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The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

author:Beijing Daily client

This year's weather is different from usual, with rain in the north and rain in some places like Jiangnan. Henan and Shanxi are even more devastated by torrential rains, which makes the people of the whole country feel sad.

In addition to causing damage to the personal and property safety of the local people, the disaster also poses a threat to cultural relics of immeasurable value. As we all know, the cultural relics resources of Henan and Shanxi are extremely rich, of which Shanxi has 452 national cultural relics protection units, ranking first in the country, and Henan has 357 national cultural relics protection units. In this disaster, some ancient buildings, including the ancient city wall of Pingyao, were affected.

The author went to Gongyi, Henan Province, to visit the Song Tombs, which have long been buried in the long river of history. In this torrential rain disaster, the flood disaster suffered by Gongyi was more serious, and the Song Mausoleum itself was intact, but some of the soil covered by the mausoleum was washed away, and some of the earth sites such as Mausoleum, Quetai and Milk Terrace suffered damage to varying degrees. The stone statues that have experienced thousands of years of wind and rain are safe and unscathed, but the ground near individual stone statues has collapsed, which is a safety hazard.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Song Ling walked the lion

The Song Tombs that have long been stolen and excavated

Looking at the Central Plains, outside the desolate smoke, many cities;

Think of that year, flowers shade willow protection, Fenglou Dragon Pavilion...

This is a poem by Yue Fei, a famous general of the Southern Song Dynasty, which expresses the grief of a generation of Haojie for the destruction of the country and the death of his family and his strong desire to restore the Central Plains. In history, there was no distinction between the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, but in order to distinguish between later generations, the Song Dynasty was divided into the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty. When the iron hooves of the Jin people set foot on the head of the city of Beijing, Emperor Huizong and Emperor Qinzong, along with their concubines, hundreds of officials, and countless treasure calligraphy and paintings, were plundered. Emperor Huizong of Song's ninth son, Emperor Qinzong of Song's younger brother Zhao Shuo, was proclaimed emperor at Yingtianfu in Nanjing (around present-day Shangqiu, Henan), and then made the capital Hangzhou (then called Lin'an) during a constant flight. This is the history of the transition from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Southern Song Dynasty, and since then the Southern Song Dynasty has had the desire to recover the rivers and mountains and look at the Central Plains in the stable south.

In 960, when Emperor Gong of Later Zhou was young and politically unstable, Zhao Kuangyin led a large army out of the city under the pretext of resisting the enemy, and when he marched to Chen Qiaoyi, Zhao Kuangyin instigated soldiers to launch a mutiny, known in history as the "Chen Qiao Mutiny". Subsequently, Zhao Kuangyin led his army back to Kaifeng, coerced Emperor Gong of Zhou to take the throne, changed the name of the country to "Song", and established the Song Dynasty with "Yellow Robe plus Body", with the capital of Kaifeng, known in history as "Northern Song". The rulers of the Northern Song Dynasty, after leading a generation of turmoil on the political stage of Chinese history, as Zhao Kuangyin said, "There is a regular period for shortening, and there is a number of life and death", and in the cycle of years, they finally came to their own destination.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty's "heavy literature and suppression of martial arts" created an unprecedented prosperity in literature, culture and science in that period, and a large number of cultural and scientific celebrities such as Su Shi, Ouyang Xiu, Sima Guang, Wang Anshi, and Shen Kuo emerged. Gunpowder, compass, movable type printing – three of the four great inventions of ancient China came from the Northern Song Dynasty. In particular, Sansu pushed the Song Ci to the peak, making "Yueyang Louji" a song for thousands of years, "Qingming on the River Map" made the Chinese people proud, the five famous porcelain made the world admire, and "Jiaozi" opened a precedent for the exchange of paper money. Therefore, the inexhaustible Northern Song Civilization has enlightened future generations and played a huge role in promoting social progress. The Song Tombs reflect the economic situation, culture and art, architectural style and folk customs of that time from another side, as if they were the backs of the Great Song Dynasty.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Yonghouling stone lion in the sea of rape flowers

