Kaifeng folks have been circulating such words: “Kaifeng City, Chenghuang City, there are several cities buried underground, and several palaces are hidden deep under the Panyang Lake.” Under this ancient capital, is there really an ancient treasure city, or is it just a legend?
In 1981, the bottom of Longting Lake in Kaifeng City was dredged, and the Ming Dynasty Zhou Wangfu site suddenly reappeared on earth. According to historical records, this grand palace was built on the ruins of the Song and Golden Palaces. At that time, people were full of curiosity: Is there really an imperial city hidden under the palace of King Zhou?
Archaeologists took Luoyang shovel, continued to dig down layer by layer, and lifted the mysterious veil of Kaifeng’s “chengchengcheng”.
01. This city Jain city
A large number of archeological surveys found that Kaifeng underground, stacked on top of 6 cities, is like a huge layered toy. According to the time of the year, bottom to top are: 12 meters underground, the Great Beam City of the Wei Kingdom during the Warring States Period; 10 meters underground, Luzhou City in the Tang Dynasty; 8 meters underground, Tokyo City in the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty; 6 meters underground, Jinjing City in the Jin Dynasty; 5 meters underground, Kaifeng City in the Ming Dynasty; 3 meters underground, Kaifeng City in the Qing Dynasty.
Some of them are national capitals and some are provincial capitals. The area will vary, but there are always some overlapping methods that can make patients with OCD extremely comfortable. City-to-city, wall-to-wall, road-to-road, door-to-door, horse-to-horse road … Here, all the points and lines of a city can be found perfectly.
In the Kaifeng Xinzhengmen Site Museum, the stratum from the Ming and Qing dynasties to the Song dynasty can be seen at a glance. The millennium history comes with 3D effects.
Since the Tang Dynasty, the core area of Kaifeng has not changed much, and it is still in the Longting Park area. The central axis of the old city, “Yujie-Zhongshan Road”, was formed in the Tang Dynasty and has not changed in any way after the Five Dynasties, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing.
The Zhouqiao site in the northern section of Zhongshan Road was a water and land transportation node in Tokyo during the Song Dynasty. The story of Yang Zhi selling knives in Water Margin is located here. The foundation of the bridge was built in the Song Dynasty and the bridge deck was in the Ming Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty and today’s Zhongshan Road was built above the Zhouqiao. From this point of view, the people of Kaifeng stood up, crossed the mountains and the sea, and passed through the dynasties.
02.How the Yellow River changed Kaifeng
How did the wonders of “City-City” form? This is inseparable from a river. Kaifeng people have been with the Yellow River for more than two thousand years, and they have loved and killed each other.
The Yellow River is a suspended river above the ground. The water level in Kaifeng section is higher than the bottom of the tower. Standing on the embankment of the Yellow River and looking at both sides, the river water is higher than the field on the other side. You can intuitively feel how “hanging” the Yellow River is.
After crossing the world’s largest loess plateau, the Yellow River entered the flat North China Plain, slowing down the flow of water. Huge amount of mud and sand as a travel souvenir, quietly resting on the edge of Kaifeng city.
300 million tons of sediment are deposited every year, and the river bed is raised by an average of 10 cm each year. Once the embankment broke, the flood flooded and the ancient city of Kaifeng was almost doomed to be flooded. Kaifeng people use the Yellow River to develop their own advantages.
As early as the Warring States Period, King Wei Hui, who was dominating the Central Plains, set Kaifeng, organized a large number of manpower to excavate a canal, successfully connected the Yellow River and Jishui, and made the beam become a land and water city. This canal is called the Divide, which is now the Luo River.
Since the opening of the Grand Canal by Emperor Sui, the Luan River is connected to the Yellow and Huai Rivers. In the Tang Dynasty, Yinzhou City quickly occupied the C position of Yunyun. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Luohe became the main artery of Tokyo City, which continuously transported materials to the capital, and supported more than 1.5 million people in the city.
As the capital of the world’s richest country at the time, Zhang Zeduan’s long scroll of “A Picture of the River on the Qingming Festival” solidified only the tip of Kaifeng’s former prosperity. The vitality of this capital cannot be separated from Luohe for a day. The Northern Song Dynasty government attaches great importance to maintaining the Luanhe waterway, repairing water gates and clearing mud every year.
It was only in the middle and late period of the Northern Song Dynasty that political corruption corrupted the management of the canal and the development of Kaifeng became confused. By the Ming Dynasty, the capital was no longer there, the sea was rising, and the government ’s thoughts on the Luohe River were almost zero. The river channels were not smooth and the bustling was difficult to continue.