Is Tiger Hill a cultural relic?

Huqiu is located in the northwest suburb of Suzhou, 5 kilometers away from the city center. It is said that during the Spring and Autumn Period, King Wu Fu Chai buried his father here. Three days after the burial, a white tiger appeared on it, so it was named Huqiu Mountain, or Huqiu for short. This mountain is only 36 meters high, but has towering ancient trees and many scenic spots around it. The many scenic spots on the mountain are a major feature of Tiger Hill. In particular, the thousand-year-old Tiger Hill Tower stands on the mountain, making Tiger Hill a famous tourist attraction since ancient times. Su Dongpo once said: "It would be a pity for people in Suzhou not to visit Tiger Hill."

Huqiu has many historical sites and rich legends. It combines the beauty of forests and springs with the charm of hills and mountains. It can be called "the first scenic spot in Wuzhong". The famous landscapes of Tiger Hill include: Broken Liang Hall, Sword Testing Stone, Pillow Stone, Zhenniang Tomb, Thousand People Stone, Sword Pond, Third Spring in the World, Sunwu Pavilion, Wangsu Terrace, etc.

After entering Tiger Hill, go up the mountain road and you can see the famous eighteen sceneries of Tiger Hill along the way. These places of interest have many fascinating historical legends and myths. Among the eighteen sceneries, the top one is the Yunyan Temple Pagoda, also known as the Tiger Hill Pagoda. Huqiu Tower is a flat octagonal brick tower built in the Song Dynasty (961), with up to 7 floors and a height of 47.5 meters. Due to the foundation, the tower began to tilt to the northwest 400 years ago. According to preliminary measurements, the center point of the top of the tower has deviated from the central vertical line by 2.3 meters (the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa, Italy, has a deviated top of 4.4 meters). In 1956, a large number of cultural relics were discovered in the pagoda, including the Yue kiln lotus bowl, a rare art treasure.

On the stone wall directly north of Thousand Man Stone, there are four characters engraved: "Huqiu Sword Pool". It is said that these four characters were written by Yan Zhenqing, a great calligrapher of the Tang Dynasty. There is another legend that the current two characters "Huqiu" are no longer Yan's original book, but were engraved on the later generations' supplementary book. Therefore, there is a local saying of "real sword pool, fake Huqiu". The so-called sword pool is a pool as narrow as a long sword under the cliff. The tomb of King Wu Helu may be here. It is said that at that time, the fish intestine sword and 3,000 other swords were used to bury King Wu, so it was named Jianchi.

There is a stone well on the mountain, which is said to have been dug by Lu Yu in the Tang Dynasty and is called "Lu Yu's Well". Lu Yu is the author of my country's first tea book - "The Classic of Tea". According to "Suzhou Prefecture Chronicles", Lu Yu lived in Huqiu for a long time, studying tea and writing the "Tea Classic". He found that the Huqiu Mountain Spring was sweet and delicious, and was rated as "the fifth spring in the world".

Huqiu Yunyan Temple Pagoda

Huqiu Pagoda, also known as Yunyan Temple Pagoda, was first built in the ninth year of Renshou (601), Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty. It was originally built as a wooden pagoda but was later destroyed. The existing Huqiu Pagoda was built from the eighth year of Qianyou in the Later Zhou Dynasty to the second year of Jianlong in the Song Dynasty (959-961). The tower is octagonal in plan and has seven levels. The original tower top was destroyed by lightning. During the renovation in 1956, a large number of precious cultural relics such as stone letters, sutra boxes, bronze Buddhas, bronze mirrors, and Yue kiln celadon lotus bowls were discovered in the third mezzanine. The Huqiu Tower is now 47.5 meters high. The tower is entirely made of bricks and weighs more than 6,000 tons. According to records, due to foundation reasons, the Huqiu Tower has tilted northwest since the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The center of the top of the tower is 2.3 meters away from the center of the bottom floor, with a slope of 2゜40'. It is called the "Leaning Tower of Pisa in the East" ". In 1956, the Suzhou Municipal Government invited experts on ancient architecture to use iron hoop grouting methods to reinforce and repair the pagoda, and finally saved the Mu Pagoda. In 1961, it was listed as one of the national key cultural relics protection units.