The Northern Song Dynasty lasted 167 years, and now more than 1,000 years later, most of the buildings in Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, have long ceased to exist or are buried deep underground after thousands of years of vicissitudes, wars and flooding of the Yellow River. After the death of successive emperors, there were imperial tombs, and the Northern Song Dynasty was no exception. There were nine emperors in the Northern Song Dynasty, except for Hui and The Second Emperor of Qin, who were taken captive by Jin soldiers and died in the Five Kingdoms City, the remaining seven emperors and the father of the founding emperor Zhao Kuangyin, Zhao Hongyin, were all buried in Gongyi, Henan. Later, Jin Shizong ordered that Song Qinzong be buried in Gongluo Zhiyuan in the Song Mausoleum Area of Gongyi, Henan, and the Southern Song Dynasty issued a funeral for Qinzong, with a temple number and a temple number, and gave the mausoleum the title of Yongxian Tomb. As for Emperor Huizong of Song, after his death in the Jin Dynasty, the Jin people sent the coffin of Emperor Huizong of Song back to the Southern Song Dynasty after the peace conference in Shaoxing, and Emperor Gaozong of Song buried it in the Six Tombs of the Southern Song Dynasty in Shaoxing. In this way, Gongyi buried 8 emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty, plus the emperor's concubines and princes and grandsons, as well as Kou Zhun, Yang Liulang, Zhao Pu and other famous generals were also buried next to the imperial tomb, which concentrated nearly a thousand tombs of the imperial family of the Northern Song Dynasty, which is the largest imperial tomb area found in China so far.

The Song Tombs are concentrated in The area of Xicun Town, Zhitian Town, and Huiguo Town in Gongyi City, the structure of the tombs of each emperor is basically the same, the original appearance includes the mausoleum, there are sacred walls around the mausoleum, there are corner towers in the four corners, there are four sacred gates on all four sides of the sacred wall, there are a pair of stone lions outside the east, west and north god gates, there is Shinto outside the south gate, and both sides of the Shinto are lined with stone Weng Zhong, stone beasts, stone pillars, etc. However, after the Song Dynasty moved south, the Jin Dynasty and the pseudo-Qi regime it supported carried out excavations of the Song Tombs, destroying all the buildings on the tombs and looting the treasures inside the tombs.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Great General of the Song Tombs

Compared with the red wall yellow tiles, high eaves and teeth of the Ming Tombs, and golden splendor, the Song Tombs have rarely been mentioned, which is of course related to the poor protection and serious excavations in later generations. When the Manchu Qing entered the customs, under the banner of avenging the Ming Dynasty, it was used to highlight its "famous teachers" and the legitimacy of inheriting the rule of the Ming Dynasty. On the one hand, the Manchu Qing exterminated the descendants of the Ming Emperor, but on the other hand, they protected and repaired the Ming Tombs, and when they encountered major festivals, the Qing Emperor occasionally went to worship them. The Song Tombs did not have this treatment, after experiencing the Jin Dynasty and the later Yuan Dynasty, the Song Tombs had no royal mausoleum atmosphere.

At present, except for the Yongzhao Tomb in the urban area and the Yongding Mausoleum in Caizhuang, which have been developed into scenic spots, the remaining six tombs are in the fields. The thousand-year-old dynastic change and the rise and fall of the sun and the moon, the mausoleums exposed in the fields have truly witnessed all this, and they have long been integrated with the land of Gongyi and the people's livelihood. The hope of spring, the prosperity of midsummer, the withering after late autumn, the withering yellow of winter, the alternation of seasons under the baptism of time, the large wheat fields cover the once solemn Shinto, only the stone statues and trees that stand silently here, still watching the story of the country and the mountains.

