South Gate, the thousand-year-old memory of Yazhou City
Huang Wei
The ruins of a ruined city wall silently record the thousand-year-old past of Yazhou.
A crescent-like mountain expanded the defense of the city wall and became the last defensive place of a war, and also achieved the name of Ya'an.
A thousand-year-old city called "Ya'an" was once set up here, and has gone through several generations of rise and fall.
This is the south threshold of Ya'an urban area, the urban memory of the old Ya'an people.
It is connected with Cangping Mountain as a whole, witnessing the changes of Ya'an for thousands of years.
An old photo of Ya'an city taken by Sun Mingjing in 1939
On January 15, 2016, the long-lost sunshine shone on Cangping Mountain in the urban area of Ya'an, adding vitality to the city in the cold winter. The people living at the foot of Cangping Mountain started their day's work and life as usual.
Du Daming, 65, lives at the south threshold of the city.
Every morning, he would go to Cangping Mountain to breathe fresh air.
Du Daming knew that the foot of Cangping Mountain was the location of the former Xikang Province, but he didn't know that the story of Cangping Mountain had to start thousands of years ago, and it had a great relationship with the name of "Ya'an".
The mottled city wall, the remains of the ancient city of Ya'an
At the south threshold of the urban area, pedestrians pass by on the bluestone road from time to time.
The ancient trees here are towering and the environment is quiet.
No. 10, Mucheng Street, on the right side of Cangping Mountain, as an old Ya'an person, all know that this place is called the South Gate.
Why is it called the South Gate?
Now the South Threshold
"This is the southern gate of Ya'an in the Ming and Qing dynasties." Mr. Du said he had to pass by there every day.
The old Ya'an people have memories of the Ya'an city gate and the city wall, and the bluestone road and stone wall of the south gate are the only remnants of the Ya'an city gate.
During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Northern Song Dynasty (1008-1016), the Yazhou Zhishu (government yamen) was moved from Duoying to the foothills of Cangping Mountain, thus revealing the history of Ya'an as a city.
According to the "Ya'an City Chronicles" (1996 edition), the ancient city of Ya'an opened four gates. The east gate is at the holiday square, the south gate is at the south gate, the west gate is at the west gate bridge, and the north gate is at Bayi Road.
It is said that it is east, west, north and south, but it is actually not symmetrical, because the urban area of Ya'an was small at that time. The city chronicle also records that
The streets in the city are distributed in a disc shape, with three horizontal and five vertical intersections, long from east to west, short from north to south, and 23 streets and alleys, basically forming an urban pattern.
The streets and alleys are there, and the city is lively. Ya'an City is also constantly changing and expanding......
A set of data on the city records shows the development and changes of Ya'an city: after the Xinhai Revolution (1911), 6 streets and alleys were added outside the east gate, and 1 street was added outside the south, west and north gates, with a total of 32 streets and alleys inside and outside the city, with a maximum width of 7 meters, and the main road ran through the whole city from east to west (now West Street and Middle Street). Except for a few streets with stone pavement, the rest are dirt and stone roads, with a total length of 6,600 meters.
In 1942, Xikang Province set up the Ya'an Municipal Finishing Office, opened up a new urban area in Wenmiaoba outside the city gate, and added Kangjian Road (now Yingmo Road), Wenhui Road (now Renmin Road), Xinkang Road, Cangping Road, Xinsheng Road, Traffic Lane, 6 streets with a total length of 2,530 meters.
In 1943, the East City Gate Cave was demolished, the base of the city wall was leveled, and 5 new streets were built.
In 1944, there were shantytowns and thatched huts on the north bank of the Tsing Yi River to open teahouses, restaurants and stalls, and the east extended across the Longxi River to form three small streets. In 1945, the number of streets and alleys in the urban area increased to 44, with a total length of 14,167 meters, and the urban area expanded from 0.7 square kilometers to 1 square kilometers.
