You are the april day of the world

Chapter 37 Talking about several cultural relics buildings in Beijing (1)
Beijing is the city with the largest number of cultural relics in China—and even in the world.Many buildings in the city are either full of historical significance or of high artistic value.Now people all over the country love their capital, and these cultural relics and buildings are one of the lovely contents of this capital. Everyone has a strong interest in them and is eager to know more about them.

There are too many cultural relics in Beijing, many of which are famous but familiar to ordinary people, so I won’t talk about them here; now the author only discusses some famous ones that are relatively unnoticed, and those that are not famous in peacetime but have special historical and artistic value. Presented to arouse greater interest in the capital's many cultural relics.

There is another fact that deserves our attention, and the author also wants to tell you in this postscript.That is: the rich cultural relics and buildings of Beijing's past dynasties have never been systematically and comprehensively investigated by experts or academic groups; the cultural relics in Beijing are still waiting for us to develop like barren mountains and jungles.Regarding the historical evolution of many cultural relics, buildings and gardens, there is an extreme lack of reliable information such as actual measurement diagrams, photos, models and so on.

Before this kind of investigation and research work can be carried out effectively, the information about Beijing that we can know is extremely loose and insufficient. The author is not limited to the information, but also limited to my own lack of knowledge, so the cultural relics I can introduce are only scratches and half claws. I hope to throw bricks to attract jade, so as to urge many people who are familiar with Beijing to write what they know—to complement each other's understanding of Beijing.

The square in front of Tiananmen, and the system of the Thousand-step Corridor
Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the most important square for the Chinese people, was mainly used for the feudal emperors' annual sacrifices to heaven in the previous hundreds of years.

The "May 30th" Movement broke out in [-], and the Chinese people's revolution started here, which made this square a place where people gathered in political struggles.Thirty years later, on October [-]st, Chairman Mao Zedong, the great and wise leader of the Chinese people, proclaimed the founding of the People's Republic of China to the world on Tiananmen Tower, and this square became the most meaningful place in our capital.Tiananmen has become a symbol of the People's Republic of China and has become the theme of the national emblem. It shines light under the five stars to illuminate the whole world. It is also a symbol loved by the people of the whole country, and it will always be in people's eyes and hearts.

In this way, Tiananmen Square, which everyone is familiar with, respected and loved by everyone, does not need to be introduced again, but when we mention its shape and style and the origin of its formation, there are still some things that we can talk about cordially.We narrate its past, and we can also discuss its future directions for various additions and modifications.

The plane of this square is in the shape of a "D". In the middle of the "Ding" character horizontally, to the north is the grand Tiananmen Square with jagged towers and towers.The building is a large hall with nine bays in a row, with a yellow glazed tile roof with two eaves on the top, and Danying algae paintings under the eaves. This is a typical, beautiful and serious Chinese large building.The upper tile slope is in the form of the so-called "Xieshan build".That is to say, for the tile slopes on the left and right sides, the upper half uses a vertical "hanging mountain", and the lower half uses a slope, which meets the front and rear tile slopes at the inclined ridge.This method is different from the "Widian Ding" or "Si A Ding" on the four slopes at the front, back, left, and right of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The "Widian Ding" is more majestic, while the "Xieshan Ding" is more straight and graceful, with scattered postures.The Tiananmen Tower itself is strong and tall, unpretentious, and there are five gates in the middle, which originally had golden nails. In recent years, they have been opened all the year round, leading to the vestibule of the inner gate of the palace.

There are two East and West Chang'an Gates built of bricks at the left and right ends of the horizontal "D" in the square.

Each seat has three coupon gates, so people usually call them "Three East and West Gates".These two buildings are relics of the early Ming Dynasty.The proportions of the body are very beautiful, and the materials are simple and simple.Among the relics of the Ming Dynasty, there are often more permanent buildings made of pure bricks and decorated with colored glazed tiles. These two gates are extremely precious among the cultural relics of the Ming Dynasty in Beijing.Their body shapes should also have their artistic status in the world's classical architecture.These two gates are the same as the "Ding" at the end of the Zhonghua Gate (also built in the Ming Dynasty). They are the three entrances to the square, and they are also the two guards and outposts of Tiananmen Square, forming the "Ding" at each end. focus.

The venue is surrounded by red walls covered with yellow tiles and boardwalks covered with white stones.In addition, there are five white stone bridges and carved railings on the Yuhe River at the north end of the field. In front of the bridge are a pair of white stone lions and a pair of eight-meter-tall white stone dragons.These very simple embellishments make up such a great place.The color scheme of the venue is limited to red walls, yellow glazed tiles, off-white stone carvings and some trees along the walls.In this way, the simple basic colors of pure red, pure yellow, and pure white are used to set off the blue sky of Beijing, which just gives people an incomparable solemn impression.