Zhao Kuangyin set the site of the mausoleum with one arrow

The history books record that Zhao Kuangyin, the ancestor of the Song Dynasty, passed through Gongyi when he paid homage to his ancestors, and he saw the immortal green mountains in the distance and the leisurely flowing water nearby, which immediately triggered the thoughts of the present and the past, and could not help but sigh. Therefore, Zhao Kuangyin drew out a loud arrow, took a bow and shot it in the northwest direction, and the arrow flew straight to 400 meters away before falling. Zhao Kuangyin sighed and said to the chancellor, "Life is like a white colt crossing the gap, and there must be a place to return." Remember, where the arrow landed today is where I will rest a hundred years from now. After saying that, he took out his childhood favorite toy stone horse, ordered someone to bury it in the place where the arrow fell, and personally drew up a name, which was for the Yongchang Mausoleum.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Yongchang Mausoleum

It was this arrow that made almost the entire Northern Song Dynasty royal family rest here. Now the Yongchang Mausoleum is already barren and miserable. During the Northern Song Dynasty, it inherited the system of the Han and Tang Dynasties - the square was precious, the mausoleums were all triple square overlaid, the lower two floors were surrounded by bricks, the top was rammed earth, and the outside of the mausoleum was pink and gray. From the perspective of feng shui, is it really Zhao Kuangyin's archery site? The Northern Song Dynasty Emperor's Mausoleum has Song Mountain in the south and the Yellow River Luoshui in the north, so the thick landscape is surrounded, it can be seen that this area is a treasure of feng shui. In addition to the last three emperors of the Southern Song Dynasty, who were buried in The Baoshan Mountain of Wuyunmen in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, the other six tombs were arranged in a cross shape, and there was no Shinto stone carving, which showed that the Zhao royal family had always wanted to bury Gongyi, but the sky did not go according to people's wishes.

Zhao Kuangyin's father, Zhao Hongyin, was a high-ranking general in the Fifth Dynasty, and was buried in the southeast corner of Kaifeng after his death. In the first year of Jianlong, that is, the year when Zhao Kuangyin had just established the Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, who had become emperor, posthumously honored his father as Emperor Wuzhao, with the temple name "Song Xuanzong", and built a mausoleum for his parents in Gongyi. In 963, Zhao Kuangyin relocated his parents' mausoleum to Dengfeng Village, 40 miles southwest of Gong County, called Yong'an Mausoleum. More than 1,000 years of vicissitudes, now on the surface, in addition to the mausoleum, there is no surface building, but there is a stone pillar that most people tend to ignore, still standing on the Shinto, after thousands of years of wind and rain, still lonely guarding the mausoleum.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Stone pillar of Yong'an Mausoleum

Although the scale of the Yong'an Mausoleum is not large, it set a precedent for the imperial tombs of the Song Dynasty, and then the descendants of the Zhao clan who really became emperors during the Northern Song Dynasty basically built mausoleums around the Yong'an Mausoleum.

The Song tombs in Gongyi are relatively concentrated, not as vast as the imperial tombs of the Han and Tang dynasties, which is somewhat the same as the Southern Dynasty Qi Liang Emperor's mausoleums are concentrated in Danyang. The difference is that the tombs of the Han and Tang emperors were built before the emperor's death, while the Song tombs were mostly built within a few months after the emperor's death.

Time has plunged the stone carving into the dirt, but it has not stopped it from waiting for a thousand years. Walking into the Song Tombs to interpret, posterity seems to see the inheritance of the excellent cultural bloodline of the Chinese nation, and the Northern Song Dynasty Imperial Tombs are all buried with all the empresses and thousands of royal relatives and contemporary famous courtiers. The mausoleum covers a large area that is unique in the world today, and the layout and architectural style of the mausoleum are different from the mausoleums of other dynasties in history, and it is also an isolated case in the history of ancient Chinese tomb architecture. The Song Tomb adopts the system of burial, the concubines are buried outside the emperor's mausoleum, the same as the different caves, buried in the northwest corner of the emperor's mausoleum in turn, the establishment is the same as the imperial tomb, but the scale is small, meaning a generation of empress mothers in the world, so the single mausoleum to demonstrate strict.

