Tang Zhaoling is the joint burial mausoleum of Emperor Taizong li shimin of Tang Taizong and Empress Wende's Changsun clan, located on the main peak of Jiugao [zōng] Mountain in Yanxia Town, Liquan County, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province, and is a national AAA-level tourist attraction. Tang Zhaoling is 70 km from Xi'an.
Portrait of Li Shimin
Tang Zhao Mausoleum continued to be built for 107 years, it has a circumference of 60 kilometers, covers an area of 200 square kilometers, a total of more than 180 funerary tombs, is the Guanzhong "Tang Eighteen Tombs", but also the largest and largest number of funerary tombs in the Chinese imperial cemetery; it is a representative imperial mausoleum of the Tang Dynasty, known as "the world's famous mausoleum".
Portrait of the Tombs
Nine Ridges Mountain
Jiugao Mountain is abrupt, with an altitude of 1188 meters; it is located in the yin of the Jing River and the sun of the Wei River, across the Guanzhong Plain in the south, facing each other with the peaks of Taibai and Zhongnan; on the east and west sides, the layers of mountains are undulating, and the plains are stretched. Nine mountain beams are evenly distributed around the main peak, arched high. In ancient times, the small mountain beam was called The Mountain, hence the name Jiugao Mountain.
In the east and west rooms of the Zhaoling Altar, there are six floating statues of stone carved horses, which is the famous "Zhaoling Six Horses". Three on each side, all standing with their backs against the back cornice.
ZhaoLing Liujun
"Six Horses" refers to the six horses that Emperor Taizong of Tang traveled on by Li Shimin in the process of establishing the Tang Dynasty and unifying the whole country. Tang Taizong marched south to fight in the northern war on the occasion of the Sui and Tang dynasties, galloped across the battlefield, charged into the battlefield, and formed a deep affection with the warhorse. In November of the tenth year of Zhenguan (636), when he was building a Zhaoling Tomb for himself, he thought of the six warhorses with whom he had made many achievements in battle, and decided to carve the image of the six horses with bluestone, and personally "praised" it to show the majesty of the six horses and show off his martial arts. According to legend, Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered the painter Yan Liben to first paint the image of the "Six Juns", and then ordered the stone carver Yan Lide to carve them on the stone screen, and these horses were carved and placed in front of the east and west compartments of the north side of the Zhaoling Shrine, so people used to call them "Zhaoling Six Juns".
The six horses all have names, namely "Teller", "Qinghua", "Shivachi", "Salu Purple", "Fist Hair (Guā)", and "White Hoofed Wu". Among them, the two juns of "Salu Purple" and "Fist Hair" were stolen and transported to the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States in 1914, and the remaining four Juns are now in the Forest of Steles Museum in Xi'an.
Zhaoling Liujun was carved in the 10th year of Zhenguan, each 2.5 meters high and 3 meters wide, all of which were patterned on the bluestone plane, carving the half and details of the shape of the centaur, and making the high flesh protrude, called relief, also called "high flesh carving". The postures are different, the lines are simple and powerful, the mighty and majestic, and the shapes are vivid, showing the achievements of the tang dynasty carving art.
Why talk about these six juns?
Reason 1:
Tang Zhaoling Liujun stone carvings in terms of category, shape and theme, neither take the shape of the pre-life guard, nor use the meaning of auspicious rui and ward off evil spirits, unique, all stone carvings are realistic, extraordinary works of political significance.
Reason 2:
The Six Horse Stone Carvings of Tang Zhaoling were carved to commemorate six warhorses that accompanied Tang Taizong in his conquests.
Today we will talk in detail about the six jun: the fist and hair
"In the past, Emperor Taizong's fist was hairy, and in recent times, the Guo family lion flower." This is from the Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu's "Wei Irony Record Of The House Guan Cao General Painting Horse Map". Qian Qianyi's note: "The Chronicle of Chang'an: 'Emperor Taizong Liujun, carved in stone under the Zhaoling Tombs north of the Ming Dynasty. The Five Fists of Mao, Ping Liu Hei Min, when riding, there is Shi Zhenrong who draws arrows from himself, and tastes the nine arrows. "The Golden Stone Hammer": "Taizong Six horses, one of which is a fist and a hairy horse, and a yellow horse with a black beak." This shows the great fame of this horse.
Fist and fur
So why is it called a fist hairy mane?
