Gu Cheng Zhen, Shen County, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province

Ancient town

The ancient town is subordinate to Shen County, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province. It is located at the junction of Shandong Province and Henan Province. At the intersection of Shen county and Yanggu County in Shandong Province and Taiqian County and fan County in Henan Province, the ancient town has 67 administrative villages, covering an area of 67.22 square kilometers, with a population of 50094 people (2017), and cultivated land of 57000 mu. Ancient cities and towns adhere to the economic construction as the center, vigorously adjust the rural industrial structure, the production of flower mushroom has a scale, with an annual output value of more than 30 million yuan.

Historical evolution

In Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the ancient city was the place of guguo. In 1380, when the Yellow River burst, the former Fanxian county was destroyed by water. It moved 20 Li north from the south of Jindi to rebuild the county, which is now an ancient town. In March 1956, Guanchao County, Liaocheng district, Shandong Province, was abolished. Chaocheng and Meizhong were assigned to Shen County, and the rest to fan county. in order to facilitate governance, the county seat of fan county was moved from the ancient town to the old city of fan county (near yingtaoyuan town of Shen county), where the original county seat was the residence of the ancient people's commune. In December 1958, Shen county was abolished, and other communes were transferred to fan County except Yandian and Wangfeng communes. In July 1961, the administrative system of Shen county was restored. The districts originally designated as fan county and Guan County were all returned to Shen County, and the governance of fan County remained unchanged. In April 1964, jindihe water conservancy was adjusted. Fan County of Shandong Province was assigned to Henan Province. Five districts in the north of fan County, Guyun, Guancheng, yingtaoyuan, Gucheng and wangzhuangji, were assigned to Shen county. They still belong to Shandong Province. Ancient towns are attached to Gucheng commune of Shen county. In 1984, the ancient city commune of Shenxian was changed into an ancient town of Shenxian. In 2001, Shenxian ancient town and Shenxian shelisi Township merged into a new Shenxian ancient town.

Related history

The ancient town used to be a gathering place for celebrities of all ages: Zhongyou once set up a school here to give lectures; Qin Shihuang built a dike and set up a general platform; Zheng Banqiao, one of the eight monsters of Yangzhou, once served as county magistrate here, leaving many anecdotes; Liu Deng's army went south through here.

cultural relics and historic sites

Iron bell of Jin Dynasty

The most valuable historical relic preserved in ancient towns is the iron bell of Jin Dynasty. The iron bell is now on the site of Laizhong temple near the government house. According to the records of Shen county of Liaocheng in the Republic of China, "the big bell is in Laizhong temple, and now it's moved to Zhongshan Garden. It is nine feet six inches high, nineteen feet five inches in circumference, eight inches thick at the top and two inches and four cents thick at the bottom. It was cast on the sixth day of June in the fourth year of Cheng'an (1276) Measured by the cultural relics department, the clock is 2.9 meters high, 5.56 meters long, 1.77 meters in diameter at the bottom, 9 cm thick at the upper part and 7 cm thick at the lower part, weighing 8000 Jin. The top of the iron bell is a dragon shaped bell button with a height of 0.5 meters. The upper part of the bell body is plant pattern, the lower part is cloud and thunder pattern, and the middle part is divided into four grids with eight trigrams pattern boundary. In the grids, there are big characters in Yangwen, such as "long live the emperor", "long live the important minister", "Fa Lun Chang Zhuan" and "Guo Tai min an", which express the blessing to the monarch, minister, Buddha and people.

Laizhong Temple

It is said that the iron bell was originally hung in Guangji temple under the big locust tree in Hongdong, Shanxi Province. In 1651, when the flood broke out, the big bell was held up by a huge wooden frame hanging the bell. It flowed from Fenshui to the Yellow River and floated here. When people saw that the bell was strange and thought that it had divine power to help, they raised money to build the temple and hung the bell. The temple was named "Laizhong Temple". When the land was leveled in 1975, some crucibles for molten iron and clay molds for pots were excavated around the site of the ancient bell. The remaining patterns and handwriting on the molds are exactly the same as those on the clock. It can be seen that the bell was cast on the spot and did not move after casting. The legend is not true. In 2003, the ancient town government raised funds to build platforms, pavilions and steles, and to re hang and protect the ancient clock. Under the pavilion is a 4-meter-high square platform of brick concrete structure, with zigzag two-way steps on the back and stone barriers on the top. The pavilion is 3.8 meters high, with hexagonal double eaves, red columns and green tiles, supplemented by wood carving, which is simple and elegant. The inscription on the front of the pavilion reads "Zebei Bafang", and the couplet reads "Xiaguang Pavilion, high place to observe social feelings and public opinion; in the golden age of bells, Hongsheng shakes Mount Tai and the Yellow River again".

Zilu Academy

There are Zilu academy, Zilu dike and zhongzi temple in the ancient city. Zhongyou, whose name is Zilu, was born at the end of the spring and Autumn period. Because of the chaos of Yang and tiger, he retired to study here, so later generations built "Zilu academy". In order to avoid the chaos of Lu, Confucius came here to give a lecture. He saw Zhongyou lead the people to build a dike. He sighed: "you can do everything you can to help your relatives." (from the Analects of Confucius) later generations named this dike "Zilu dike". Jindouying Township, Yanggu County, adjacent to the ancient city, now has "ziludi village", and most of the villagers in the two places have the surname Zhong. It is said that they are all descendants of Zhongyou. During the reign of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty, when Zheng Banqiao was the magistrate of fan County, he raised money to build "zhongzi Temple" and inscribed a plaque to commemorate Zhongyou's actions of building a dike and repairing calligraphy. Today, the temple no longer exists, but the residual plaque at the gate of the temple still exists.

Banqiao Hall

Zheng Banqiao, one of the "eight monsters of Yangzhou", was the magistrate of fan County in 1742-1745. Zheng Banqiao was named Xie, whose name was Ke rou. He was named Li'an Jushi, Banqiao Jushi, Banqiao Taoist and olive Xuan. In his later years, he often signed his own name as an old man of Banqiao and an old Taoist of Banqiao. Zheng Banqiao believed in Mencius's way of dealing with the world, that is, if he was poor, he would be good for himself, and if he reached the goal, he would be good for the world. He was determined to report to the imperial court and settle down with Li and Shu. During his term of office, he was proud of the powerful, considerate of the people, honest and upright. He advocated light punishment and simple administration, and ruled by playing the piano without disturbing the people. In memory of Zheng Banqiao, later generations called the hall where he was promoted to handle the case "Banqiao hall". Banqiao hall is located in the old county government of Gucheng Town, which is now the government courtyard of the town.

economic development

In recent years, the town Party committee and government adhere to the economic construction as the center, vigorously adjust the rural industrial structure, and focus on the development of pure green food - fragrant mushroom. They established a strain factory and cadre demonstration base, implemented the "four unification" of strain production, raw material supply, capital regulation and marketing, carried out a series of production and operation, and the production scale expanded rapidly. In 1998, it cultivated 2.6 million bags and became the largest production base of Lentinus edodes in Shandong Province. Its products are exported to Japan, Singapore, South Korea and other international markets, with an annual output value of more than 30 million yuan.

Chinese PinYin : Shan Dong Sheng Liao Cheng Shi Shen Xian Xia Zhen Gu Cheng Zhen