The stone carvings of the Song Tombs are exquisite

Zhao Kuangyin's Yongchang Mausoleum is an archaeological site with countless secrets. Yongchang Mausoleum is located in Lingwa, Xicun Town, Gongyi City, with high terrain in the south and low in the north, surrounded by mountains on three sides.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Yongchang Mausoleum Archaeological Site

Yongchang Mausoleum created a model of the Imperial Tomb of the Great Song Dynasty, inheriting the Tang dynasty system and innovating otherwise, and its Shinto stone carvings are masterpieces of ancient carving history. Yongchang Mausoleum is a Song Dynasty imperial mausoleum with well-preserved ground remains, consisting of the Upper Palace, the Lower Palace, the Tomb of Empress Xiaozhang Song, the Tomb of Empress Zhanghuaipan and two funerary tombs. The original area of Yongchang Mausoleum area was about 4,000 acres, and the existing Yongchang Mausoleum Terrace sealing soil is in the shape of a bucket, with a bottom width of 60 meters from east to west, a length of 62 meters from north to south, and a residual height of 21 meters. The original building of the cemetery is now only preserved on rammed earth. In front of the mausoleum Shinto, a variety of stone elephants are symmetrically arranged, from south to north, 1 pair each of Huabiao, stone elephant and elephant tamer, Bird of Luck, and Horned End, 2 pairs of stone horses and horse control officers, stone tigers, and stone sheep, 3 pairs of "domain envoys", and 4 pairs of Wen and Wuchen. There are stone lions outside the four gates of the cemetery, samurai in the north of the stone lions in the south gate, and 1 pair of palace people in the south god gate and in front of the mausoleum.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Stone elephants

According to the "History of Song", the mausoleum of the Emperor of the Great Song Dynasty was in the shape of a three-layered bucket. More than twenty meters under the Lingtai sealing soil is built the "Imperial Hall", that is, the underground palace, built with green bricks or bluestone masonry, and the bricks and stones around the underground palace are carved into the form of the palace where the empress lived before her death, and the top of the underground palace is painted with a celestial map. In the center of the underground palace is the place where the emperor's coffin is hidden. The burial items include jade gui, swords, crowns, green clothes and various ming utensils.

In the wheat field, the stone statues of Yongchang Tomb are lined up. In the near distance are the control officers of the emperor's royal horses, and in the distance are stone statues and elephant trainers from exotic lands. In the vast field, the stone men of Shinto stand there alone, and not far away there are tall and magnificent rammed earth ruins as their background, they are like fields under their feet, desolate and distant. A peaceful-looking stone man, facing the posterity at close range, next to a docile stone elephant, placed the elephant and the elephant tamer in front of the emperor's mausoleum, out of the intention of stabilizing the country and the renewal of vientiane. The stone carvings of the Seven Emperors of the Northern Song Dynasty, starting from Zhao Kuangyin, are all lined up in a row in an empty and distant background, serene and quiet, and seem to know what time is.

Stuck with time and unable to be stripped away, there was a stone man in a crown on the Shinto path, half of the yellow earth was buried under his waist, his face was still a low-brow respectful expression, and his hands were in front of him, and the original intention of their carving should be to cross this long loess and pay homage to the king.

There are also vicious-looking stone beasts and mighty stone lions, which either struggle in the loess with their heads raised, or stand tall on the avenue. Rows of stone statues gather in this field, seemingly expressing their original intentions in silent body language, but who can go back against time and find the most delicious and lively era they guarded?

