Wan'an ancient city wall

Wan'an ancient city wall

Wan'an ancient city wall is located in Jiangxi Province. According to experts' research, in Jiangxi Province, Ganzhou City is the only one well preserved ancient city wall at the prefecture level. As an ancient city wall at the county level, only Wan'an county can preserve more than 1000 meters and more than two gates.

The ancient city wall of Wan'an, which was built in Song Dynasty, is more than 1000 meters long. The wall is thick and the gate is simple. It is close to Ganjiang River. Its superb architectural skills and immortal artistic value show the wisdom and strength of the ancient working people. It is a cultural relic protection unit at the provincial level.

Long history

Wan'an ancient city wall

Based on the long history of Wan'an county. According to historical records, as early as the first year of Baoda in the Southern Tang Dynasty (943), Wan'an County, located at the 18th beach in the middle reaches of the Ganjiang River, was established because of "the road is the most important, the throat is the most important, the river and lake are the most important, the land and water are the most dangerous, and the water transport is the most important". In the fourth year of Xining in the Northern Song Dynasty (1071), Wan'an county was newly established.

Seven years later, on the fifth day of the first year of Yuanfeng in Song Dynasty (1078), Zhu Junmin, the county magistrate, began to build the city. In the sixth year of Yuanfeng (1083), after Hu Tianmin took over the post of magistrate, the earth city wall of Wan'an was completed. In the 25th year of Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (1155), Zhao Chengzhi, the county magistrate, built more walls and gates. In the 19th year of Zhizheng reign of the Yuan Dynasty (1359), Peng Jiugao rebuilt the Earth City, extending the wall of Wan'an three li, one Zhang high and eight feet wide, with four gates. Four years later, Capt. Qian tangnu raised the wall by a third and increased its width by half. But these are all walls. As they stand by the Ganjiang River, it is difficult to hold back the floods over the years, so the walls often partially collapse, but if they collapse, they are rebuilt again.

By the end of the sixth year of Zhengde in Ming Dynasty (1511), sang Qiao, a native of Changshu, took over as magistrate of Wan'an. He was a man of achievement, and the next year he made up his mind to rebuild the city wall with bricks and stones. Following the example of Nanjing city wall and Ji'an city wall, he assigned the task of firing City bricks to all villages, unified the size and specifications, established the responsibility system, and strengthened the acceptance of bricks supplied by all places. At the same time, we invited capable people to survey and design, and organized craftsmen to work day and night. Finally, in a short time, we built the masonry Wan'an city wall by the Ganjiang River.

The Wan'an city wall, which sang Qiao majored in, is 714 feet long, 2 feet high and 950 crenels. The wall of the crenels is 1 feet wide, and the wall under the crenels is 1.5 feet wide. There are six gates, one in Southeast and one in North. They are named Weiyuan gate, biaozhong gate and Tongdu gate respectively. Because the west of Wan'an city faces Ganjiang River and the transportation of passengers and goods is busy, there are three gates in the west, South by West and North by west of Ganjiang River, which are named Guanlan gate, Wuyun gate and Furong gate respectively. So far, Wan'an city wall has gone through more than 400 years from earth wall to brick wall, which is the crystallization of wisdom and perseverance of ancient working people.

The city walls were repeatedly damaged by floods and wars

Although sang Qiao majored in Wan'an brick and stone city wall brick and stone solid, construction is also very precise. However, due to its proximity to the Ganjiang River, the city wall was often damaged by floods over the years. In addition, there were several major wars since then. According to historical records, the ancient city wall of Wan'an was repeatedly damaged.

According to the records of Wan'an county annals published by Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, the earth city wall of Wan'an collapsed during the Yuan Dynasty. The reason for this is that Qian tangnu, the commander in charge, did not consider the fact that Wan'an county was close to the river and there was a lot of water all the year round. He mechanically followed the practice of other places and dug a moat 2 li long and 1 Zhang deep outside the city. As a result, the flood of the Ganjiang River and the mountains and waters in the southeastern mountainous area caused the water in the moat to flood around the city wall, leading to the collapse of the city walls and buildings. After that, the Wan'an city wall collapsed many times because of the flood. According to historical records, there were four large-scale wall collapses in the Qing Dynasty.

