Fuchengmen

South Gate of Fenghuang ancient city

Fuchengmen

Fuchengmen (Mandarin: F ù ch é NGM é n, Beijing: F ǔ ch é NGM é n) is located in the middle of Xicheng District. In the Yuan Dynasty, pingzemen was located in the capital, and in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was one of the nine gates in the capital. In 1267, Kublai Khan, the emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, built a new city in the northeast of Jinzhong capital. In the 22nd year of the Yuan Dynasty, there were 11 gates, three in the west, three in the East and three in the south, two in the north and one in the middle of the West.

Fuchengmen is located in pingzemen street, which leads to the palace of Danei. On the north side of the street are xichengfang, futianfang, jiqingfang and dashengshou Wan'an Temple (now Miaoying Temple). On the south side of the street are jinchengfang, xianyifang and anfufang. In the Yuan Dynasty, it was the pingzemen gate, which was far away from the East and west of Chaoyang Gate. The coal carts of Mentougou Zhaitang in the west of Beijing mostly went in and out of this gate, so the merchants of the coal storehouse collected money and engraved a bunch of plum blossoms in the cave of Wengcheng gate. "Mei" and "coal" are homophonic. Whenever the north wind calls, the sky is white, and people around the oven praise: "Fucheng plum blossom reports warm spring.".

Fuchengmen, located on the south side of the western wall of the inner city of Beijing, was named "pingzemen" in the Yuan Dynasty. It was rebuilt and renamed "Fuchengmen" in the fourth year of Zhengtong in the Ming Dynasty (1439). It was the gateway to the west of Beijing. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties and for a long time afterwards, all the coal needed in the city was transported in.

Historical allusions

In 1369, Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty ordered the construction of the city gates, including pingzemen, and the moat suspension bridge. In the Ming Dynasty, Beijing city was built on the basis of Dadu City, and 11 gates were changed into 9 gates. The west wall of Beijing city was shortened by 2.5 km in the north and the gate was cancelled. The south end was extended by 1 km. The rest of Beijing City remained unchanged. Pingzemen also followed the old name. In the first year of the Ming Dynasty (1436), the imperial edict was issued to build nine gates in the inner city. By the end of the fourth year of the Ming Dynasty, pingzemen was renamed Fuchengmen, and each gate was built, including the tower, the gate, the arrow tower, the urn city and the urn city gate.

Fuchengmen and Chenglou are triple eaves and intermittent buildings with terraced pedestals, 35.1 meters high. The top of the pedestal is paved with city bricks and connected with the corridor on the top of the city wall. The planning of other arrow tower, Wengcheng and wengchengmen tower is similar to Xizhimen. The road in the city is also renamed Fuchengmen street, and there are patrol halls and other organizations on the south side of the street. The official road outside the city is an important road to the west mountain. In the Qing Dynasty, the regulation of Beijing city walls mostly followed the Ming Dynasty.

In 1787, the city gate and arrow tower were repaired on a large scale. Fuchengmen is an important channel for transporting coal from Mentougou to the city in Ming and Qing Dynasties, so it is called "coal gate". In the 1970s, when the subway around the city was built, the city buildings and the nearby city walls were demolished, and the moat was filled up as a road.

The origin of the name

Fuchengmen was called "pingzemen" in the Yuan Dynasty, and it was changed to Fuchengmen when nine gates were built in the inner city in the fourth year of Zhengtong in the Ming Dynasty (1439). The nine gates in the inner city are used for different purposes. Because the coal excavated from Mentougou and Zhaitang in the west of Beijing is transported to the city of Beijing, Fuchengmen is a must pass, so Fuchengmen is also called coal gate. It is said that there is a bunch of plum blossoms carved in the entrance of Fuchengmen urn because "Mei" and "Mei" are homophonic. There is also a saying in old Beijing that "Fucheng plum blossom reports warm spring".

After the founding of the people's Republic of China, Fuchengmen and the inner city walls were constantly demolished. Finally, due to the construction of the ring line subway, Fuchengmen and other old cities disappeared. In the 2002 action plan of Xicheng District to welcome the Olympic Games, the construction of "Shuncheng Park" was listed as a key project. With the theme of greening and old Beijing style, Shuncheng park is built on the east side of the second West Ring Road, from Fuxingmen in the south to Guanyuan intersection in the north, with a total length of 2.4 kilometers, an average width of nearly 30 meters, and a total green area of 6.64 hectares.

In Shuncheng Park, located in the northeast corner of Fuchengmen bridge on the second West Ring Road, there is a stone carving which describes the history of Fuchengmen, and a group of bronze carvings with camels pulling coal, which tells the story of Fuchengmen.

Cultural relics protection

"Fuchengmen" later evolved into a local film name, which generally refers to the area near Fuchengmen bridge, namely the South and North streets of Fuchengmen, the inner and outer streets of Fuchengmen. Fusuijing sub district office in the northeast, Fengsheng sub district office in the southeast and Fuwai sub district office in the West.