In terms of style, the Rui beast of the Song Tomb inherits the ostrich relief of the Tang Tomb and is enriched and developed, with horse faces, dragon bodies, eagle claws, phoenix tails, the background lined with mountains, and the small beasts echo in between. The most unique of the Stone Carvings of the Song Tombs is the beast of each imperial tomb, who are heroic and cool, showing the beauty of the dynamic. When the relief posture is changeable and densely interlaced, breaking the straightness of the monumental frame is more dynamic.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Song LingRui Beast

The envoys were also called "Jin Baoguan", and they held treasures such as jewelry, rhino horn, and coral in their hands as a gesture of tribute, symbolizing the historical background of the Song Dynasty's friendship with foreign countries and showing the powerful national prestige of the Song Dynasty. In addition to the Song Tomb stone statue is its unique beast, but also need to pay attention to the "guest envoy" this image of the stone man, each mausoleum Shinto has a guest envoy, reflecting the development of foreign trade in the Song Dynasty, both persian shape, but also Southeast Asian shape, the Western Regions of the Song Dynasty were occupied by the Western Xia, Tubo and Dali, the Maritime Silk Road became the main channel of foreign trade, but also an important channel for the imperial family to obtain luxury goods.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Envoy of YongyuLing

Each imperial tomb has its own characteristics

The owner of the Yongxi Tomb was Zhao Guangyi, the second emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty, and his mausoleum was not far from Zhao Kuangyin's Yongchang Mausoleum, which was the largest imperial tomb in the Song Tombs. The stone sheep of Yongxi Tomb are more famous, and there is such a sentence in Gongyi that summarizes the fine characteristics of the stone carvings of the Northern Song Dynasty mausoleum. The so-called Tanglin lion Xiling elephant, a good stone sheep on the Tuotuo Tomb. The Tuotuo Tomb mentioned here is the Yongxi Tomb. The stone sheep of Yongxi Mausoleum is the most full and evocative portrayal of the image of the sheep in the Chinese mausoleum sculptures. The stone sheep is tall, with a rich and natural expression, or with its head held high to the sky, or bowed its head and silent, with a changeable posture and a lifelike carving.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Stone sheep of Yongxi Mausoleum

Zhao Heng was the third emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty, he was diligent in politics at the beginning of his reign, sympathetic to the people's feelings, but his character was cowardly, in the autumn of 1004 AD, Empress Xiao of liao and Emperor Shengzong of Liao personally led a large army south into the territory of the Song kingdom, Zhao Heng's first reaction was to flee south, under the persuasion of the prime minister Kou Zhun and others, he went to Liaozhou to supervise the battle, and signed the famous "Alliance of Liaoyuan" in history.

After Zhao Heng's death, he was buried in the Yongding Mausoleum. The stone statues of Yongding Tomb still belong to the early Song Dynasty, when the Northern Song Dynasty was in the ascendant period, the stone statues were also plump, the same as other Northern Song Emperors' Mausoleums in Gongyi, shinto including pillars, stone horses, guest envoys, civil servants, military generals, etc., and its mausoleum area was the only paid scenic spot in the Northern Song Emperor's Mausoleum, and the two empress mausoleums were placed side by side behind the Zhenzong Mausoleum. It is commendable to Empress Liu, who came from a humble but legendary life, and was deeply loved by Zhao Heng when he was not on the throne, and Zhao Heng wanted to make Liu E empress after succeeding to the throne, but was opposed by the ministers. After the death of Emperor Zhenzong, the thirteen-year-old Song Renzong succeeded to the throne, Liu E listened to the government for eleven years, she held the military and political power, until after the death of Song Renzong was able to pro-government, after Liu E's death, Renzong did not know his own lineage, which posthumously sealed and reburied his birth mother, this history was evolved into a well-known "Tanuki cat for prince" story.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Stone statue of Empress Liu's mausoleum

A "Qing Ping Le" set in the Northern Song Dynasty uses delicate brushstrokes to outline the economic prosperity and prosperity of the Renzong era. The state-owned city is in all directions; the city has a king, and the benevolence is long. Zhao Zhen, Emperor Renzong of Song, was the fourth emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty and the longest-reigning emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty.

