Chengxian Street in Beijing's Dongcheng Is the only street in Beijing with four arches, and since the Yuan Dynasty, it has been the place where Xinxin students have studied poetry and books. Today we are going to the Confucius Temple and the Guozijian.
A short walk along the tree-lined streets reveals a red wall with a stele of "Officials Waiting to Get Off The Horse" written in manchu, Han, Mongolian, Tibetan, Hui and Tortis scripts, marking the highest level here, and it should be noted that the stele was only found in front of the Forbidden City and the Temple of the Emperors of the Past Dynasties.
The Confucius Temple's Ancestral Gate Dou Arch indicates that this is a building built in the Yuan Dynasty. The Yuan Dynasty bucket arches were sparse and huge. In front of the door is a tall figure-eight glazed brick shadow wall. In Qufu, the Qianlong Emperor once wrote down the "Wall of Wanling Palace" to show respect for Confucius, and this shadow wall symbolizes the "wall of the Master." ”
Entering the Xianshi Gate, flanked by the famous Jinshi inscription, from the Yuan to the Qing Guangxu Thirty Years (1904), a total of 198 passes. The last row of the Jinshi Monument on the west side is the Three Links Jinshi Monument left over from the Yuan Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty Jinshi Monument was tall and heavy, and when it came to Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty, it still had royal courage, and when it was Guangxu, it was short and thin. The last person in Chinese history was Liu Chunlin in the 30th year of Guangxu, and the names of him and his brother Liu Chuntang were on the Monument of the Late Branch Jinshi, when the Qing government could not make ends meet, the Jinshi themselves raised money to erect this monument. However, I only found the names of Liu Chuntang and Shen Junru on the stele. On the east side, there is the imperial new Taixue Stele, and the green glazed tile roof is different from the yellow glazed tile roof of the entire Confucius Temple, which is the only Ming Dynasty imperial stele in the temple. The West Side Daoguang Pingding Return to Xinjiang to Tell Taixue Monument is the only merit worth telling in Daoguang's life. The Cypress Sang on the south side of the monument has a history of more than 700 years.
In front of the Dacheng Gate is a new statue of Confucius, in fact, there was originally a statue of Confucius here, which was moved to the courtyard behind the Dacheng Hall. The two Yuan Dynasty stone tablets have endured wind and rain and have been particularly vicissitudes. It was the Confucius Plus Monument and the Sealed Four Sons Stele carved during the Yuan Dynasty to the Shun Dynasty. In front of the Dacheng Gate, there are 10 stone drums imitating the Zhou Dynasty, and the original object is in the Palace Museum, which is one of the treasures of China's town and country. Unearthed during the Tang Dynasty, it was stored in the Fengxiang Confucian Temple in Shaanxi, and one of the "original stone drums" was lost to the people during the Northern Song Dynasty, and was once used as a whetstone. "National Treasure Archives" is even more about the upheaval and displacement of stone drums during the War of Resistance. Next to the stone drum is Zhang Zhao's cursive Han Yu's "Stone Drum Song", and the Qianlong Emperor naturally left the imperial pen. The bells and drums on both sides are used during the sacrifice of the hole, and the 24 halberds are the highest level of the ceremonial system, so the Dacheng Gate is also called the Halberd Gate. On both sides of the Dacheng Hall are stone tablets erected in the Qing Dynasty, and Kangxi Yongzheng has them. In his later years, Qianlong called himself a shiquan old man, so he could see the monuments of The Taixue who pacified Junggar, Liangjinchuan, and Qinghai. The stone well passed by is from the Ming Dynasty, Qianlong gave the name Yanshui Lake, Shijing water was once regarded as holy water by students, so that the well water research ink can be thought of springs, wonderful pen flowers, high school yuan. His Royal Highness Dacheng is famous for his adulterous cypress. Legend has it that one year the Jiajing Emperor of the Yan Song Dynasty worshipped Confucius, and under the tree, the branches were swept off the hat, as if the ancient tree could distinguish between loyalty and adultery.
The main hall of the Confucius Temple is the Dacheng Hall, with yellow glazed tiles and heavy eaves on the roof, nine beasts on the hanging ridge, three intersecting six bowls of prismatic windows, golden dragons and seal paintings. This is a building of the same level as the Taihe Hall of the Forbidden City. Outside the hall is the Kangxi Imperial Pen "WanshiShiShi Table". Inside the hall hangs a plaque written by the emperors of the Qing Dynasty. Qianlong is "with heaven and earth", which means that Confucius's learning and morality are supreme. The word for unification is "neutralization", which means the way of moderation to achieve harmony. Interestingly, hanging high in the middle is the handwriting of Li Yuanhong, president of the National Congress of the Republic of China, "Daoqia Datong", which means that following Confucianism can create an ideal world. The last emperor, Liu Chunlin, left a plaque with the same text at the Harbin Confucian Temple, which President Li Da should have borrowed directly. The main hall is filled with various musical instruments and ceremonial guards used in the altar. There is a musical instrument on the ground called 敔 (敔), which is tiger-shaped and has more than 20 pieces of wood on its back. When the ritual music ends, the pieces of wood on the back are scraped three times with a zhen (bamboo pipe lacquer) and the music ends. It can be seen in many hundreds of places. Here are not only confucius, but also the tablets of Yan Hui and others.
