Written by Zhu Haiyan
[a]
Shichahai, from the current point of view, is the inner lake in the city of Beijing. However, when we look into the distance of history, we know that it is connected to the Tonghui River, connected to the Grand Canal, and it is the last pier of the Grand Canal to Beijing.
Beijing is a famous historical and cultural city that has attracted worldwide attention, and it has been more than 3,000 years since its establishment. At the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the new capital was located on the shore of Shicha Sea, close to its east coast, and was determined to be the central axis of the city's planning and design.
/Beijing Shichahai (picture source network)/
Shichahai, formerly known as Jishuitan, was originally a natural lake with a long and narrow north and south length. During the construction of the old city of Beijing, the southern part of the lake entered the imperial city, so it was renamed Taiye Pond due to the ancient system. There was Qionghua Island on this Taiye Pond first, and then Yingtai was established after dredging. There are the North Sea, the Middle Sea, and the South China Sea, which is the land of the Royal Garden. Jishuitan was isolated from the imperial city, and in the Yuan Dynasty, it was the end point of Caoyun, and at that time, it was a sampan to cover the water, and the pomp was unprecedented. This place is very beautiful, in the famous "Dijing Scenery and Things", "West Lake Spring, Qinhuai Summer, Dongting Autumn" to praise Shichahai.
Speaking of Caoyun, it is necessary to expand the history of Shichahai. After the Jin Dynasty, another northern minority went south to the Central Plains, and the cavalry of the Mongolian Genghis Khan, in 1215 AD, came down from the south and occupied the city of Beijing, which was called the capital of the Jin people at that time. Forty-five years later, Kublai Khan ruled the Great Yuan. He did not live in the ruined old city, but on the beautiful island of Qionghua, where the Baita Mountain in Beihai is now located. There, there is a palace of the Jin Dynasty on a lake outside Kyoto, called Taining Palace.
After Kublai Khan settled in the Taining Palace, the first major thing he considered was the question of restoring the old city or building a new capital. At this time, two people played a key role, one was named Liu Bingzhong, and the other was Liu Bingzhong's student Guo Shoujing. Liu Bingzhong was a man of many talents, and his student Guo Shoujing was a genius who was proficient in astronomy, geography, and water conservancy. They suggested to Kublai Khan that a new capital be built. To build a new capital, first, the city should be re-planned and constructed, so as to be atmospheric and magnificent, and show the style of an emperor through the ages; Second, it is necessary to open up new water sources and waterways to solve the problem of water transportation. In all dynasties, the place where the imperial capital is located, the consumption of the court, and the supply of the people in the city are all inseparable from Caoyun. The grain collected from all over the country was transported to the capital by river transportation.
In order to solve the problem of water transportation, it is necessary to open up the original lake into a more abundant water source, or a river, which lays the foundation for the future development of Beijing. When the capital city of the Jin Dynasty was in the middle of the city, the rulers who had destroyed the Northern Song Empire were actually worried about the water resources of the central capital. They had wanted to use the water of the Yongding River (not called the Yongding River at that time) to flow through the city from west to east, flow into Tongzhou, and connect with the Grand Canal. However, the altitude of Tongzhou is 20 meters, the altitude of the capital is 50 meters, and the altitude of Sanjiadian is nearly 100 meters to the west. They have been exploited many times, but they have failed.
Guo Shoujing (1231-1316) was an astronomer, mathematician, water conservancy expert, and instrument maker of the Yuan Dynasty of China. (Image source: Internet)/
On the big stage of Beijing, which has repeatedly failed in the competition with water, Guo Shoujing appeared. He was an expert in investigation and research, and in the early days of the construction of the capital, he traveled all over Beijing, making precise measurements and searching for water sources. After careful investigation, it was found that in the southeast of Changping City, there is a spring, which is called "Baifu Spring", and the water volume is abundant. He decided to introduce water from the White Floating Spring into the capital. However, this water cannot be brought in directly, because the Shahe River and the Qing River are separated by it. The middle reaches of these two rivers are below 40 meters above sea level, and the direct diversion of water is equivalent to introducing the water of Baifu Spring into these two rivers, and the water cannot flow to Dadu. So, he decided to take a detour, first diverting the Baifu Spring water to the west, turning along the West Mountain to the southeast, and flowing into Kunming Lake. At that time, Kunming Lake was called Wengshanbo. Another channel was opened from Wengshanbo, north of Xizhimen, into Shichahai, so the water problem of Jingshi was solved. At that time, Shichahai, commonly known as "Haizi", had a much larger water surface than it does today.