Song Renzong is the set scene in many poems - from "Bao Qingtian" and "Seven Heroes and Five Righteousness" to countless ancient Texts of Song Ci that have been memorized and written silently, his mediocre life seems inconspicuous, and even any of the courtiers under his rule are more famous than him, behind such a seemingly good old man, it is undeniable that it is a good era. Six of the eight great masters of the Tang and Song dynasties appeared in the Renzong dynasty; the world's first paper money was born in the Renzong dynasty; three of the four major inventions appeared or began to be applied to the Renzong dynasty... Humanities, finance, and science and technology, the three soft powers that modern people attach the most importance to, are so fond of the Renzong dynasty, and those glorious giants have been completely gathered in his 42 years of reign, making the period that seems to lack major events so desirable!

Renzong's "Ren" inadvertently protected him after his death. When the Jin army occupied the Central Plains and excavated the Song Tombs, all the other tombs were destroyed, except for Emperor Renzong's Tomb area of Zhaoyu, Cao Hou Mausoleum, and the Lower Palace, which are still intact. Nowadays, the mausoleum of Emperor Renzong has been renovated, becoming a good place for citizens to relax and exercise, during the day the surrounding traffic is busy, at night the citizens cool entertainment, only in the middle of the night, Zhaoling will end the noisy day.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Yongzhao Mausoleum of Emperor Renzong of Song

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Yongzhao Tomb stone carvings

Zhao Shu was the fifth emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty, only 4 years as emperor, died of illness at the age of 36, and his mausoleum was a very inconspicuous one in the Northern Song Dynasty's imperial tomb, and his tomb was collapsed, full of robbery caves, which was obviously the traces left after the tomb robbery. In the historical records of the Southern Song Dynasty, it has been mentioned that the envoys of the Southern Song Dynasty sent envoys to the Jin Dynasty and passed by the Yonghou Tomb, and clearly mentioned that the lower palace of the Yonghou Tomb was burned, and it was only more than ten years after the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty. Yonghou Tomb is the most detailed record of the funeral of the Emperor of the Song Dynasty in the historical data, the Northern Song Dynasty has an official named Li You, he has a very detailed description of the Underground Palace and funerary products of yonghou Tomb, for example, he mentioned that Yonghou Tomb is a two-story stone underground palace, buried with various artifacts and some antique books that Emperor Yingzong loved before his death. Li You wrote a large number of details of Yonghouling into his notebook "Facts of the Song Dynasty", which became an important material for later generations to study the historical facts of the middle and late Northern Song Dynasty, and also provided first-hand detailed information for tomb robbers.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Yonghou Tomb stone carvings

The owner of YongyuLing was Emperor Shenzong Zhao, who reigned for 18 years, he was the sixth emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty and the chief designer of Wang Anshi's transformation method. The stone statues of Yongyu Tomb have always been highly praised, so they are also a cemetery that has been seriously stolen, and many of the stone statues have lost their heads. In the late Song Dynasty, the stone statues no longer had the early grandeur, and turned to more delicate and introverted, such as the Yongyu Tomb stone statue, the elephant trunk is much more pleasing than the elephant trunk carved in the early mausoleum stone, and the pattern of the elephant saddle is also different. In the late Northern Song Dynasty, the stone people's figure became more and more slender, showing the temperament of weak scholars, some people say that this is a sign of the decline of the Song Dynasty, I think it may be the literati ruling the country, the habits of scholars have been deeply rooted in the performance.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Is the slender stone man of Yongyuling a portrayal of the Northern Song Dynasty's Chongwen and martial arts?