Along the east and west walls inside the Zhonghua Gate, there were originally two rows of long corridors, roughly similar to the corridors in front of the Meridian Gate, but much longer.The official name of these two rows of corridors is "Thousand Step Corridor", which is a beautiful and neat annex building in front of the palace.These two thousand-step corridors were destroyed by the invading army of the Eight-Power Allied Forces in the year of Gengzi. They were rebuilt later, but the engineering was poor and they were demolished in the early years of the Republic of China, so only the two walls remain.If the conditions are ripe, when we organize the east and west sides of the square in the future, we may restore the Thousand Steps Gallery and build two beautiful long galleries for people to enjoy.Short-term changing exhibitions with cultural and educational significance can be arranged in the gallery.

How did this so-called thousand-step corridor come into being?Speaking of it, its origin and development are very interesting.It is indeed a late format and system of market construction. At first it was an embellishment between Miyagi and the market, a small "green area".After the Jin and Yuan Dynasties, they were stopped by the rulers into the side of the imperial palace and became part of the forbidden area in front of the palace, while keeping the people out of this area.

As far as we know, the two capitals of Han and Tang, Chang'an and Luoyang, did not have the shape of the Thousand Steps Corridor.But at least in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties cities, the commercial city corridors were very developed.The long corridor house is not only convenient for storing goods, but the front eaves can also shelter from wind and rain for pedestrians, so that shopping and selling activities can be facilitated.The development of the commercial corridor house is understandable, and its general application is due to its practical effect.So far, there are many place names that use the name of corridor to express the nature of the business district, such as Nanjing's Guyilang and so on.In fact, the habit of using corridors as a row of shops can still be seen everywhere in today's counties.

Before Bianliang (now Kaifeng) was not the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, Bianliang became an important hub of north-south east-west transportation and a prosperous commercial city because of the canal opened in the Sui Dynasty and the Bianhe River as its stream.The "grain and dendrobium department stores" in the south all enter Bian through the canal and can reach Chang'an, Luoyang.Therefore, it is called Xiongjun because "from the Jianghuai to Heluo, the boats and vehicles converge".

The center of the city was originally the county office of the Jiedushi. It was not until the Liang Dynasty of the Five Dynasties that Bianliang was changed to the accompanying capital that the palace was created.But this is not our point. The most important feature of Bianliang is that there are four waterways passing through the city, and there are many magnificent bridges on it. There are thirteen bridges on the Bianhe River, the largest waterway, and eleven bridges on the Caihe River. , so there was a special layout of the so-called "River Street Bridge City".Business is often concentrated in the bridgehead area.

The front gate of the Bianzhou County Office mentioned above is facing the largest bridge on the Bian River, commonly known as "Zhou Bridge".Of course, its bridge market is also the largest, and the two corridors on the front street of the county office may be this kind of bridge market.When Bianliang was the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, this section of the road was called "Royal Street", and the corridors on both sides were also called Royal Corridors, and people were forbidden to use it.According to "Tokyo Menghualu" records: The imperial street to the south of Xuandemen, the palace gate, is about [-] steps wide, with imperial corridors on both sides, where people in the city were supposed to buy and sell. Since Song Huizongzheng and the reign title, lawsuits have been banned.And set up black lacquer in front of it, two lines of Anzhu lacquer are in the middle of the road, the middle road is not passable by people and horses.Pedestrians are blocked outside Zhuzi, and there are two brick-built imperial ditches inside, lotus and lotus are planted, and peaches, plums, pears and apricots are planted near the shore, "the moon looks like embroidery in spring and summer".The passage from the commercial city corridor to the "royal corridor" is described here.From the point of view of the city's environment, the transformation of the original noisy commercial area into a well-repaired and beautiful landscape center roughly like a square cannot be regarded as a kind of municipal improvement.Moreover, the people can still walk freely outside Zhuzi, and the so-called Royal Street is not a completely forbidden area.When it comes to the Lantern Festival, it becomes even more lively, and it becomes a place for everyone to watch lights and entertain.

The "Royal Street" and "Royal Corridor" facing the Dazhou Bridge on the Bian River in front of the Xuande Building at the palace gate are obviously a feature of the Song Dynasty's deployment.Since then, historical facts have proved that such a magnificent arrangement was copied by the Jin and Yuan Dynasties, used in Beijing, and kept by the Ming and Qing Dynasties to become a custom.

(End of this chapter)