Historical Witness: Mr. Li Houzhi's Archaeological Notes: Xing'an Twin Cities

Xing'an Twin Cities

Xing'an was called Jinzhou in ancient times, which is now the city of Ankang. Ankang has a new city and an old city, which is unique in the construction of many cities in Shaanxi and has extremely distinct regional characteristics.

According to the Chronicle of Ankang County, since the Song dynasty and the Yuan Dynasty and Tucheng, Ming Hongwu commanded Li Chen to start bricks in the fourth year (1371). Two hundred and fifty-three steps in one mile from east to west; three hundred and ten steps from north to south; twenty-eight steps around Saturday. Gate 5: East Chaoyang, South Ankang, Xiningyuan, North east Tongjin; north and west Linchuan. In the eleventh year of the Ming Dynasty (1583), the great water destroyed the city, and Liu Zhizhong, the Guannan Shoudao, rebuilt the new city under the Zhaotai Mountain, and the name of Yijin Prefecture was Xing'an Prefecture. Chongzhenjian (1628-11 l644) Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong peasant soldiers lined Hanshang, attacked the city strategically, you said that the new city was difficult to defend because of the South Mountain, Guannan Shoudao Zhang Jing adopted the will of the people, restored the old city, and the Ming Dynasty died before the completion of the work. Since then, Xing'an has had the theory of the new and old two cities.

In the fourth year of Qing Shunzhi (1647), Yang Zongzhen of Xing'an Zhizhou continued to repair the old city. Gate 4: "Renshou" in the east, "Xiangming" in the south, "Kangfu" in the west, and "Tongjin" in the north. Therefore, it was moved to the official office of the New City, and then moved back to the old city. Kangxi five years (l666) Baofeng Street (now Xiaobei Street) citizens, please open the Small North Gate directly to the Ankang Gate (Old Zhiyuan Note: Xiao North Gate is old and nameless, after the linchuan gate was abandoned, I don't know when to move the "Linchuan" stone to this gate, so I lost the old traces of the Linchuan Gate). Thirty-two years (1693) the Han River waters once again destroyed the city embankment, the city collapsed, the construction was not completed, forty-five years (1706) again sent a big flood, the city pool was restored, but the new city was rebuilt, and the office and the Temple of Literature were moved to the new city. In the first year of Jiaqing (1796), the White Lotus Sect revolted in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, and Xing'an became the source of peasant army activities. In the second year, Qin Cheng'en, the governor of Shaanxi, sat in Xing'an to "suppress bandits", and with the new city difficult to defend, he proposed to repair the north city (the old city), donated 5,000 taels of silver, and added from the old site of the fort in the northwest corner of Ningyuan Gate to the southwest corner, and then to the small south gate in the east.

In the third year of Jiaqing, Zhou Guangyu, a native of Shanxi, entered the prefect of Xing'an Province and got off the bus at the beginning, that is, the new and old two cities of the Zhou calendar. Seeing that the new city has few residents except for the officers and men guarding the main town of Xing'an, its prisons, money and grain are in the old city, the official office is in the old city, the city is moving, and the merchants and merchants are living in the old city. Ask the people, all settle the land and relocate. And on the verge of Jianghan, it is estimated that the collection and transfer are easy. The foundation of the old city was destroyed, and it was necessary to restore the old city. Someone advised him to join the Imperial Household Division, saying: "The funds of the imperial court are constant, and Xing'an already has a city in name, and if the government is a detailed court and a court to reach the ministry, it will not be able to do it." That is, when is the ministerial deliberator? What is the estimator's time? After tossing and turning for days and years, and getting rid of thieves (referring to the White Lotus Sect), how will it be solid"? The pawn does not ask for instructions.

In the autumn of that year, it was an initiative to survey the terrain and donate money to it, and the gentlemen and the people who practiced the land of Jas were enthusiastically engaged. However, at that time, the White Lotus Sect had not yet been pacified, and there was no Guo in Dongguan, so the city wall around Renshou Gate was not built, and the north because of the Huiyuan Causeway (now xiaobei gate to the flood control headquarters city embankment), the east because of the Changchun Causeway (now the East Causeway), and the south because of the White Dragon Causeway (now Xing'an East Road) were built as the city (present-day Dongguan) known as the "East City". The second gate of the western city: Bei'anlan (present-day Shuixi Gate) and the south Xing'an, the second gate of the eastern city: North Ying'en and Nanxingwen, merged the original city gate with a total of nine gates. Therefore, because the old embankment was a city, it was raised and thickly cultivated, from the northwest corner of the Ningyuan Gate, to the northeast corner of the Renshou Gate, and from the small south gate to the southeast corner of the Renshou Gate. Add battlements, install forts and the genus of the sea flood waterway, build enemy towers at each of the nine gates in the east, west, south and north, dig trenches one and five feet deep, two hundred and twenty wide, and the circumference of the city wall is 1,260 zhang as a moat, counting its expenses, with silver sixteen thousand odd, and the old view of the city is restored.

(Refer to the Chronicle of Jiaqing Ankang County and Zhou Guangyu's Reconstruction of the Old City Of Xing'an Province)

The Chronicle of Ankang County, Qingjiaqing, published a map of the old city