On the west side of the Dacheng Hall is the Thirteen Scriptures Room. In 2015, Mr. Mo Yan caused a storm for the inscription in the exhibition room, because in such a culturally rich place as the Confucius Temple, the inscription on the plaque of the "Qianlong Stone Classic" was actually written from left to right. The Confucius Temple officials finally had to remove the plaque. As seen today, the plaque has been remade and turned into the way the ancients wrote. Mr. Mo Yan was the first writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, and he can indeed leave a mark on the Confucius Temple. The Qianlong Stone Classic was written by Jiang Heng during the Kangxi Dynasty, which lasted twelve years and copied a total of thirteen poems, including the Four Books and Five Classics. Qianlong ordered Wang Jie, Liu Yong, and others to examine and engrave 630,000 words on one hundred and eighty-nine stone tablets, and after rubbing, they also gave copies to the ministers. If you look closely, you will find that the stele has the number of "Zuo Zhuan" and "Book of Rites" plus, which is the page number at the time of printing.
After leaving the Qianlong Stone Scripture Room, he entered the Guozi Prison. This is the regulation of the ancient left temple and right learning. Guozijian is equivalent to the highest institution of learning in the country, called Taixue or Guoxue. Guozijian was founded in the 24th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1287) because of the name of the Ming Dynasty Supervisory School. Guozijian is inseparable from China's fifth largest invention, the imperial examination system, is a government-run school for training and evaluating and selecting officials, since the Ming and Qing dynasties, educating students with Confucian classics and selecting talents with eight shares. The great corrupt officials and the emperor were cultivated by the Guozijian.
There are two stone tablets in front of the Taixue Gate, one is the "Ming Five Dynasties Upper Edict Monument" and the other is Qing Shunzhi's "Xiao Shi Sheng Ren Lying Monument". The Ming Dynasty's Shangzhi Stele is a famous vernacular stele with the strict requirements of emperor Ming Hongwu for guozijian. Look carefully at the text on the "raising pigs and cattle grinding noodles to wash wheat to make vinegar grinding tofu bean flour ... The thief cut the tendons... The discipline is not strict, a hundred sticks are beaten, and if they do not die, they will still be sent to Yunnan..." Zhu Yuanzhang seems to have a low level of education, but the edict is simple and clear. As a student, you must abide by the rules, and as a teacher, you must also be careful of your head. There is a rope hall on the side of Yilun Hall, which is used to beat the board to punish, such as the county grandfather's public hall, as long as the student makes a mistake, he will be punished at the same time.
Guo tai xue men are a tall glass archway modeled after the Chinese Pavilion archway at the 1900 Paris World Expo. There is a single-headed Ao's head held high above the archway, as if looking at the inscriptions of "Circular Bridge Jiaoze" and "Xuehai Festival View" above the archway. Qianlong lectured in Peiyong, which was painted with a heavy eaves with four corners and a pointed roof, a gilded treasure roof, yellow glazed tiles, golden dragons and seals. There are no columns in the hall, the four sides are transparent, and the dragon chair is golden and brilliant. In the middle of a circular pond, it resembles a jade bi, and is connected by a bridge, and the courtiers are bounded by water, and at most more than 3,000 people listen to the emperor's lectures. In fact, the main lecturer of Linyong Lectures is generally GuoziJian or Manchu Han University scholar, and the emperor writes questions and makes comments at the end. The content of the lecture was conveyed loudly by the official. In this way, Linyong's lectures are more like a ritual, reflecting the emperor's emphasis on learning. Peiyong was built during the Qianlong period, and the previous lectures were held in the Yilun Hall behind Peiyong. In front of the hall is the place where the invigilators take a big class by name. Now stands a statue of Confucius. There is also a sundial on the terrace. The six classes in the east and west are classrooms, and the invigilator has a six-year study system and a monthly examination quarterly examination. There are two days off every month, and 14 days are memorized. However, three buckets of rice are issued every month. One-tenth of the students came from Ryukyu and North Korea, so behind the Yilun Hall was the Ryukyu Hall, the division of international students, and it is recorded that they also took the imperial examination. Other students live in bungalows on both sides of Chengxian Street. In the late Qing Dynasty, the Eight Strands increasingly shackled the minds of the Chinese people, and Guangxu deeply resented it, and finally announced its abolition after personal conquest. Nevertheless, this way of selecting talents through examinations was later learned by the West. The Guozijian exhibition hall was opened, detailing the origin of the imperial examination and its impact on China over the past thousand years.
The Jinshui River in the Forbidden City is like a bow, the five bridges on the river represent the Confucian thought of "benevolence, righteousness, and wisdom", and the noon gate is unique to the emperor in addition to the empress's big marriage, only the three top three of the palace examination high school can walk out from this door, representing the emperor to govern the four sides. The Confucius Temple and the Guozijian are precisely the shadow of the emperor ruling the world outside the Forbidden City, respecting Kong Shangru, cultivating and selecting talents, making the imperial power more stable and the country more prosperous.