Generally speaking, the horse's circumferential hair is curly, called whirlwind hair or fist hair, which means a black-billed yellow horse.
During the Sui and Tang dynasties, if the hair on a horse was rotated in a circle or looked unsightly, it was usually considered to be a manifestation of bad appearance. The fist-haired horse is a horse with whirling hair on its body, so it looks quite ugly.
In the Tang Dynasty, the phrase "you have a problem" was not used to curse people, but to see that the horse's hair did not grow well, it was said that the horse's hair was sick, this horse's hair was sick, and the word "faulty" came from here.
It is generally believed that if the horse has spin hair, it is ugly, but this horse is good at walking, hooves are big and fast, and it is not ugly, so it uses "fist hair" as the horse name to commend Tang Taizong for not counting the color of the hair, not being ugly, and being good at understanding the vision of the horse. Mr. Ge Chengyong believes that the Chinese language is called "Quan Yu Que Guo" in the "History of the North", and the pronunciation and transliteration in the Sui and Tang dynasties are very similar. It can be seen from this that the "Fist Hair" may be from the "Power in the Kingdom" or a good horse cultivated through artificial hybridization with the "Power in the Country" stallion.
Fist Mao Made a great contribution to Li Shimin in the Quelling Rebellion of the Early Tang Dynasty, and after the Battle of Wu Prison pass in the early Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan's father and son killed Dou Jiande. In addition, as soon as the Tang Dynasty controlled Hebei, it implemented high-pressure rule. Dou Jiande's original generals Fan Yuan and Gao Gaoxian had the purpose of revenge: they recommended Liu Heimin as their leader: to raise an army against the Tang in the Hebei region. They attacked the city and trapped the county, defeated the famous Tang Dynasty general Li Ji, and captured the brave And fierce Tang generals Xue Wanche and Xue Wanbei. In about half a year, most of the land that Dou Jiande originally occupied in Hebei was recovered. In December of the fourth year of WuDe, Li Shimin was once again ordered to go on a campaign. He used the method of breaking the wall and cutting off grain and building a weir, forcing Liu Heimin to lead 20,000 cavalry to cross the water south and fight a decisive battle with the Tang army. The battle was quite fierce, and Li Shimin's mount, the "Fist Hairy Horse", was hit by nine arrows (six arrows in the front and three arrows in the back), and died in front of the two armies.
In the stone carving of the Six Juns, Li Shimin's praise for it is: "The moon spirit presses the rim, and the heavenly donkey runs rampant." Lonely Arrow, Atmosphere Kouqing. ”
"Tang Jian beheaded the Duke of Sui, and the fist mao belonged to Emperor Taizong." Don't think the gold armor is heavy, and go to catch the drifting wind. This poem is from Li He's "Twenty-Three Poems of Ma", which is written about the fist and hair of one of the "Six Juns of Zhaoling". His former master Li Shimin was not only good at riding and shooting, but also knew and loved horses, especially the "Six Horses" who calmed the world with him when he was young. This attitude toward horses influenced almost the entire social customs of the Tang Dynasty.
Or no horse in the world can enjoy the glory and fame of these six Tang horses. Not even the thousands of pottery horses buried by Qin Shi Huang, china's first emperor, have left us with names and stories. The famous stone horse of the "Horse Hun" in front of the tomb of The Sick Man, as well as the horse images depicted on Egyptian or Greek monuments, are also famous, but they generally lack the personality of horses. Only the "Six Horses of Zhaoling" are very different - they are not only given heroic names, but also the stories about them are engraved on huge stones with life-rich images and praises, and they have been with their masters for more than a thousand years.
Unfortunately, this stone sculpture was also stolen and transported abroad, and now it is in the collection of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic of China, when a British minister brought back the shrunken rubbings of the "Zhaoling Liujun" to Britain, it caused a great shock in the West. Soon after, the six stone horses were moved from the tomb of Zhaoling, and two of them eventually arrived in the United States, which is far away from the ocean, and is still considered by many to be the most important Chinese stone carvings lost outside of China.
On the eve of Nixon's visit to China in 1972, he asked celebrities: What gift is best for China? At that time, Yang Zhenning, who was jumei, proposed to send the "two juns" back to reunite the "six juns". However, that wish has not been realized to this day.
This issue of the article ends here, tourism, photography, Xi'an travel photography, for you to explore the characteristics of tourist attractions, please pay attention to praise and support us!