Tokyo City

The ruins of Tokyo City in the Northern Song Dynasty

synonym

Tokyo City (Tokyo city of Northern Song Dynasty) generally refers to the site of Tokyo city of Northern Song Dynasty

The capital site of Northern Song Dynasty in China is located in Kaifeng City and its surroundings. Tokyo city is also called Bianjing. It was first built in the third year of the late Zhou Xiande (956), and the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty was built many times since then. In history, it has suffered many wars. In September of the 15th year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty (1642), the city was destroyed by the Yellow River. Li Zicheng took advantage of the flood to capture Kaifeng. Since then, most of the old city has been deeply buried by sediment, only the outer city remains; in 1841, the Yellow River burst, and the outer city remains were silted up again. In 1981, Henan Institute of cultural relics and Kaifeng Museum jointly formed the Kaifeng song city archaeological team, which carried out many investigations, drilling and excavation, and initially revealed the appearance of the Dongjing city site.

In 1988, the State Council of the people's Republic of China announced that the site of Tokyo City in the Northern Song Dynasty was a national key cultural relic protection unit.

Brief introduction of the site

The site of Tokyo City in Northern Song Dynasty is a national key cultural relic protection unit, located in Kaifeng City, Henan Province. In 960 ad, Zhao Kuangyin established the Northern Song Dynasty. His capital, Kaifeng, was renamed Tokyo. It lasted 167 years. At its peak, Zhao Kuangyin had a population of about 1.5 million. He was the largest metropolis in China.

According to historical records, the outer city of Tokyo was built in 956 A.D., with a circumference of 50 Li and 165 steps. The wall is 4 Zhang high and 5 Zhang 9 FT wide, with 12 gates. The inner city (also known as que city) was built in the second year of Tang Jianzhong (781 A.D.) with a circumference of 20 Li and 155 steps. It has 10 gates and 2 water gates. From the third year of Jianlong to the fourth year of Qiande (962-966), Emperor Taizu of Song Dynasty rebuilt Kaifeng Imperial Palace, and successively built four halls, namely Daqing, Wende, Zichen and chuigong, chongwenyuan (Ming Tang), Liuge, Jingfu, guoshiyuan and Dutang.

The new imperial city is 1050 meters wide from east to west and 1090 meters long from north to south. The city wall was originally built of earth, but it was built of brick in 1012. Although it was rebuilt later, there was no significant change in the layout of the imperial city. In the third year of Zhenghe (1113), Emperor Huizong of the Song dynasty built a new Yanfu palace, and the scope of the imperial city was increased to nine miles and thirteen steps. In 1117, Genyue was built.

Documentation

After the fall of the Northern Song Dynasty, after the turmoil, Tokyo city suffered serious damage, especially in the Yuan Dynasty, in order to prevent the Han people from resisting, Kaifeng inner and outer cities were completely destroyed. Also because of the Yellow River repeatedly burst flood, sediment deposition, gradually submerged underground.

In the 1980s, after seven years of exploration and trial excavation, it was preliminarily proved that the city of Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty was shorter in the East and West, and longer in the South and North. From the inside to the outside, it was the Imperial City, the inner city, and the outer city. The outline, shape and scope of the outer city, as well as the location of some gates, were roughly consistent with the records of the Song Dynasty. The inner city was the most prosperous place at that time, where the government offices, temples and businesses were concentrated. The remnant width of the city wall is 8 to 15 meters. The south wall is 300 meters north of the south wall of the existing Ming and Qing cities, and the north wall is 500 meters north of Longting. The imperial city was silted up in the area of pan and Yanghu, with a circumference of nearly 2500 meters, which is basically consistent with the historical record of "the northwest of Danei Juque city and the five li of Zhouhui". On the central axis of the first half of the Imperial City, it is found that the building platform of Daqing hall, the main hall of song palace, which is about 6 meters in length, is 80 meters in width from east to west and more than 60 meters in width from north to south. Its location, scale, depth and unearthed relics are consistent with the literature records.

The Imperial Palace site is located under the Dragon Pavilion. It is in a north-south line with the ZhuQueMen gate in the inner city and the nanxunmen gate in the outer city. That is to say, the imperial street at that time basically corresponds to Zhongshan Road, the central axis that runs through the urban area of Kaifeng today.

The prosperity of Tokyo City in the Northern Song Dynasty was not only the political, economic and cultural center of the country, but also the convenience of waterway transportation. At that time, the water network was crisscross and boats gathered in the capital area. The rivers passing through Tokyo city were Cai River, Bian River, Wuzhang River and Jinshui River. There were 32 bridges on these rivers. In particular, the Bianhe River, which connects with the Yellow River, has millions of meters (stones) in Caojiang, Huaihe, Huzhou and Zhejiang, as well as its products in the southeast. It has many treasures, and it can't win. He also went down to the west mountain to lose the millet in the capital, to boost the Hebei struggle, and to support both inside and outside.

These rivers were silted and abandoned successively by the Yellow River. After excavation, it is found that the Bianhe river channel site is under the Houhe street in Kaifeng. The Yujie Street passes through the Zhouqiao bridge of Bianhe river. The bridge deck is 4.3 meters underground.

architectural composition

Three walls

A large number of archaeological explorations show that the city of Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty consists of three walls: the outer city, the inner city and the imperial city.