In the Spring and Autumn Period, King Helu of Wu built the city and established his capital here, and his tomb after his death was in Huqiu. Later, the first emperor of Qin climbed the hill to see the scenery; Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu, led 8,000 of his descendants to rebel against the Qin Dynasty; when Bai Juyi, the great poet of the Tang Dynasty, was the governor of Suzhou, he dug mountains to divert water and built a seven-mile embankment to make the scenery of Tiger Hill even more beautiful. Su Shi, a poet of the Song Dynasty, once said: "It would be a pity to go to Suzhou without visiting Tiger Hill."

Huqiu, with its unique and picturesque scenery, has a history of more than 2,400 years. "Wu Di Ji" says: "The mountains are steep, the cliffs are vertical and the ravines, the lush forests are deep, and they are the representative of the hills and ravines on the left side of the river." Zhu Changwen of the Song Dynasty wrote "There are three unique features in Huqiu Mountain": "Looking at the shape of the mountain, if you climb it without crossing the hills, you will see layers of peaks and cliffs, with a power of thousands of feet, which is unique; it is adjacent to Guoguo, and the original sun rises. There is no continuity on the side, all the scenes are in the city, the domes on all sides, the Beiyuan and the sea, the Zhenze Cangzhou, the clouds come and go, looking around, knowing thousands of miles, two unique things; the sword pool is Hongchun, the sea is soaked in clouds, neither full nor empty, forever. Zhan Zhan, the three unique things." Ke Liufang of the Ming Dynasty wrote "Tiger Hill has nine favorable conditions": "It is suitable for the moon, for snow, for rain, for smoke, for dawn in spring, for summer, for cool autumn, for falling trees, and for sunset." Therefore, no matter it is spring, summer, autumn or winter, rainy or snowy, each has its own interest.

Huqiu Pagoda is the tower of Yunyan Temple, also known as Yunyan Temple Pagoda. The tower was built in the sixth year of Zhou Xiande (959) of the Five Dynasties and completed in the second year of Jianlong (961) of the Northern Song Dynasty.

According to local records, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty once built a pagoda here, but it was a wooden pagoda. The current Huqiu Pagoda was built on the original site of the wooden pagoda. The tower is octagonal in plan, 7 stories high, with a brick body and wooden eaves. Due to numerous fires from the Song Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty, the roof and wooden eaves were destroyed. The original height is no longer known; the existing tower is 47.5 meters tall. The Tiger Hill Tower we see now is a leaning tower. According to preliminary measurements, the center point of the top of the tower is 2.34 meters away from the vertical line at the center of the tower, and the slope is 2.48 degrees.

Huqiu Tower has a history of more than 1,000 years. Today, this thousand-year-old tower standing on the top of Tiger Hill has become a symbol of the ancient city of Suzhou.

Huqiu Sword Pond

The most mysterious and attractive monument in Huqiu, Suzhou is the Sword Pond. Looking north from the Qianren Stone, there are four big characters "Huqiu Sword Pool" beside the round cave door of "There is a Different Cave". The strokes of each character are three feet long and the strokes are powerful. According to records in "Mountain Chronicles" and other books, it was originally written by Yan Zhenqing, a great calligrapher of the Tang Dynasty. However, due to age, the stone surface was eroded by wind and frost, and the two characters "Huqiu" were lost and lost. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, a famous Suzhou stone carver named Zhang Zhongyu copied and reengraved the original stone. Therefore, there is a proverb in Suzhou: "Fake Tiger Hill, Real Sword Pool". Some people also say that this sentence refers to the secret of Helu's Tomb.

