The Urban Structure of Gonghua City

Fukui Gate, the main entrance of Gonghuacheng, is magnificent. It is located in Nanmen West Street, Shahe, and it is an open space in the depths of six hutongs in Anji (with a vegetable garden in the east). Its architectural style is similar to that of Zhengyangmen in Beijing, which is the only way for Ming Chengzu to enter and leave the Palace City. Above the doorway in the middle of the urn is a stone tablet with the words "Fujingmen" written on it, which probably means "arch to protect the gods". The main entrance consists of three gates, and the words "Palace City" should be embedded in the middle gate, but it can't be found because the doorway has been blocked.

The whole Fu Jeer city gate is well preserved, with a wall as high as 9 meters, which is rammed with loess inside and covered with blue bricks outside. The rammed earth in the blue brick can be seen at the damaged part of the city wall. There is also a city gate on the east and west sides of the city wall (the east gate has been blocked), and there is a thousand-pound gate inside the city gate. The groove of Qianjin Gate is well preserved, and the gate is a gate building. The so-called urn is a small town built around the city gate. It is conceivable that in the ancient cold weapon era, if the enemy invaded the urn or was lured in, the soldiers guarding the city would put down the gates of thousands of kilograms, cut off the enemy's back road, catch turtles in the urn, use the crib or arrow hole on the urn, and panic in with arrows, stones, rollers, etc., and the enemy could only wait for nothing.

Outside the west gate of Fujingmen, a stone tablet of "Beijing Cultural Relics Protection Unit" published by 1995 municipal government is erected. The abutment and wall of Fujingmen have collapsed many times, and a collapsed area with exposed rammed earth on the western wall has been surrounded by a new circle of blue bricks. Measuring the length of the west gate hole is about15m and the width is 4.5m, showing the thickness of the gate. You can enter the urn from the west gate, and you can see a row of almost completely preserved hard mountain houses in the north of the urn. Although slightly inclined, the wooden structure is still quite strong, and it was used as a barracks for garrison officers and soldiers in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

Supplement: Fujingmen, as a municipal cultural relics protection unit, is well maintained, basically preserving the appearance of the urn, while the other three urn cities are seriously damaged. There are obvious repair marks on the wall of Fujingmen Wengcheng, and the above-mentioned "hard mountain houses" in the city are likely to be newly built or repaired from the appearance characteristics. Wengcheng also collects many old city bricks, hoping that one day these city bricks can restore the original appearance of Gonghua City.

There are three other broken earthenware pots on the site of Gonghuacheng: the North Gate, the door of which is embedded with the threshold of "exhibition of four doors", which means "exhibition of four cases", is well preserved and located in the north of the current North Gate West Street; Simon, the gate says "Mo Wei Gate", which means "Western Wei Desert". The east gate, the "Town Liao Gate", is surrounded by private houses, so it is not convenient to enter. According to historical records, these five plaques in Gonghua City were all made of white marble, written by Yan Song, a powerful minister in Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty.

Mr. Yang, director of the Comprehensive Culture Committee of Beijing Collectors Association, who only loves the gates of the world, said that in order to explain the size of the city at that time, we temporarily draw a cross in the city with four gates as coordinate points, and we will find that Gonghua City has not only a north-south axis, but also an east-west axis. At that time, the palace (commonly known as Tingling Palace) was built in Gonghua City, in the middle of the north-south axis and south of the east-west axis. The length of the palace is150m from north to south and160m from east to west, covering an area of 36 mu. In order to prevent being washed away by the flood again, it is several meters above the ground (the original site of the palace is still higher than some houses). There is a palace gate on the east, west and north sides of the palace wall, and the south gate is called the "main gate" with three openings. There is a memorial archway outside the south gate. There is a main hall in the middle of the palace, which looks like the grace hall of Changling. It is the parking place for the emperor and the queen of Zigong. The east and west annex halls are the living rooms of the emperor and queen, and the surrounding official residences are the rest places for accompanying officials. Outside the palace, there are 500 barracks and eye-catching warehouses on the east, west and north sides, where troops are stationed and food is stored. In the center of Gonghua City, there is a temple of saints. White marble Royal Avenue runs through the north-south central axis. The original site of Gonghuacheng Palace is now the Shahe Middle School campus. Around the school playground, there are still some architectural stones from that year.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were more than 20 temples in Gonghuacheng. In the southwest corner of Gonghua City, there is the Temple of the King of the City. There are many stone tablets in the temple, which record in detail the repair of Gonghua City in a certain month, which county built which section of the city wall, etc. In addition, there is the Taiqing Palace in Liaomen, Dongmen Town, which is a masonry structure and rests on a double-eaved mountain. Its architectural form is unique, luxurious and majestic, and it is extremely difficult to build this palace. It is said that it was built by Lord Lu Ban. There are also some Longwang Temple, Land Temple, Wudao Temple and so on. In those days, someone once wrote a poem praising: "The Palace Que rises in the clouds, and the Han Tower is low. Western jackdaw in the west is like a lucky man, crying sadly every morning and evening. " .

