In 241 BC, the state of Chu ordered Yin Chun Shenjun Huang Xie to organize the last joint attack on Qin in the history of the Warring States Period, but finally returned in vain. Worried about the retaliation of the Qin State, King Chu Kaolie had no choice but to move the capital again, this time to Shouchun.
In 223 B.C., the Qin generals Wang Jian and Meng Wu led the army to break through the Chu capital Shouchun, captured the king of Chu, and the state of Chu, which lasted for more than 800 years, officially came to an end.
More than 2,000 years have passed. On April 16, 2024, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held an important progress work meeting on the major project of "Archaeological China" in Huainan City, and released the phased excavation results of the No. 1 tomb of Wuwangdun for the first time.
The reporter recently learned from the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology that the archaeology of Shouchun City has recently made an important breakthrough, and a city wall remains were found in the western part of the site, which is called "Shoubin Ancient City" because it is mainly located in Shoubin Village, Shouchun Town, Shou County. The discovery of the ancient city of Shoubin fills the gap in the remains of the city wall in the late Warring States period. According to the experience accumulated in the past 40 years of archaeological work, especially the important clues provided by the exploration and excavation of the ancient city of Shoubin, the archaeological team of Shouchun City site selected important areas to carry out key exploration and recourse, combined with the Wei film in the sixties and seventies of the last century, and initially framed the outer city of Shouchun City, the Chu capital with an area of about 14.6 square kilometers, but this view still needs to be verified by archaeological excavations.
Aerial photograph of the ancient city of Shou County today
Nearly 40 years of "city search"
The issue of the ruins of Shouchun City has been unresolved
On the morning of April 18, on an open field on the south side of Chudu Avenue in Shou County, several exploration parties were in good order, and the archaeological excavation work was in full swing.
Archaeologists are working in the exploration area
According to the literature, since the Chu State moved its capital to Shouchun, Shou County has long been the seat of governance of the national capital and counties, prefectures, provinces and prefectures, and has been known as the reputation of "four times for the capital and ten times for the county". Today's old county seat of Shou County still retains the urban pattern of the Tang and Song dynasties and the traces of the maintenance and addition of the city wall in the past dynasties since the Song Dynasty, and has become the epitome of the construction and development of the city and city wall in Shou County after the Tang and Song dynasties.
However, as the last capital of the Chu State, Shouchun City, where its clear scope is four to where and how large the area is, there are different opinions so far. Zhang Yizhong, director of the Shouxian Central Workstation of the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the person in charge of the archaeological excavation project of the Shouchun City site, told the Anhui Business Daily financial media reporter that "Shouchun City is the last capital of the Chu State in the late Warring States period, and its geographical location is in and near the Chengguan of Shouxian County, Anhui Province", which has become a consensus in the academic circles.
Aerial photograph of the ruins of the ancient city of Shoubin
In ancient times, the city wall, especially the outer wall, was an extremely important fortification, and its construction required a lot of manpower, material and financial resources. As the capital of Chu State, the city wall of Shouchun City shoulders the important task of defending the security of the national capital.
Zhang Yizhong introduced, since the start of the scientific excavation of the site of Shouchun City in 1983, the exploration and confirmation of the city wall has always been the focus and core of the work, after two generations of archaeologists nearly 40 years of hard work and exploration, around the city wall of Shouchun City, two different views have been formed in stages. The first point of view is represented by Mr. Ding Bangjun, the first archaeological team leader of the Shouchun City site. In 1983, the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Shou County Cultural Relics Department jointly formed a working group to carry out planned archaeological work on the site of Shouchun City. By means of archaeological investigation, drilling, test excavation and remote sensing survey, by 1991, the foundation site of the Baijiatai building was discovered, and the location and scope of the site of Shouchun City were determined, and it was estimated that the length of Guocheng outside Shouchun City was about 6.2 from north to south, and the width from east to west was about 4.25 kilometers, with a total area of about 26.35 square kilometers.
However, the academic community has also raised some doubts about this view. The capital of the Chu State in its heyday, Ji Nan City, covers an area of only 16 square kilometers, and Shouchun City is the last capital of the Chu State.
From 2000 to 2003, the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the School of Archaeology and Museums of Peking University formed a joint archaeological team to restart the archaeological work of the Shouchun City site. Zhang Zhongyun, the second leader of the archaeological team of Shouchun City Ruins, believes that the palace city of Chu Shouchun City is within the scope of today's Shouxian City Wall Foundation, and the existing Southern Song Dynasty city wall is formed by superimposing many years of Xia Cai, Chu Shouchun, Han, Tang and Song Dynasty. However, this view still needs more archaeological data to support and support.