The South and North streets of Fuchengmen were originally located in the inner city wall and moat of Beijing. Fuchengmen South Street has a total length of 1065 meters and a lane width of 47 meters; Fuchengmen North Street has a total length of 900 meters and a lane width of 50 meters. Both streets are part of the West 2nd Ring Road. Miaoying temple and white pagoda on the north side of fuchengmennei street were built in the Yuan Dynasty. They are Tibetan Buddhist temples and national key cultural relics protection units. The reconstruction project of Shanmen and Zhonggulou was completed in 1998. Along the street, there are national key cultural relics protection units, such as the imperial temple and Guangji temple.

Surrounding scene

From Fuchengmen to jingshanqian street, there are many cultural relics on both sides of the road, which is called cultural relics tourism street in the north. Fuchengmenwai street was called Fuchengmenwai North Street in the Qing Dynasty. In the early 1950s, the road was straightened and changed to its current name. There are many institutions in the block, including Bank of China financial building, Wantong New World Mall, Sichuan building, Fuwai Cardiovascular Hospital of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China Encyclopedia press, Fuchengmen post and Telecommunications Bureau, Beijing Post Design Institute, Hualian Commercial Building, etc. The southeast is Beijing Financial Street. The traffic in the block is convenient. Fuchengmen bridge in the center is a cloverleaf interchange, which was completed and opened to traffic in 1977, connecting the South and North streets of Fuchengmen, and is an important part of the West Second Ring Road. Fuchengmen station is set up here.

Today, "Fuchengmen" has gradually evolved into an abstract place name like other city gates, generally referring to the vicinity of Fuchengmen bridge. Standing on the bridge and looking around, the road is full of traffic, and the roadside buildings built in various times are lined up, from narrow alleys to high-rise buildings. The difference in height and volume creates a strange sense of overlapping time and space.

"No one who is between heaven and earth remains unchanged." It is appropriate to use this definition to describe the changes in Fuchengmen area. The towers and walls that we will recall again and again in the following paragraphs have become illusory images. They stay on the film held up by the old man and accept our nostalgic eyes.

Today, the ancient Hutong, which remains in the corner of the original city wall, looks sparse and regular from the appearance, and the carving on the wall is extremely delicate. However, it is more and more thin and isolated against the backdrop of the high-rise buildings surrounding it. In the area of Fuchengmen, it has become a lonely goose. Around it, the tall buildings, including the two-story buildings built in the 1950s and 1960s, the "big roof" built for the so-called "recapturing the style of the ancient capital", the Bank of China building with complete westernization and simple lines, and the youngest new world commodity exchange market and Hualian Commercial Building, stand like a pair of heavy, short and fat people The two sides of Fuchengmen bridge face each other across the street.

Classical style

The dazzling architectural forms have permanently replaced the classical atmosphere with gates and walls as the core. In fact, a little observation shows that although there are differences between Chinese architecture, from the towering and tall city gate building to the plain and even a bit shabby residential buildings, they are all unitary. This highly unified unitary architectural culture is also the product of China's long and stable agricultural civilization and centralized rule, which is called "extremely special, extremely long-lived and extremely respectable" by Lin Huiyin Building system ".

But a hundred years ago, when the Western powers awakened the Oriental sleeping lion with guns, and before this self-contained ancient empire was fully prepared, foreign cultures poured in, and the original appearance of the unitary architectural system was gradually eroded, until it was reduced to today's memory fragments.

When we stand on the Fuchengmen bridge and look around, a sense of lack of center of gravity and disorder will arise. In the past, the glory of the great empire has become the vicissitudes of life, and the classical beauty that we miss is gone forever. The Yingluo wall was removed from the neck of the capital, but the ancient capital was not untied. Compared with the simplicity of the unitary world, today's land full of multi-cultural architecture really marks the direction of historical progress, but it is lost due to the rush on the road. Because it needs to move forward with both the old and the new at the same time, its pace seems to be a bit faltering - the chaotic and lack of overall aesthetic feeling of the street view is a reflection of this confusion, and also a reflection of this era - it is looking forward to the emergence of new landmark buildings comparable with the gate building.

Famous temples and ancient temples

The White Pagoda of Miaoying temple, located in the north of fuchengmennei street, was built in 1275, the eighth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1275). It was originally named Wan'an Temple of dashengshou. It was burned in the 28th year of Zhizheng, and was rebuilt in 1433, which was renamed Miaoying temple. Because there is a pagoda painted with chalk in the temple, it is commonly known as the White Pagoda Temple. Most of the buildings in the temple were built in the Qing Dynasty. Only the White Pagoda survived the fire. It is a relic of the Yuan Dynasty and has been built for more than 700 years.

The White Pagoda of Miaoying temple is a brick and stone structure, with a height of 50.9 meters. It is composed of the base, the body and the temple. The area of the base of the pagoda is 810 square meters; the body of the pagoda is a compound bowl; the brake seat of the pagoda brake is a xumizuo type, under which stands the thirteen phases wheel, which is the so-called "thirteen days". On the top of the "thirteen days", there is a huge canopy, with 36 pieces of huamantan with Buddha statues and Buddha characters hanging around it, and a wind chime attached below each; the top of the brake is a small copper gilded Lama tower.

Miaoying temple is composed of a temple and a pagoda. The temple includes a mountain gate, a bell tower and a drum tower

Chinese PinYin : Fu Cheng Men