In 1291, Guo Shoujing was responsible for the construction of the canal from Shichahai to Tongzhou, which took one year, and after completing all the projects, Kublai Khan named this river "Tonghui River". The opening of this river has developed the cause of transportation between the north and the south.
The opening of the Shichahai to the Tongzhou Canal, although the name is "Tonghui", but it is not Tonghui, and the river enters Shichahai through this river, and the toll is very expensive. Taking the transportation of bricks as an example, transporting 1 million bricks from Zhangjiawan in Tongzhou to Shichahai requires 15,000 taels of silver.
Matteo Ricci described the transportation of the Tonghui River in the 16th century in his Notes:
"Entering the imperial city via the canal, they brought in large quantities of timber, beams, columns, and slabs for the palace building...... Along the way, the priests saw huge rafts of beams tied together and boats laden with timber, which were pulled along the coast by thousands of people with great difficulty. Some of them can only walk five or six miles a day. Wooden rafts like these come from distant Sichuan province and sometimes take two or three years to reach the capital. Some of them were worth as much as 3,000 gold coins, and some of them were two miles long.
/The Forbidden City in Beijing, December 1987, was listed as a world cultural heritage (picture source: Internet)/
There is an architect in Denmark who wrote a book called "Cities and Construction", and the first chapter is about Beijing. The book begins with two sentences: "Has there ever been a more solemn and glorious precedent for completed urban planning than Beijing, the historic capital of China?" In the preface to the book, he also spoke highly of it: "The whole city of Beijing is one of the wonders of the world, its well-proportioned and clear layout, it is an excellent monument, the pinnacle of a great civilization." ”
It should be said that all this is due to Guo Shoujing. He found water for Beijing. He dug a river for Beijing. The trumpet of Cao Yun on the river and the busyness of Shichahai sounded the pots and pans of the Beijingers.
[b]
Shichahai was originally a relatively wide section of the Gaoliang River, and it was once the channel of the Yongding River in prehistoric times. Since the Ming Dynasty, the name of Jishuitan has been gradually replaced by Shichahai. The origin of the name Shichahai is not the same. As early as the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a temple called "Shichahai" in the Desheng Gate, which was prosperous for a long time. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Tong's "Imperial Scenery and Things" contains: "Beijing Master Fanyu, Moshcha Hairuo. "The implication is that the Dharma is like the sea. In the years that followed, the Tonghui River was blocked, and the Shichahai Temple was also abandoned. However, although the temple is destroyed, Haizi is still there, and the people of Beijing are very fond of the water scenery of Shichahai and are often happy to enjoy recreation.
/Shichahai scenery (picture source: network)/
I stroll on the shore of Shichahai, although there is no beginning of spring, the ancient capital is in the cold wind blowing, but because of the Spring Festival, the large and small facades around the coast of Shichahai, high and low people, the door are hung with bright red lanterns, pasted with the fiery red couplets, giving people a peculiar mixture of intoxicating style. The weeping willows, ancient acacia and evergreen pines and cypresses along the coast decorate the Shichahai in winter with a dense and dense atmosphere, and will never show the emptiness of the Shichahai because of the withering of leaves. The oblique sunset and the cold forest by the lake, under the influence of the sunset, give people a sense of antiquity and poetry.
The lake is covered in ice, and men, women and children skate on the lake, leaving behind strings of laughter. There was a young lady sitting on the plow, and her beloved puppy pulled the plow, walking among the ice skaters, and her red costume was like a fire flowing and burning on the jade ice, which was so beautiful that people could think about it.
Shichahai is divided into the front sea, the back sea, the name of these seas, mostly from the Yuan Dynasty, at that time, the Mongolian people have long been stuffed with the grassland, the water source is scarce, after entering the Central Plains, see the area of water larger, then called "sea", as contained in the "Chenyuan Knowledge": "The northerners who accumulate water, the eyes are the sea." However, the place where the water accumulates is not called the sea. "Jingshi Guishui Spring and honorific title: Liye, the sea; It is also the lake; Mu also, the river. That is to say, if there is a mile of water, it is called a sea, if there is an acre of water, it is called a lake, and if there is an acre of water, it is called a river. Although the Qianhai and Houhai of Shichahai are separated by the Silver Ingot Bridge, the area of the two water surfaces is still greater than one mile, so they are called "Qianhai" and "Houhai".
