Anxi Palace

Anxi Palace

Kaicheng Town, Yuanzhou District, Guyuan City, Ningxia, on the eastern foot of Liupan, is a piece of loess land jointly managed by Genghis Khan, mengge Xianzong and Kublai Khan. It is also the location of Anxi palace.

Unfortunately, these buildings were destroyed in an earthquake. In August 1306, Ren Yin, the tenth year of Dade, said, "the Kaicheng earthquake destroyed the Royal Palace and the houses of the officials and the people, and killed more than 5000 people, so the princess of Qin also lived in the city.".

brief introduction

Anxi palace the building scale of Anxi palace is very grand. When archaeologists inspected the Kaicheng site, there were also exposed fragments of yellow, green and white glazed buildings on the surface, especially green glazed and yellow glazed tiles, and yellow glazed round tiles with dragon pattern. In China's feudal society, the dragon is the symbol of the emperor, only the emperor's palace can be decorated with yellow glazed tiles and dragon graphics. This shows that there were palace buildings here. The palace and storehouse of Xi'an Palace are luxurious and magnificent, and there are gardens, fish ponds and other places for King Anxi and his concubines to visit.

Anxi palace covers a large area. Gu Yanwu, a scholar of Qing Dynasty, explained in Zhaoyu annals that "Anxi Palace" is 20 Li northeast of Fucheng. The emperor of the Yuan Dynasty took Zaman ala as the king of Anxi, and established his residence in Jingzhao, a place of Qin, long, Shu and Liang. Zhicheng, now commonly known as the "good ears", the site still exists. "Zhicheng" immediately refers to the construction of Wangfu city for Anxi, and it may be built according to the current "city" standard. Chen Ziyi, a native of the Republic of China, also called it "a palace on that day, including Bao Bingwei, which was a palace city". Around 1940, Chen Yunlu, a special member of the Preparatory Committee for Xijing, wrote in the Xijing planning that the palace of the Western King of Yuan'an "walls and foundations exist, and its circumference is about four Li.".

Ananda, king of Anxi

After the chaos of hunduhai, Kublai Khan, the emperor of Yuan Dynasty, controlled Ningxia. He attached great importance to the Liupanshan area, which is located in the Western military center. In order to consolidate the northwest border defense, he granted his third son mangola the title of Anxi king in October 1272. He left the town of Chang'an and granted Jingzhao the title of fief to garrison Liupanshan. In the following year, mangola was granted the title of king of Qin, and the king's residence was built in Kaicheng (now Kaicheng Town, Yuanzhou District, Guyuan City). In the 17th year of Zhiyuan (1280), mangola died, and his son Ananda inherited his father's seal.

In the later period of Kublai Khan's reign, because he regretted the death of his son mangola, he transferred his love for his son to Ananda, his grandson. He granted Ananda money, property, army and people many times, which greatly increased his power. After yuan Chengzong ascended the throne, Ananda, in order to expand his strength, often asked the imperial court for food, money and weapons on the pretext of starving people. In the first year of Chengzong Yuanzhen (1295), the court granted Anxi King 200000 pieces of banknotes and 158000 pieces of armor, bows and arrows. The next year, Ananda sent an emissary to complain about hunger, which forced Chengzong to complain, and then he gave food to Wanshi. According to historical records, Ananda asked the imperial court for money, food and goods in May and August of the seventh year of Chengzong Dade and February and August of the tenth year of Dade, and he never returned empty handed. In addition, Ananda also asked the imperial court to allow him to set up a prime minister in Anxi palace to manage the local administrative affairs. Since then, the military and political power in the northwest region has been controlled by Ananda. Ananda's ruling area has reached Sichuan in the south, Tubo in the west, and halahuo Prefecture in the Northwest (now the south of Urumqi in Xinjiang), including the whole area of Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu, northern Sichuan and Eastern Xinjiang. Ananda seems to be a feudal official, a veritable king of the northwest.

Mongolian tribes originally believed in primitive religion Shamanism. At the beginning of the 13th century, after Genghis Khan unified all the tribes of Mongolia and established the Mongolian Empire, it expanded everywhere, and Mongolian rulers began to contact Buddhism, mainly Zen in the Han area of the Central Plains. During the period of mengge Khan, the Buddhist forces in the Central Plains recovered and developed from the heavy blow suffered at the end of Jin Dynasty. Around this time, the influence of Tibetan Buddhism began to infiltrate into the Mongolian court. In the first year of Zhongtong (1260), Kublai Khan appointed basiba, the leader of the saga sect of Lamaism, as the national teacher. In the seventh year of the Yuan Dynasty (1270), Kublai Khan appointed him as the imperial teacher. From then on to the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the yuan court took Tibetan monks as their imperial teachers. Since Kublai Khan converted to Buddhism in the first year of the Zhiyuan Dynasty (1264), worshiping Lamaism has become a fashion of the court officials.