The outer city, also known as Xincheng and Luocheng, is the first barrier for Tokyo's military defense. The outer city was built on the basis of the Tokyo city built by Chai Rong of Zhou Shizong in the Later Zhou Dynasty. According to historical records, the circumference of the outer city is 50 Li and 165 steps, "its height is high, and it is strong and majestic.". Due to the war and flood in the past dynasties, the magnificent outer city in the past has been greatly damaged, and all of them are buried 2-8 meters underground. After years of archaeological exploration and excavation, the shape of the outer city, the outline, scope and the location of the main gates of Tokyo City in the Northern Song Dynasty have been basically clear. According to the actual measurement, the whole Waicheng site is a rectangle with a slightly longer length from north to South and a slightly shorter length from east to west. Its east wall is about the north-south line from Wenzhuang to Tieniu village, the south wall is about the East-West line from Kaifeng Pharmaceutical Factory to Guotun village, the West wall is about the north-south line from nanzhengmen village to Kaifeng forest farm, and the north wall is about the East-West line from dabeigang village to nanguanzhuang village Rice. During the Northern Song Dynasty, there were 14 gates and 7 Watergates in the outer city. At present, more than 10 gates have been found, such as Nanxun gate (located in the 16th Middle School of Kaifeng), Nanzheng gate (located in the north of Nanzheng Gate Village in the western suburb of Kaifeng), Wansheng gate (located near Tucheng village in the western suburb of Kaifeng), and most of them are Wengcheng gates with double straight or bent doors. In particular, the xinzhengmen site on the west wall, covering an area of nearly 20000 square meters, is extremely rare in the history of the development of ancient Chinese capitals.

archaeological excavation

Inner city, also known as inner city and old city, was built on the basis of bianzhou city in Tang Dynasty. Bianzhou city was built in 781 by Li Mian, the biansong Jiedu envoy stationed in Kaifeng at that time, with a circumference of 20 Li, 155 steps and 7 gates. The location, shape and some gate sites of the inner city have also been found out. The whole inner city is a little square. Its south wall is 300 meters north of the south wall of Kaifeng City, and its north wall is 500 meters East-West of Longting hall. The East and west walls are overlapped under the East and west walls of Kaifeng City. The total length of the four walls is about 11550 meters, which is basically consistent with the perimeter of bianzhou City recorded in the literature. Its area is slightly smaller than the existing Kaifeng city wall of Ming and Qing Dynasties. The number of city gates in the Northern Song Dynasty has increased to 10. According to the research, some of the city gates on the East and west walls of Kaifeng City are overlapped under the city gates on the East and west walls of Kaifeng City, such as song gate, Cao gate and Daliang gate.

Imperial City, also known as Imperial Palace, Imperial Palace, Imperial Palace, Imperial Palace and imperial palace, is the place where the emperor's chambers and palaces were located in the Northern Song Dynasty. After archaeological exploration and excavation, we have found out the general scope and shape of the song Imperial City, which is roughly located in the area of Panhu and Yanghu in front of today's Longting hall in Kaifeng. The actual measurement shows that the imperial city is a rectangle with a slightly shorter east-west and a slightly longer north-south. The total length of the four walls is about 2500 meters. There are six gates in the imperial city. Xuande gate is the main gate of the imperial palace. It is tall, majestic and majestic. Because it is a high gate building, it is also called Xuande building. In the mid-1980s, Kaifeng cultural relics and Archaeology team explored an early Gate site near Xinjiekou in Kaifeng today. After exploration and verification in the 1990s, the gate site is xuandemen site.

Four rivers

In the Northern Song Dynasty, the crisscross and crooked rivers of Tokyo also made this capital city with endless charm have the characteristics of Jiangnan Water Town.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, Tokyo was not only famous for its magnificent royal palaces, but also for its beautiful royal gardens. The crisscross and crooked rivers also made this capital city with endless charm have the characteristics of Jiangnan Water Town. At that time, Bianhe River, Caihe River, Jinshui River and Wuzhang River, which passed through the city, formed a huge water conservancy network near Tokyo City, which made the water conservancy transportation of the capital develop unprecedentedly, formed a favorable position of "the pivot of the world", and also greatly met the material supply of Tokyo city. Taizu Zhao Kuangyin once wittily compared Bianhe River, Caihe River and Wuzhanghe River to "three belts of Kyoto". Later generations call the luxurious Tokyo a metropolis of water and land, which is closely related to its convenient water transportation and the rich water resources brought by the four rivers.

Among the four rivers, the most famous one was Bian River, which crossed the eastern capital from east to west at that time. "It was the first to inherit the great river, and the rivers and lakes were channeled by water. It benefited all the South China Sea, half the world's wealth and taxes, and the department stores of mountains and rivers. I knew that it was the way to go forward." therefore, it was the most important thing for all rivers. After a lot of archaeological work, it has been found out that the section between the west water gate of Bianhe River in the outer city (near Tucheng village in the western suburb) and Guzhou bridge (in front of Sanmao times shopping plaza) is about 4000 meters. The river bottom is 12-14 meters deep and the river bed is more than 20 meters wide. At the same time, some important sites on the Bian River, such as dongshuimen, xishuimen, xijiaozimen and guzhouqiao, have been preliminarily explored.

Chinese PinYin : Dong Jing Cheng