/Shichahai scenery (picture source network)/
From the late Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, due to the "broken flow" of Shichahai and the Grand Canal, it turned into a leisure place for cruise ships and painting boats. Since then, the coast of Shichahai has been slowly transformed into a place for nobles and literati to visit. Due to the proximity of the bell tower, Shichahai is a leisurely lake area, but still maintains the prosperity of the previous dynasty. There is not only commercial prosperity, but also garden holy water, cruise ship painting boat, a poetic pastoral scenery. For hundreds of years, those literati and scholars in Beijing who have some influence and face have also been willing to enjoy wine and write essays on the Shicha beach. As a result, restaurants and goulans have also developed rapidly. The most famous Dadu miscellaneous operas of the Yuan Dynasty were mainly active around Shichahai, where a group of famous miscellaneous dramatists gathered to be great husbands in spirit and penmanship. Historians believe that at that time, the socio-economic culture of the Yuan capital was almost entirely concentrated in the Shichahai area.
[c]
Let's take a look at the Qianhai of Shichahai first. In the south of the road along the north side of Qianhai, close to Qianhai, there is a hotel standing near the water, called "Shuaifu Restaurant", the building is antique, very elegant. Which dynasty and generation of marshals is here? Which marshal lives here? I asked pedestrians, neighboring residents, and diners at the restaurant, but none of them could answer. Later, a lobby manager disclosed a little information, he said, which dynasty and which generation of marshals lived here, the hotel really did not seriously read the historical classics, but after the establishment of the republic, because this building stands near the water, the scenery is beautiful, Zhu De and Marshal Nie Rongzhen often come here to play games and drink tea. This may be the origin of the name Shuaifu Restaurant.
/Beijing Diaoyutai State Guesthouse Lake view (picture source network)/
On the opposite side of the dining bed of Shuaifu is the No. 11 courtyard along the north edge of Qianhai. The gate of the small courtyard is closed, and when you look in through the door, you can see that although this small courtyard is not big, it is relatively neat. After careful questioning, I learned that this was originally the former residence of the famous writer Yu Dafu. Yu Dafu wrote a lot of beautiful prose in his life, but the only prose he really wrote from Beijing, or wrote about Beijing, was "Autumn in the Ancient Capital". I think, in this small courtyard back then, when he wrote for the text, how quiet his mood was, otherwise, how could the reed flowers of Taoran Pavilion, the willow shadow of Diaoyutai, the insect singing of Xishan, the night moon of Yuquan, and the bell of Tanzhe Temple pour into his pen? He said: "When you get up in the morning, make a bowl of strong tea, and sit down in the courtyard, you can also see the very high turquoise sky, and hear the sound of pigeons flying under the blue sky." From the bottom of the locust leaves, counting the rays of sunlight leaking from the east, or in the waist of the broken wall, you can naturally feel the autumn mood when you are still envying the blue flowers of morning glory like a trumpet. "This small courtyard, this locust tree, and this morning glory, aren't they all a scene and a thing on the shore of Shichahai? Indeed, the locust tree in Shichahai is also a kind of embellishment that can remind people of autumn. The stamens that resemble flowers but do not look like flowers will be spread all over the ground in the morning. When I stepped on my feet, there was no sound or smell, only a little bit of very fine and soft touch. This kind of scenery of Shichahai, this kind of quaintness, I think, even if it is not everyone like Yu Dafu, or a mediocre person of my generation, I have lived here for a long time, and I have a lot of taste, and I can naturally flow a lot of beautiful literature in my pen.
/Shichahai Huixian Hall Site (Image Source Network)/
Next door to Yu Dafu's former residence is the famous Huixian Hall in the past. It sits in the north and faces south, facing the surface of the foresea water, and its momentum is extraordinary. It was originally a large restaurant with carved beams and paintings. For many years, not only literati and scholars often came here, but also those princes and dignitaries of the Qing Dynasty. Pu Yi also recorded it in his "The First Half of My Life". Originally, there was a legend that Huixiantang was once the former residence of Jang Zhidong. After detailed inquiries by the author, this is not the case. Zhang Zhidong also lives in Shichahai, but not on the north shore of Qianhai, but on the south shore of Qianhai. In the past, the house was the public property of Zhili Province, and after Zhang Zhidong came to Beijing, he took it into his own. If this account is on his head at this time, he will also be sent to prison.
Although Huixian Hall has gone through the vicissitudes of life, its majestic scale is still the same. The interior used to be divided into dormitories by the Normal University and the China Conservatory of Music, but in recent years, driven by the economy, it has been rented to an individual owner to open a restaurant.
