Yangshan Quarry

Yangshan Quarry

Yangshan stele is located in the south slope of Yangshan, northwest of Tangshan street, Jiangning District, Nanjing city. It is the site of Shengde stele excavated by Zhu Di, Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, to praise the merits of his father, Emperor Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty. In order to obtain this stone, it is known as "the first stele in the world". Yangshan stele is a key cultural relic protection unit in China.

Yangshan stele is made of Qixia limestone with good integrity and huge volume. It is composed of three parts: base, forehead and body. The total height is 78 meters and the total weight is 31167 tons. The Ming Culture Village nearby is designed and built by mining the stele materials of Yangshan mountain, striving to reproduce the historical scene.

In February 2020, all medical workers across the country will be given a free tour policy and a series of free and intimate services

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geographical position

Yangshan stele is located in the south slope of Yangshan, northwest of Tangshan street, Jiangning District, Nanjing, about 23 kilometers away from the main city of Nanjing. It is the seventh batch of national key cultural relics protection units.

Yangshan stele is a good place to visit Nanjing. There are Tangshan ape cave nearby.

It was an ancient quarry before the Ming Dynasty. The Yangshan stele was excavated from Qixia limestone, which is of good integrity and huge. It is composed of three parts: the base, the forehead and the body of the stele. The total height of the three parts is 78 meters and the total weight is 31167 tons. It is really a rare and magnificent monument in the world.

Origin of stele materials

Yangshan stele is a huge stone excavated by Ming Chengzu for his father Zhu Yuanzhang. In 1402 A.D., Zhu Di, the emperor of Ming Dynasty, set up an army to win the throne of his nephew Zhu Yunwen. In order to win over the people and stabilize the political situation, he decided to have a huge stone tablet to show Zhu Yuanzhang's merits.

So he collected more than ten thousand craftsmen from all over the country to dig three pieces of Steles at the southern foot of Yangshan mountain.

Among them, the base stone is 13 meters high, 16 meters wide, 30.35 meters long and weighs 16000 tons; the body stone is 49.40 meters long, 4.4 meters wide, 10.7 meters high and weighs about 9000 tons; the forehead stone is 10 meters high, 20.3 meters long, 8.40 meters wide and weighs about 6000 tons. If the total height of the monument is 78 meters and the weight is more than 30000 tons, it is worthy of the first monument in the world.

In order to obtain this stone, the ancient Chinese working people paid extraordinary hardships and hard work. Thousands of migrant workers died in the quarry. Today's Tomb Village near the stone tablet is the burial place of migrant workers at that time.

The three stones have been formed, the forehead of the stone tablet has been separated from the mountain, and the body and base of the stone tablet are only connected at one end.

Why not use this stone? There are two statements

As the Ming Dynasty was declining, Zhu Di moved his capital to Beijing;

It is said that due to the limitation of Nanjing's geography and climate, it is not suitable for the ancient methods of rolling wood and ice transportation, and it can not be transported.

Yangshan stele, also known as Xiaoling stele, was chiseled by Zhu Di, Emperor Chengzu of Ming Dynasty, to praise the merits of his father Zhu Yuanzhang.

The stele material is divided into three parts: the base, the body and the forehead. If they are put together and erected, the total height can reach 78 meters, which can be called peerless stele material.

However, this monumental material was not used and remained in place.

The newly-built Ming culture village is designed and built by mining Yangshan stele materials, striving to reproduce the historical scene.

Construction scale

On the Yangshan mountain of Tangshan, 25 kilometers away from the main city of Nanjing, there are three huge stones, which are called "Xiaoling stele" (Yangshan stele) by the local people.

They are composed of pedestal, forehead and body: pedestal is 17 meters high, 29.5 meters wide and 12 meters thick; forehead is 10 meters high, 22 meters wide and 10.3 meters thick; tablet is 51 meters high, 14.2 meters wide and 4.5 meters thick.

The weight of the three huge stones is even more surprising: after accurate measurement with modern instruments, experts calculated that the weight of the pedestal is 16250 tons, the weight of the forehead is 6118 tons, and the weight of the body is 8799 tons.

The huge stones used to build the pyramids of Egypt have been a miracle for thousands of years. However, they only weigh 2.5 tons on average, and the largest one is only 50 tons. Compared with the Yangshan stele, the so-called giant stones used to build the Egyptian pyramids are simply incomparable.