In this religious context, Ananda, the grandson of Kublai Khan, converted to Islam instead of Tibetan Buddhism. Why? It is said that after Ananda was born, his father, Wang mangola, Anxi, worried that he would not grow up, so he entrusted him to a Turkistan Islamist named miriter Hasan alithachi. This man's wife was named zulaiha, who brought him up. Therefore, his belief in musuman (Islam was called musuman in Yuan Dynasty) has been consolidated and unshakable in his heart. He recited the Koran and wrote it well in Arabic. He used to spend a lot of time on commandments and prayers.

As Ananda was very devout in Islam and spread Islam in tangwuti (Xixia), most of his 150000 Mongolian troops converted to Islam. Ananda converted to Islam and was regarded as rebellious by Mongolian nobles who believed in Tibetan Buddhism. "Ananda was often in church, engaged in prayer and recitation of the Koran. He circumcised most of the Mongolian children and converted most of the Mongolian army to Islam," he said Yuan Chengzong was very angry and sent people to persuade and stop Ananda, forcing him to convert to Buddhism. Ananda flatly refused, he said: "idols are man-made, why should I worship them?" Ananda set off a wave of anti Buddhism in his territory, smashing idols and destroying temples, and firmly expressed that he wanted to "join the religion of Allah in groups" (Note: the basic tenet of Islam is to believe that Allah is the unique God in the universe, and Muhammad is Allah's messenger). After this incident, yuan Chengzong was afraid of Ananda '. I've thought about it carefully, and I've seen that Islam is a good way and belief. " As a result, Islam gained its legal status, and even sartahei, a noble who once denounced Ananda in a small report, converted to Islam. Ananda built a mosque in his camp and often recited the Koran. Ananda played a positive role in spreading and taking root of Islam in Ningxia.

It has been said earlier that Ananda was a decisive figure in the political arena of China in the middle of the Yuan Dynasty. He not only controlled the Northwest with heavy troops, but also became a tragic figure because he fought for the throne, which added a lot to the court struggle of the Yuan Dynasty. After Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty, there were many contradictions within the ruling group, which were mainly manifested in the struggle for the throne. In order to win the throne, a life and death struggle was launched between brothers and nephews. From Kublai Khan's death (1294) to the end of the Yuan Dynasty emperor Tuo 懽 Timur Li (1333), in just 40 years, 10 emperors were replaced. Among the 10 emperors, the longest one was in office for more than ten years, and the shortest one was only a month. With the expansion of his power in the northwest, Ananda, king of Anxi, was also involved in the struggle for imperial power.

In the first month of the 11th year of Dade in the Yuan Dynasty (1307), yuan Chengzong died of illness, and the crown prince Deshou died first, leaving the throne vacant. Therefore, the dispute over the throne broke out in an all-round way. On the one hand, Ananda, the king of Northwest China, was supported by Queen buluhan and left Prime Minister ahutai; on the other hand, Wang Haishan of Huaining and his younger brother aiyulibalibada were supported by right Prime Minister halahasun. Ananda, Haishan and ayulibalibada are all Kublai Khan's grandsons. As for the supporters of both sides, Ananda is a little stronger, because when the throne is empty, she is temporarily Regent by Queen Braham.

After intensive preparations, Ananda was scheduled to launch a palace coup in the early March of this year (1307), when Sanbing surrounded Dadu (today's Beijing). Unexpectedly, the secret leaked. On the second day of March, the other party moved ahead of time. When Ananda was defeated, he was surrounded and killed.

The failure of Ananda's struggle for power became a turning point of the decline of Anxi palace in Yuan Dynasty. After Ananda was killed, the army stationed in Liupanshan was dispatched, his property was collected into the zhanshiyuan (the official office in charge of the family affairs of empress and Prince), and his son luthemur also lost the right of inheritance. After emperor TAIDING ascended the throne (in 1324), he issued an imperial edict to restore the throne of Anxi and sealed it with Yuelu Timur. But a few months later, he was exiled to Yunnan by Emperor TAIDING for "Treason". Although he was put back later, he failed to recover the declining situation. During the reign of Emperor Shun of the Yuan Dynasty, aranashili, his descendant, regained the throne. But soon, the last king of Anxi was ordered out of Yunnan and left the northwest. Kaichengfu road was reduced to a state, and Anxi King Xia Palace (kaichengwangfu) was abandoned.

Ruins

A glimpse of the site of Anxi Palace

source

In 1956, the archaeological team of Shaanxi Province discovered the site of Anxi palace in the warehouse of Shijia street, qinmengshe village, the eastern suburb of Xi'an city. Mr. Ma Dezhi in Archaeology

In 1960, the fifth issue published the West China Journal

Chinese PinYin : An Xi Wang Fu