro" work goal of the large ruins, we have selected No. 1 and No. 6 cemeteries among the 14 Qingong cemeteries that have been explored for experimental re-exploration, hoping to obtain new gains in detailed discoveries. In addition to reconfirming the layout of Zhaogou in the cemetery, the structure of the gate and the remains of the 8 tombs of the Qin Gong Tomb, the burial tomb, the carriage pit and the sacrificial pit, 446 small and medium-sized tombs of the same period or later than the age of the cemetery were newly discovered in the northeast direction of the outer side of Zhongzhaogou, of which 9 were medium-sized tombs in the shape of "Mu", and the remaining 437 were small Qin tombs. In the past, the No. 6 cemetery has explored the remains of the six tombs belonging to the cemetery, namely the tomb of the Qin Gong, the burial tomb, the chariot pit and the sacrificial pit, but the specific layout of the cemetery cannot be confirmed because no Zhongzhaogou has been found.
This exploration newly discovered the structure of the entire Zhongzhaogou layout and gate, and found that there was a gap of 5~10 meters long at each of the four corners of Zhaogou that had not been dug through. In addition, two more "eye" zigzag sacrificial pits were found in Zhongzhaogou. When confirming the original excavation of the No. 15 Chinese-shaped tomb, rammed earth architectural remains and relics were found on the tomb. It has the same pattern as the No. 1 Qin Gong Cemetery, and 703 small and medium-sized tombs of the same period or later than the age of the cemetery were newly discovered in the southwest direction of Zhaogou in the cemetery, of which there are as many as 29 medium-sized tombs in the shape of "Mu", and the remaining 674 are all small Qin tombs, and the Zhaogou around this group of small and medium-sized Qin tombs has also not been found.
In order to further confirm the layout, nature, age and evolution of the small and medium-sized tombs surrounding the outside of Zhaogou in the Qingong Cemetery, archaeological excavations were carried out on the five small and medium-sized tombs on the outside of Zhaogou in the No. 6 Cemetery. Although the excavated objects were seriously disturbed, according to the layout, there must have been a burial carriage pit in the southeast of such medium-sized tombs. The excavations and studies of Qin tombs over the years have shown that the burial of Qin nobles with a single chariot and horse pit is a significant symbol of the tombs of Qin nobles. The excavated medium-sized tombs and the higher status of the owners of the carriage pit indicate that the entire tomb complex included a few noble tombs and a large number of commoner tombs.
With the re-exploration of the two cemeteries, new understandings have also been formed. Since no new "Zhong" shaped tomb of Qin Gong was found in the cemetery, it shows that the number of 21 "Zhong" shaped tombs that have been found in Yongcheng is basically consistent with the number of Qin Dukes who were in power in Yongcheng at that time, and it also confirms to a certain extent that the Chinese character tomb is the mausoleum of Qin Gong. At present, only 3 A-shaped tombs have been found in the entire Yongcheng Qin Gong Cemetery, and from the regularity of the cemetery system, the view that it is the tomb of the Duchess of Qin in the past is more far-fetched, and the view that it is the tomb of the prince who has not enjoyed the country is still possible.
Based on the comprehensive understanding of the investigation and exploration in the Qingong Cemetery in Yongcheng in recent years, the remains of the tombs that were commonly known as the tombs in the Zhaogou of the cemetery in the past, except for the "Zhong" and "A" shapes for the tombs, the other forms are not tombs, but are the chariot and horse pits and sacrificial pits of the Qin Gong Cemetery, which shows that the tomb owners buried in the Zhaogou of the Qin Gong Cemetery at that time were only the Qin Gong who enjoyed the country or the prince who did not enjoy the country. Then, according to the burial system of the cemetery where the husband and wife were buried in different caves at that time, where should the Duchess of Qin be buried? Where were the nobles of the Qin clan and the minister of military merit buried? The small and medium-sized tombs newly discovered on the outside of the Zhongzhaogou in the cemetery were surrounded by the outer Zhaogou of the entire Yongcheng Qin Gong Cemetery, and from the perspective of layout, it must have something to do with the cemetery. According to the archaeological materials currently available, it is speculated that if they were not buried in the tomb of the Duke of Qin as a burial from death, they may have been buried in a small and medium-sized tomb group outside Zhaogou. In the past, the Qin cemetery was regarded as a "cemetery", while the Chinese cemetery was generally treated as a "family tomb", and the two were different in nature and separated from each other.
Judging from the new discoveries, the "cemetery" and the "family tomb" have their distinctive combination characteristics in the tomb layout of the Yongcheng period. In the early Qin period, the large tomb and the small tomb of the Qin Dynasty were together without the separation of the Zhaoyu, which can be called a typical centralized cemetery system; in the Yongcheng period, the two were still close to each other, but the Qin Gong and the small and medium-sized tombs were separated by Zhaogou, which can be called the relatively centralized cemetery system and showed the prototype of the independent cemetery system; from the end of the Qin Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty, the "cemetery" and the "family tomb" and even the "cemetery" and the "cemetery" were completely separated, and the distance was relatively far away, not in the same place, showing the characteristics of a typical independent cemetery system. Therefore, the new discovery of the complete layout inside and outside the Zhaogou in the No. 1 and No. 6 Qin Gong Cemetery vividly reflects the hierarchical scene within the Qin society at that time from the funeral system.
The cemeteries are mainly distributed along the Yongshui River in the southern suburbs of the city, and are composed of relatively independent cemeteries such as Baqitun, Gaozhuang, Xicun, Nanxiang, Huangjiazhuang, Dengjiaya and Libaowu, with a total area of 2.3 square kilometers. In addition to the above areas, in recent years, a number of Qin cemeteries have been discovered in Liudao Village, Wayaotou and the northwest of the Yongcheng city site along the Tasi River in the eastern suburbs of Yongcheng, which has changed the traditional view that Qin national cemeteries are only distributed along the Yongshui River, and according to the age of the tombs, it is inferred that the tombs in the city are not the Xi of the Qin state burial people in the city, but the original burial place was outside the city, and later due to the expansion of the city.
As the longest official capital in the history of the Qin State, Yongcheng has epoch-making significance in its development process, and has been painstakingly managed by the monarchs and the whole country. In Yongcheng, the Qin State grasped the political situation, took advantage of the situation, effectively used the natural and human environment, and established a solid defense system, which provided a strong guarantee for the realization of the Qin dream of "descendants drinking horses and horses in the river" put forward by Qin Mugong.
The author is a researcher at the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology and the director of the Qin and Han Research Offices. He mainly studied the early Qin culture centered on Qin Yongcheng, and presided over the excavation of the Qin capital Yongcheng ruins, Baoji Liangquan Han Tomb, Qinyongcheng Tofu Village Warring States Pottery Workshop Ruins, Fengxiang Zhaijia Temple Sui and Tang Dynasty Tombs, Fengxiang Liudao Village Warring States Qin Tombs, etc. He is the author or co-author of "Problems Related to the Spring and Autumn Bronze Tombs of the Qin Kingdom in the South of the Sun Family", "Research on the Layout of Yongcheng in the Qin Capital", "Observation of Architectural Simulation Experiments on the Unearthed Tiles in Tofu Village and Majiazhuang in Qinyongcheng", "Analysis of Jade Figures Unearthed from the Han Tomb in Liangquan, Baoji", etc.
Source: Popular Archaeology, April 2015