Entering the round cave door of "There is a Different Cave", you suddenly feel that "the cold air is generated by the dark pool" and "the sword energy is deep in the empty mountain", and the atmosphere changes. Looking up, you can see two steep stone cliffs rising from the ground, locking a pool of green water. The shape of the pool is long and narrow, slightly wider in the south and narrower in the north. It looks like a sword lying flat. When the sunlight slants on the water, it gives people a cold feeling, even in the hot summer, it will feel cool. The shadow of a stone bridge was reflected in the water. Looking up, the arched stone bridge is hanging high in the air. This scene seems very strange and dangerous. The stone walls are covered with moss, and wisteria wildflowers hang upside down like streamers. Looking up at the top of the tower through the towering rock walls, you feel like you are facing an abyss. This is the famous ancient Jianchi ruins at home and abroad.

The Jianchi is about sixty steps wide and two feet deep. It is dry all year round and is so clear that you can drink from it. Li Xiuqing in the Tang Dynasty once praised it as "the fifth spring in the world". According to local records, under the Jianchi is the burial place of King Wu Helu. The reason why it is called Jianchi is said to be that when he was buried, three thousand swords such as "Zhuanzhu" and "Yuchang" that he loved during his lifetime were used as burial objects and buried in his tomb at the same time. However, "Yuanhe Prefecture and County Chronicles" records: "The Qin Emperor chiseled the mountain in search of treasures, but he did not know where it was; Sun Quan found nothing when he penetrated it, and the place where he chiseled it became a deep stream." It later evolved into a sword pond. In short, how was Jianchi formed and whether the tomb of King Wu is under Jianchi. There are many opinions, but there is no consensus.

In 1955, Tiger Hill was renovated and Jianchi was dredged. At that time, the moss was washed and it was verified that on the rock wall on the east side of Jianchi there were stone carvings written by Wu Xi and others from the three counties of Changzhou, Wuxian and Kunshan in the Ming Dynasty, as well as Tang Yin, Wang Hao and others. ) The water in Jianchi was dry, and the gate to King Wu’s tomb was discovered at the bottom of the pond. Later, the water in the pool was drained out and the sludge was removed. It was also seen that the two walls of the Jianchi were cut smooth from top to bottom, and the bottom of the pool was also very flat, with no sloping. It was obviously carved by artificial cutting of rocks. There is an earthen dam in the south of the pool, connected to the stone wall on three sides. It is about the size of four Eight Immortals tables and is three feet below the normal water surface. It was built artificially for water storage. Because of the narrowest point in the north of the pool, a cave and a tunnel extending northward for more than ten feet were found, which could allow a tall person to enter and exit alone. You could reach the top with your hands, and it was straight from top to bottom. It is not difficult to infer that it was also dug manually. At the end is a trumpet, with a gap of more than one meter in front of it, which can accommodate four people standing side by side without any room for maneuver. In front, there are four rectangular stone slabs cut from hemp gravel, one is laid flat in the soil as the base, and three are stacked horizontally, like a large monument. Each stone slab measures about two and a half feet high and more than three feet wide. The first piece has been dislocated and is leaning on the second piece. The stone quality of the second stone gate is different from the igneous rock of Huqiu Mountain, and its surface is smooth. Due to long-term erosion by pool water, sparse and horizontal stone reinforcements were exposed. According to the shape analysis, this is the tomb door of a cave tomb. The Jianchi is a vertical cave, facing north and south, and the stone cave at the bottom of the pond is a passage. This is completely consistent with the tomb structure of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. According to records, "Helu's burial was made by piercing the soil to form mountains and accumulating soil into hills. He sent out 100,000 people from the five counties to govern thousands of miles. He made elephants carry the soil and dug a pond. The surrounding area was sixty miles wide and the water was one foot deep. ... Pour mercury into a pool six feet long, and use gold and precious jade to make a geese." Such an exaggerated description may not be credible, but as one of the five hegemons in the late Spring and Autumn Period, the tomb of King Wu must have a large building scale and a tomb design. It must also be quite sophisticated and covert.

From the analysis of the fact that the mountain behind Tiger Hill is made of soil and the above-mentioned signs, Jianchi was probably designed and dug to protect the tomb of King Cheng. There may also be some kind of secret behind the tomb door. However, whether the tomb of King Wu is among them remains an eternal mystery until it is confirmed by archaeological excavation.

Reference:/webculture/huqiu.htm