Southwest town "breaks"
"Chunshenjun's residence" may be a satellite city of the capital of Gongwei
The unresolved wall of Shouchun City has always been a bottleneck restricting the research, protection and utilization of the site. In recent years, the archaeological team of Shouchun City Ruins has set its sights on the periphery of Shouchun City Ruins, and the southwest small city ruins have entered the sight of archaeologists.
Schematic diagram of the ruins of a small town in the southwest
The southwest city ruins are named because they are located in the southwest of the Shouchun City ruins, and its scale is comparable to that of the Chu State Fengjun City, and it is very close to the Shouchun City ruins, and the age is roughly the same, so it plays a vital role in exploring and finally solving the problem of the city wall of the Shouchun City ruins. In 2021, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, together with the Shou County Cultural Relics Protection Center, carried out a systematic investigation, exploration and active archaeological excavation of the ruins of the small city in the southwest, hoping to provide useful clues, references and breakthroughs for exploring the city wall of the Shouchun City ruins through this series of archaeological work.
The results of archaeological work show that the plan of the small city in the southwest is roughly a square with rounded corners, with an area of about 104,000 square meters in the city, and the entire city site including the moat covers an area of about 253,000 square meters. The east and north walls of the city wall are the best preserved, and the width of the remaining walls varies from about 21.6~35.6 meters, and the residual height exceeds 2 meters. Outside the city walls, there is a moat around the perimeter, and the width varies from forty to fifty meters. The northeast corner of the Chenghe River is connected to Shouchun City by an artificial river, while the southwest and southeast corners communicate with the natural river, and finally join the Huai River to the west and south, with a clear waterway pattern.
Most of the unearthed artifacts are building materials such as cylinder tiles and slab tiles. Among them, the remnants of the checkered heavy triangular grooved bricks and the remnants of the square paving tiles with the mige pattern also have the same style at the foundation site of the high-grade building in Baijiatai. Zhang Yizhong said that Baijiatai is considered to be the foundation site of the palace in the late Chu Kingdom, and the site uses a large number of trough bricks, paving tiles, phoenix bird pattern tiles and other building components, and can use such exquisite building components on a large scale more than 2,000 years ago, which can reflect the scale and high level of the building from another side.
Architectural components unearthed from the ruins of Shouchun City
The southwest town unearthed the remnants of moire round tiles
What is the function of the small town in the southwest? During the first investigation in 1986, Mr. Ding Bangjun, the then archaeological team leader, speculated that the city site was the residence of Chu Xiangchun, Shenjun and Huang Xie during the Warring States Period based on the characteristics of the collected relics and relevant documents. Today, "Chunshen Hometown" has become a city card of Shou County.
Historically, Huang Xie was talented and ranked among the four princes of the Warring States Period, and helped Xiong Wan, the king of Chu Kaolie, who was still a proton in the Qin State at that time, to escape back to the Chu State and take the throne. After King Chu Kaolie ascended the throne, he took Huang Xie as the prime minister, and was named Chun Shenjun, and gave twelve counties in the north of Huai, including Shouchun. Before Chu moved the capital, Huang Xie had been working hard in Shouchun for many years.
Although the state of Chu had weakened in the late Warring States period, the relocation of the capital was a matter of great importance, and it must have been extremely cautious in site selection. Zhang Yizhong introduced, Shou County is strategically located, there is Bagong Mountain in the north, there is the main channel of the Huai River in the west, there is Dongshui and its dammed lake in the east - Wabu Lake, only the southern terrain is open, a horse is flat, and there is no natural danger to defend. The southwest town is located in the southwest of the site of Shouchun City, and there is a waterway with Shouchun City, and the traffic is convenient, and Shouchun City can be guarded.
In addition, the results of archaeological work show that the four gates of the southwest city are roughly the same size, and the upper mouth of the north gate confirmed by excavation is 3.2~4 meters wide, the lower mouth is generally less than 1 meter wide, and the narrowest part is only about 0.5 meters wide. "With such a small city gate, it is difficult to meet the needs of a Chu State important minister for daily living, carriage and horse travel. Judging from the accumulation inside and outside the city, the small southwest town does not look like a place to live for a long time. ”
Therefore, Zhang Yizhong believes that the military use of the small city in the southwest is more obvious, and it may be a satellite city of Gongwei Shouchun City.