On the one hand, the ferocious flood caused the collapse of the wall about 100 meters from the beach to Guanlan gate; on the other hand, because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom army had been fighting here for several years, several fierce battles with the Qing government officers and soldiers inside and outside the city, many walls were collapsed. The reconstruction of Wan'an city wall in the fourth year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty should be the largest since sangqiao built the brick wall.

During the period of the Republic of China, the great flood in Yimao (1915) endangered the wall of Wan'an, and the damaged wall could not be repaired.

Brick inscriptions in Ming and Qing Dynasties record a long history

There are nearly ten brick inscriptions of Ming and Qing Dynasties on the wall of Wan'an. Brick inscriptions record history. The most original standard green brick was fired in Zhengde of Ming Dynasty in the seventh year, with the length of 35-39 cm and the width of 18-20 cm. Due to the responsibility system, the bricks fired in each place are respectively engraved with the names of foremen and kiln households. In the middle is "Sang Qiao, the magistrate of Wan'an Tiao in the seventh year of Zhengde", but some are only printed with the words "Wan'an County, Ji'an Prefecture". It can be seen that the use of impression in each kiln is different. The size of Qing Dynasty brick is generally smaller than that of Ming Dynasty brick. The brick of the fourth year of Xianfeng should have been fired in one or two kilns, because it can be identified from the brick inscription.

In some brick inscriptions, it is found that there were some simplified variant characters such as "Liu" and "Xiao" in Zhengde period of Ming Dynasty, such as "Liu Tonghai" in many places. Nearly 20 characters should have been printed on the small brick, but Liu's traditional characters are so many that it is more difficult to carve and print, so the engraver used the simple "Liu" character. It can be seen that more than 490 years ago, the ancients were already using simple characters.

Furong gate blocked and reopened

To the north of zhengximen, there is another gate, called Furong gate, near Ganjiang River. Standing on the Furong gate, the reporter saw that the peaks of Furong mountain on the other side of the river are like a beautiful penholder. Geng Yanpeng said that when the Furong gate was first built, it meant to exaggerate the style of writing. There were many Jinshi and Juren in Wan'an in Ming Dynasty, and there were six Shangshu with surnames. However, in the third year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi in the Qing Dynasty (1664), Hu Shu, the magistrate of the county, blocked the lotus gate when he was repairing the city wall. This not only made it inconvenient for people to get in and out, but also blocked the style of writing in Wan'an.

Originally, when he was in Furong gate, he always felt the literati atmosphere of writing on the penholder. However, Huzhi County blocked the gate. People angrily questioned why he wanted to fight against Wan'an literati and deliberately damage their bright future. Huzhi County in the ninth year of Kangxi (1670) opened the brick soil, rebuilt the Furong gate, and wrote poems to make up for the mistakes. Huzhi County wrote nine poems in one breath. In addition to praising the eight sceneries of Wan'an, he also wrote a seven rhyme poem for the restoration of Furong gate.

present situation

Large scale reconstruction of the ancient city wall

After the founding of the people's Republic of China, the cadres and masses in Wan'an have always been very aware of the protection of the ancient city wall in Wan'an, and the voice is very high, and the local government also attaches great importance to it. In 1997, the county Party committee and the county government won a sum of money for the construction of Ganjiang River embankment. During the construction, not only the county protection dike was built with high quality, but also the riverside road was widened, and the ancient city wall Guanlan gate was rebuilt.

In early 2006, the Party committee and government of Wan'an county decided to spend 2 million yuan to repair the ancient city wall. This large-scale maintenance is based on the principle of "repair the old as the old", trying to restore the original historical appearance and reproduce the original style of the ancient city wall. The county invited well-known experts from inside and outside the province to provide guidance and formulate the restoration plan. The scheme pays attention to maintaining the original style, structure, material quality and technology, comprehensively repairing the internal and external walls, repairing the battlements, towers and gate holes, thoroughly cleaning the internal and external walls and surrounding environment, so that the old and dilapidated ancient city wall can wipe away the dirt and show the majestic appearance of the ancient city wall to the world again. The maintenance work was completed in late September 2006.

Address: No.35 Yanjiang Road, Wan'an County, Ji'an City

Longitude: 114.787977

Latitude: 26.453736

Chinese PinYin : Wan An Gu Cheng Qiang