Stroll northeast along Banbian Street on the north shore of Qianhai and arrive at the Silver Ingot Bridge in a few moments. This silver ingot bridge is the boundary between Qianhai and Houhai, and it is also the first place to see the West Mountain in the water in the city, and it is called "Silver Ingot View Mountain", one of the eight views of Jintai. Deng Yunxiang, a close friend, wrote in his article "Walking on the Silver Ingot Bridge" has a delicate image description of the Silver Ingot Bridge: "Standing on the bridge head and looking northwest, the water surface of Houhai is getting wider and wider, and the more vast, at the pole of the water and the sky, there is a trace of the shadow of the West Mountain, sometimes there seems to be nothing, sometimes Qingming Juanxiu, sometimes paved with Xia pile of brocade. ”
/Beijing Shichahai Houhai scenery (picture source: network)/
After crossing the silver ingot bridge, the north of the bridge to the west, is the north shore of Houhai, where the former residence of Song Qingling is located; To the east, that is, along the river, it is also called "Yiluo Hutong". The alley is along the waterfront, turning east to south. Along the river, there are a number of snack bars, in order of belly bursting, Xiaolou Yang, and barbecue season. It is said that the belly burst is quite famous in Beijing. Xiaolou Yang is a teahouse, there is one upstairs and downstairs, downstairs to the north, drink tea upstairs, the south window is bright, you can see half of the east of Qianhai. The western part of Xiaolou is the barbecue season, and business is also the most prosperous. Most of the grilled meat slices are beef, and because they are selected, the grilled meat slices taste better than mutton. When you walk into a barbecue restaurant, there are very few people who drink beer, and most of the drinkers are old white gan, and there are very few people who eat rice and noodles, but most of them are baked cakes. The baked cakes are supplied by a baked cake shop in Lubei, and they are delivered while they are hot, and the grilled meat slices are sandwiched inside, which not only tastes the taste, but also eats the boldness of the Beijingers. Drink freely at the window, eat the cake violently, and then enjoy the charming scenery of Shichahai, which is not very enjoyable.
The small street adjacent to the river is the cigarette pouch diagonal street, this area became a market in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, during this period there is a shop specializing in tobacco pouches and snuff called "Shuangshengtai", it is a famous tobacco pouch shop in Beijing, and there is a large tobacco pouch in front of its store. The cigarette pouch is about 5 feet long, as thick as a tea bowl, coated with black lacquer, and the cigarette holder and pot are painted with copper. The smoke pot droops with red spikes, which is very conspicuous, and over time, people use the name of the cigarette pouch oblique street. Now on the left side of the diagonal street, there are small Naxi jewelry shops, next to the foreign flavor bar; On the right is the Guangfu Temple handed down from the Ming Dynasty, which has become a crowded dwelling; The roadside old Beijing unique "candy blowing man" attracts the curious eyes of foreign tourists; Trailing vendors and alley cart pullers enthusiastically sell postcards and pull business.
/Shichahai at night (picture source: Internet)/
When the sun sets, the red lights around Shichahai are lit up, and Shichahai under the red lights at night is another wonder, which is brilliant and hazy; It's distant, it's deep. Even if there are thousands of pens to depict it, it cannot write all the thousands of emotions it gives people. I walked gently from Houhai to Qianhai, with exotic songs coming from chic bars along the waterfront, and rickshaws from the hutongs ringing bells gently passing me from time to time. I walked gently, the slight night breeze blew from the frozen lake, and I felt a little cool, which seemed to remind me: you have to turn the pages of Shichahai's history with a cool mind, and every step will wake up a moving story.
/Group photo of the winners of the "Fan Changjiang Award" in Beijing Fifth from the right: Fan Susu, the son of Fan Changjiang, seventh from the right, Zhu Haiyan/
Introduction of Zhu Haiyan
Zhu Haiyan, a native of Lixin, Anhui Province, enlisted in the army in 1976 and served as a soldier, platoon commander, deputy instructor, and cultural officer of the division's Political Department in the Seventh Division of the Railway Corps.
In 1983, he was transferred to the "Railway Soldier" newspaper, and in February 1984, he was transferred to the "People's Railway" newspaper, and served as the reporter*, chief reporter, and chief reporter. In 1998, he served as editor-in-chief, president and editor-in-chief of China Railway Construction News, and a senior reporter. In March 2010, he was transferred to the Engineering Management Center of the Ministry of Railways as the deputy director at the bureau level, specializing in the writing of railway construction reports.
The winners of the 6th Fan Changjiang Journalism Award are the "four batches" of talents in the national propaganda system, leading figures in China's press and publishing circles, and senior experts directly controlled and contacted by the central government. He has won the China Journalism Award eight times, won the first and second prizes of provincial and ministerial news awards more than 90 times, and won the "Five One Project" award of the Central Propaganda Department for his long-form reportage "There is War in the North". He has published 40 collections of various works, with a total word count of 20 million words. He enjoys the allowance of the State Council and is a member of the Chinese Writers Association.
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