These stones were dug in the hands of Zhu Di, the Yongle Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. They were used to erect a "monument of divine skill and virtue" for Zhu Yuanzhang. However, it's strange that such a large project and the image project of the Emperor himself are not recorded in the whole history of the Ming Dynasty! Only a song by Yuan Mei, a poet of Qing Dynasty, entitled "Hongwu great stone tablet song", can be regarded as an indirect proof of the folklore about Yangshan stone tablet materials. It was indeed built for Zhu Yuanzhang's praising.

After years of hard work, archaeologists in Nanjing finally found a scholar's diary in Yongle period. According to the diary, when Zhu Di became emperor, he collected tens of thousands of craftsmen from all over the country to dig steles in Yangshan for the purpose of building a monument of merit and virtue in Xiaoling. However, only one and a half years after the project started, it stopped work for unknown reasons.

In order to build a monument for his father, Zhu Di collected tens of thousands of craftsmen from all over the country to excavate the stele materials by using Qixia limestone, which is of good integrity and huge in Yangshan mountain.

This is a large-scale project. The imperial court required that it should be completed within a time limit. It stipulated that each stoneworker should hand in three buckets and three liters of stone chips every day, and the supervisor should be responsible for the acceptance. It is said that as many as 3000 craftsmen were killed because they were tired, fell or failed to complete their tasks.

The bodies of the victims were randomly thrown into the "mass grave" near Yangshan. Over time, this "mass grave" rises to form a big grave, so a small village near the "mass grave" is called "grave village".

historical background

After Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he made his eldest son Zhu Biao the crown prince and made 25 other sons the king. However, Zhu Biao died in 1392 at the age of 38. After the death of Zhu Yuanzhang, his grandson Zhu Yunwen succeeded him to the throne of emperor Huidi of Ming Dynasty. In order to suppress the power of the kings, Zhu Yunwen decided to cut off the Tibetan, while Zhu Di, the fourth son of the powerful Zhu Yuanzhang, the king of Yan, sent troops to attack the Nanjing regime in the name of the emperor of the Qing Dynasty.

In 1402 A.D., Zhu Di built a stone tablet at Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu, and completed all the works of the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum. In order to show his filial piety to Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Di dug a stone tablet in Yangshan. The original designer would have thought about the transportation and erection of the monument because of its large size, but the designer and builder could not disobey Zhu Di's will and had to stop it in the end.

Scenic spot traffic

In Nanjing, take Nanjing Metro Line 2 to Maqun station, and take No.205, D11, 121, ningju line and No.205.

Bus stop beside the railway station:

1. Take No. 309 from the South Square of Nanjing railway station to qilinmen New Street station, walk for 97 meters, turn to No. 205 (in the direction of mingwenhua Village), get off at mingwenhua village station, and walk for 99 meters.

2. Take bus 309 to Maqun station in the South Square of Nanjing railway station, walk 11 meters, turn to D11 Road (in the direction of Nanjing artillery yard) and get off at Suoshi station, walk 1746 meters.

3. Take bus No.97 (in the direction of Lingshan north road terminus) at the South Square of Nanjing railway station to yingtiecun station, then take bus No.208 (in the direction of Tangshui Yaju Dongyuan) to Suoshi village station, and walk 1777 meters.

You can drive from NInghang road to Zhongshan Gate, Xiaolingwei, Maqun, Qilin Town, funtou and Tangshan. You can visit the ancient karst cave along the way.

Preferential treatment information

In February 2020, in order to pay homage to the benevolence of doctors and praise the great love of the world, Nanjing Municipal Bureau of culture and tourism, together with Zhongshan Cemetery Administration, Nanjing Tourism Group and Nanjing Cultural Investment Group, issued an initiative to the cultural and tourism units in the city's tourist attractions, museums and so on, to implement a free visit policy and provide a series of free and intimate services for all medical workers across the country.

1、 Preferential treatment object

All medical workers from all over the country (including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) should go to the ticket office of scenic spots and museums in our city for admission free with valid certificates (doctor's certificate, nurse's certificate or other qualification certificates related to medical work). Medical workers can make an appointment with scenic spots and museums in advance.

2、 Preferential treatment content

1. National scenic spots and museums invested by the government (see the list for details);

2. During my stay in Nanjing, I will take the bus for free with my valid certificate;

3. Preferential treatment window and green channel are set up for medical workers in peak tourism season.

3、 Preferential time

Within one year from the day when the scenic spots and museums resume operation (unified release at that time).

Address: Zhongshan Gate, Nanjing

Longitude: 118.99512

Latitude: 32.057616

Tel: 025-8411110; 025-5226

Chinese PinYin : Yang Shan Bei Cai