Generations of dynasties fell into the fields

The owner of the Yongtai Tomb was Zhao Xi of Zhezong, and during the Zhao Xi dynasty, the gap between the old and new parties was deep and could not be resolved. Zhao Xi passed the throne to Emperor Huizong of Song, Zhao Tuo, who was obsessed with collecting the world's strange stones, and the "Huashi Gang" led to a peasant uprising.

Choosing to watch the sunset at YongtaiLing is to truly see the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the sunset falls on the side of the mountain behind the field, and under the reflection of the last afterglow, the cooking smoke rises. After fading the cloak of prosperity, what we suddenly see is the back and end of a fading dynasty.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Yongtailing stone people and peasants in labor

In terms of stone carving characteristics, Yongtai Tomb is the last tomb officially completed in gongyi Song Mausoleum, in the case of the mausoleum structure and stone carving modeling have matured, craftsmen will focus on weaving more complex patterns, which also makes the stone elephant and Shangma stone of Yongtai Tomb known as the fine works in the details of Song Tomb stone carving.

The stone statues in the fields of Gongyi are born, leaving the last back of the Northern Song Dynasty

Yongtai Mausoleum on the horse stone

The Han and Tang dynasties were famous for their martial arts and culture, while the Song Dynasty was known for its economy and culture. The land area of the Northern Song Dynasty is not large, the military strength is not strong, and it is often at a disadvantage in foreign wars, if the peak period of China's ancient national strength is certainly not the Tang Dynasty; but the peak period of China's ancient economy and culture is not the Northern Song Dynasty.

The Northern Song Dynasty created an ancient Chinese economic miracle with very little land, attached importance to commercial development, and attached importance to overseas trade. During the Song Dynasty, the Maritime Silk Road was extremely prosperous, and although the land area was small, the fiscal revenue far exceeded that of the Tang Dynasty. Although the government of the Song Dynasty was poor and weak, the people of the Song Dynasty were rich and truly hid the rich from the people. In literary works can also reflect the prosperity of the Song Dynasty, Wu Dalang should be the lowest citizen of the Northern Song Dynasty, he lives on the only cause of life is to sell baked cakes, but only by selling baked cakes can have a set of street facade houses in the county town, raise a full-time wife and a maid, which can see the economic prosperity of the Song Dynasty.

The excellent feng shui of the Gongyi Imperial Tomb did not protect the Qianqiu Emperor of the Great Song Dynasty, and there was birth and destruction, and thousands of generations could only exist in the ideal realm. Just like these stone carvings in front of them a thousand years later, they stand in the long river of history, have experienced countless winds and rains, witnessed the rise and fall of dynasties, and experienced various honors and disgraces. These thousand-year-old stone statues not only witness the change of time, the rise and fall of dynasties, but also remember too many of the most ordinary laborers and countless beings in the war, no matter how the dynasty ends, the artistic value it leaves to future generations always makes us look back with the softest mind.

From the City of Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty to the Lin'an Province in the Southern Song Dynasty, I saw the people surrounded by hanzi who were loyal to the country, cleaning up the rivers and mountains in the midst of blood, tears and anger. There is also the lament of Fan Zhongyan on the upper floor of Yueyang, the sigh of Zero Ding Yang LiWen Tianxiang,etc., so that the theme song of the Song Dynasty always gallops around between heaven and earth. Perhaps I also wanted to live in the ancient times when the war horses were roaring and the killing noise was noisy, which was a feeling that could not be erased at any time, like the mist that rose every day, and the light of the sun shone in calmness.

Ten thousand fireworks, carved a moment of the Northern Song Dynasty, those once glory and glory have become history, the clouds of smoke flashed in the eyes of the Song people, how many sorrows and tears, how many terrifying waves of the past, just like this with the clouds and smoke gathered and dispersed, never appeared. However, there is the back of the imperial tomb of the Northern Song Dynasty, waiting for the imprint of a thousand years ago, and the wind and snow moon in winter, summer and summer every year.

(The picture in this article is Lianlian photography)

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