In August 1950, the Xikang Provincial People's Government put municipal construction into the agenda, set up a special agency, extended Huaiyuan Road (now West Street), demolished the west city wall, built an 8-meter-wide east-west trunk road, connected to the aircraft dam Yaxing Highway, and built a total of 1925 meters of concrete pavement trunk road, with 2.5 meters to 3 meters wide Sanhetu sidewalks on both sides.
In 1951, the two sections of the city wall at the junction of South Street and West Street and Xiaobei Street were demolished, and the street was straightened to the bank of the Tsing Yi River.
In 1952, the city wall of the northern section of the East Gate was demolished, Wenhua Road was built, and a flood control embankment was built along the south bank of the Tsing Yi River (from the original square to the West Gate), which had both flood control and road functions, and at the same time renovated and widened Chaoyang Street.
In 1957, the north gate city wall was completely demolished, and a new 2,100-meter-long Yanjiang road was opened.
Today, after a hundred years of wind and rain, the South Gate Threshold has left a mottled ancient city wall, which still provides services for the citizens.
There, the old Ya'an people can imagine the scene of the four city gates of Ya'an, and hang the ancient city of Ya'an.
The ancient stone slab road, the first pass of the ancient tea horse road
On both sides of the wide stone staircase of the south threshold, stone pillars and iron chains are installed.
On January 15, 2016, in the sun, several workers were painting iron chains with black paint.
Pedestrians walked on the stone road and walked on the ancient road of Ya'an City.
"The south gate sits south to north, the current city gate no longer exists, only the two sections of the city gate ruins, and a section of the ancient road. It is an important pass for Ya'an commerce and trade to go out of the city to Tibet through the South City Gate, and it is also the first pass of the Ancient Tea Horse Road. Li Bingzhong, director of the Municipal Museum, said that the Nanmenkan Ancient Road, together with the Guanyin Pavilion of the Ming Dynasty building next to it, was listed as a historic site in the Ya'an section of the Sichuan Tea Horse Ancient Road.
After the strong earthquake in Lushan, the Guanyin Pavilion and the South Gate Ridge were included in the post-disaster cultural relics restoration project on the Ancient Tea Horse Road. In accordance with the principle of "repairing the old as the old", the south threshold after maintenance is presented to the public with a new attitude.
Sunlight, stone steps, ancient trees, iron chains......
An ancient picture of the city unfolded in the shouts of the market.
This is the first pass of the Ancient Tea Horse Road out of Ya'an in the south. Soaking up the sun, walking on the stone steps, memories travel through time and space.
In 618 AD, the Tang Dynasty was established, and the most powerful era in Chinese history came. Ya'an, which is located at the border, is still in turmoil. But following in the footsteps of the Tang Dynasty, Ya'an also ushered in a golden age of prosperity and development.
The Ancient Tea Horse Road and the Southern Silk Road began to flourish, and Ya'an's tea began to be transported to Tibet in a steady stream...... The progress of productive forces, economic development, and unimpeded roads have led to more exchanges between Ya'an and other places, and the cultural barriers caused by the mud mountains have also begun to blur.
During the Tang and Song dynasties, the output of Sichuan tea ranked first in the country, especially in Yazhou.
At that time, Yazhou was an important place for the Sino-Tibetan tea and horse trade. The rulers of the Song Dynasty once stipulated that the tea produced in Yazhou should be used in exchange for horses, leaving enough war horses for Yazhou.
From ancient times to the present, Ya'an is the intersection and important node of Sichuan's entry into Tibet and Yunnan, and it is also the gateway and necessary road of the ancient Southern Silk Road.
Walk down the stone steps to the south threshold, cross the street, and you will find the Ya'an City Museum opposite.
In the Ya'an City Museum, there are many locally excavated cultural relics. In terms of shape and pattern, it is very similar to the remains of Zhaotong in Yunnan and some parts of India. In the Ya'an Southwest Yi system, the mirror with handle, the pre-Qin and Han dynasties were button mirrors. The bronze mirror with a handle is similar to the mirror with a handle in Central Asia and West Asia. Many relics of the Han Dynasty in the city museum have strong Chu culture and Central Plains cultural factors, reflecting the prosperity of the southwest border town and an important post station on the southern Silk Road.