"Chu Cheng" made a stunning appearance
Important discoveries in the ancient city of Shoubin fill in the gap
The archaeological excavation of the ruins of the small city in the southwest has enhanced the understanding and research of the city site and city wall in the late Chu Kingdom, and also brought hope for the continued pursuit of the city wall of Shouchun City.
In November 2021, during the exploration of the construction plot on the south side of Shou County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, archaeologists accidentally discovered a section of east-west rammed earth wall foundation, which was rammed in a similar way to the southwest town and roughly the same age. Through further searching, a ruins of the city wall with a roughly oblique rectangular plane and a total area of about 569,000 square meters were discovered, which was tentatively called "Shoubin Ancient City" because it was located in Shoubin Village, Shouchun Town, Shou County.
The archaeological excavation site of the south side of Xunli Xinjiayuan in Shou County
This discovery made the archaeologists excited, could this wall base be the city wall of Shouchun, the capital of Chu in the late Warring States period?
In order to verify the existence of the rammed earth wall foundation and determine its age and nature, from December 2022 to June 2023, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology conducted an anatomical excavation of the north wall of the ancient city of Shoubin.
The age is the late Warring States period, and it is consistent with the historical background of Chu Qian Shouchun, and the newly discovered city wall is the city wall of Chu State!
Zhang Yizhong introduced that the archaeological discovery of the ancient city of Shoubin has filled the gap in the remains of the city wall in the late Warring States period, and is an important breakthrough in the archaeology of the site of Shouchun City. The west wall of the newly discovered remains of the city wall continued to extend to the north and south, and in addition to the wall of the late Warring States period, there were local signs of addition, repair and rebuilding in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, indicating that the city wall was still in use until the Eastern Han Dynasty.
This discovery further connected the city wall specimens before the Tang and Song dynasties, forming a situation in which city wall specimens from the late Warring States period, the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the Tang and Song dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties coexisted, and Shou County deserved the title of "City Wall Museum".
The total area is about 14.6 square kilometers
The scope of the suspected outer city of Shouchun in Chudu was preliminarily framed
The city wall of Chu appeared, but the location and scope of the outer city wall of Shouchun City were still undecided. In previous exploration, archaeologists found that the west wall of the ancient city of Shoubin extended beyond the scope of the ancient city to the north and south.
According to this clue, in August 2023, the archaeological team of Shouchun City Site launched an active and comprehensive search, continuing to explore south and north along the west wall of Shoubin Ancient City, and at the same time taking the method of digging "well" holes around the foundation site of the Baijiatai building to find the rammed earth city wall. "Exploration has intermittently discovered some remains of the city wall, and by connecting these city wall remains, we have preliminarily framed the scope of the suspected outer city of Shouchun City." According to Zhang Yizhong, it is suspected that the outer city and the ancient city of Shoubin share a part of the west wall, south to Chudu Avenue, north to the vicinity of the Xiaosong family Taizi ruins, and east to the west bank of the river, with a total area of about 14.6 square kilometers.
This area is smaller than the southern city of Yingdu, and the shape is irregular. Zhang Yizhong said that this is the result of preliminary framing through exploration, and the precise scope and area of the four solstice still need to be verified and confirmed through further archaeological excavation work.
Shouchun "with Huairu, control and lead Heluo", the geographical location is excellent, and it is a strategic place in the past dynasties. According to historical records, before the Chu State moved its capital to Shouchun, under the painstaking management of Chun Shenjun for many years, Shouchun had become a military fortress, shipbuilding center, and commercial metropolis of Chu at that time.
Recently, archaeologists have newly discovered the remains of rammed earth platform foundations and city walls in the south of Chudu Avenue, and the archaeological work around the site of Shouchun City is still in progress. Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology Shou County Central Workstation Station, Shouchun City Ruins Archaeological Excavation Project Leader Zhang Yizhong introduced, in the next step of the archaeological work, the city wall problem will still be the focus and core, the archaeological team plans to cooperate with the initiative archaeological excavation of the current preliminary determination of the outer city of Shouchun City to further dissect and confirm. The results of archaeological excavations at the site of Shouchun City in the past few decades will also be sorted out and the results will be published in stages.
With the in-depth development of the archaeological work of the Shouchun City site, more unknowns and conjectures about the 800-year-old Chu State are expected to find answers.
Source: Anhui Business Daily