The South Gate Ridge and the Ya'an City Museum echo each other from afar, and those relics silently tell the prosperous past of the Ya'an Tea Horse Ancient Road.
Cangping Mountain, witnessing the war in the southwest border city
The ancient trees of Cangping Mountain are towering to the sky, and the environment is quiet. In the mountains and forests, many old people drink tea and chat in the shade of trees. "Cangping Mountain, also known as Yuexin Mountain, is said to be the origin of the name 'Ya'an'......" Their topic sometimes talks about the relationship between Ya'an and Cangping Mountain.
In the realm of Ya'an, the county system has been implemented in the Qin and Han dynasties. From the Qin Dynasty to the Han Dynasty for about 500 years, Ya'an successively built Yandao (now Yingjing), Yak (now Hanyuan), Tsing Yi (now Lushan), Xiyang (today's Quan) and other counties, but "Ya'an" or "Yazhou" has not yet been traced. After the Three Kingdoms, during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, for more than 200 years, Ya'an was occupied by the bureaucrats, who were ethnic minorities in the south, so that the Ya'an region, which had been relatively developed during the Han Dynasty, almost returned to its primitive state.
It was not until the unification of the Sui Dynasty and the expulsion of the bureaucrats that the counties and prefectures were re-established.
The Ya'an area has always been a battleground for soldiers and war-ready materials. During this period of history, although Ya'an was basically included in the territory of the central government, the location of Ya'an was a border pass. The military town that defended the territory of the regime was the most common structure in Ya'an, so it can be seen that war may have been the norm in Ya'an during this period.
In the fourth year of Emperor Wen of Sui Renshou (604), he was placed in Yazhou.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the Yazhou Governance Office moved to this place, and because Ya'an Mountain was shaped like a crescent moon, people renamed it "Moon Heart Mountain". In the Qing Dynasty, Yazhou Mansion developed rapidly, and the vegetation in the city decreased, but this mountain is still green and shady, so this mountain is also called "Cangping Mountain".
Throughout the Tang, Five Dynasties, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, the scope of this administrative division of Yazhou has been constantly changing, but its name has been used for thousands of years.
As a southwestern frontier, Yazhou has been in constant war.
The rulers at that time also actively defended Yazhou and built cities.
According to the records of Ya'an City Chronicle, in the first year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1368), Yazhou built a stone city. In the seventh year of Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty (1729), Ya'an County was placed to manage the vast area of Feilong Pass in the south, Shuikou in the east, Feixian Pass in the west, and Jinji Pass in the north (the same area as the jurisdiction of Yucheng District today).
So far, more than 1,000 years after the name of "Yazhou" appeared, "Ya'an" has appeared as a place name. Ya'an has been the county, province and state seat in the past dynasties, an important town in the west, and the places where the dynasties have passed through the borders, the border of the war, and the great officials trampled on the covenants, leaving many cultural relics and monuments spanning more than 2,000 years of history.
In the twenty-eighth year of the Republic of China (1939), Xikang Province was established, Ya'an was subordinate, and on December 9, 1949, Liu Wenhui, chairman of Xikang Province, rebelled, and Ya'an ushered in a new era......
In the Ya'an City Museum, a photo of the old town of Ya'an taken in 1939 restores the general appearance of the old town of Ya'an. This old photograph taken by the famous scholar Sun Mingjing, together with the South Gate, has become the best thing for Ya'an people to remember Ya'an City.
An old photo of Ya'an city taken by Sun Mingjing in 1939
Today, as the last remnant of Yazhou City, Nanmenkan has naturally become the most historically significant cultural symbol in the memory of Ya'an City.
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Source: Sichuan Provincial Office of Local Chronicles
Author: Huang Wei
Contributed by: Ya'an Local Chronicles Compilation Center, Ya'an Rong Media Center