Palace City is a forbidden area of the palace and an important place for garrison and granary. At the beginning of its construction, it was guarded by Chen Xun. 1549 (twenty-eight years of Jiajing) was changed to deputy governor, and later changed to garrison. When the camp in Gonghuacheng is full, it is 3000. After continuous changes and expansion in past dynasties, Gonghua City has finally developed into a major town in Gyeonggi, which integrates grave sweeping, garrison, grain transportation, economy and trade.

The endless trees are rustling leaves, and the Yangtze River is rolling unpredictably. 1628 (the seventeenth year of Chongzhen), Li Zicheng attacked Beijing, and Gonghua City became the temporary headquarters of the peasant uprising army.

During the Kanggan period in the Qing Dynasty, the rulers adopted a national policy of combining rigidity with softness, which solved the contradiction between nomadic and agricultural nationalities for more than 2,000 years, eliminated the hidden dangers of the northern border defense, and formed a unified Chinese empire-the Qing Dynasty. In times of peace and prosperity, the rulers were content with pleasure and closed their doors to the outside world. The money from the state treasury was used to overhaul the garden, and the historical role of Gonghuacheng gradually declined.

1900, Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, and the invading army rushed into Gonghua City, burning and looting, and Gonghua City was looted. By 1932, Gonghuacheng Palace was demolished and sold by the government of the Republic of China. /kloc-in the summer of 0/939, the flood washed away most of the walls of Gonghua City. There are more than 20 large and small temples in Gonghua City. Except for natural damage and flood, the rest were demolished in 1958. So only the ruins of the four gates of Gonghuacheng are left, telling the glory of the past.

Cross Shahe Industrial and Commercial Street and go east, and you will reach the old town of Shahe. In fact, the old town of Shahe is where Gonghua City is located.

The city has a square layout, each side is about one kilometer long, with a total area of 100 hectares. The city wall is nearly ten meters high, with 3602 piles, painted with blue bricks and rammed earth inside. There is a moat around the city wall. There are gates in the north, south, east and west sections of the city wall, and there is a suspension bridge in front. Nansimen: Fukui; North: exhibition thinking; Dongyu: Zhenliao; West: Wei mo. The names of the four city gates represent four different meanings, namely "consolidating the foundation", "showing the mausoleum and thinking", "consolidating Liaodong" and "consolidating the desert".

The platform of Sichengmen has been preserved so far, which is the most important architectural landscape of Gonghuacheng.

Among the four city gates, Fujingmen, the south gate, is the best preserved. Fujingmen is the main entrance of the whole Gonghuacheng, and the emperor must pass through this door when he enters and exits Gonghuacheng. The special feature of this gate is that there are three holes in the gate and an urn in the south. There is a door in the east, west and south of the urn. There are thousands of doors in the door, and the gatehouse is on it. The groove of Qianjinmen is well preserved, and the tenon and mortise are clearly visible.

This kind of gate with three main doors and three gates is extremely rare in the urban defense buildings in Beijing, which is consistent with the special position of Gonghua City in the eyes of the royal family. Above the main entrance of Fujingmen, there is a white marble plaque with the words "Gonghuacheng" written on it. On the doorway in the middle of Wengcheng, there is a stone tablet with the words "Fujingmen" written on it. The font is blurred and unrecognizable.

According to records, these two plaques and the other three city gate plaques of Gonghuacheng were written by Yan Song, a powerful minister in Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty. A traitor left his own ink on the gate of Gonghuacheng. After entering the urn from the west gate of Fujingmen, there is a row of intact hard mountain houses in the north, which should have been the gatekeepers before. Although many of them are dilapidated, the wood structure is still strong and has not fallen for many years. Around the hard mountain house, there is a dirt road under the east wall to climb the city. The platform has collapsed many times, leaving a small number of column foundations. From the diameter of the column base, we can imagine the grandeur of Fukui Gate Tower.

After Fujingmen, you can reach Liaomen in Dongmen Town along a short section of city wall ruins. This door is in poor condition, the worst of the four. Only the north-south wall 100 meters near the east gate is eye-catching. The wall here should be the best preserved section of the existing wall of Gonghua City. Although it is well preserved, the wall is still mottled seriously. Many city bricks have been broken and branches have grown on them, which has destroyed the wall structure.

The Zhansi Gate in the north gate is the same as the Fujing Gate, and it is a three-hole gate, but the preservation conditions are not as good as Fujing Gate, and there are not many left. On the road, you can see Wengcheng Gate in the north, and now it is surrounded by houses. There is also an urn door at Ximenwei Momon, and there is also a door inside the door. The door system is very complete, and now it is occupied by individual units.

Speaking of city walls and gates, let's talk about the most important part of Gonghua City-the palace.

Gonghua City Palace is located in the center of the whole city, slightly to the south, and it is 19 feet square on Thursday. The main building of the palace is waterproof, built on a very high platform, and the soil foundation is several meters from the ground. At present, the original site of the palace is still higher than the existing houses in Dongying Village, Shahe.

The palace is located in the south of Gonghua City, with a length of160m from east to west and a width of150m from north to south. It is approximately square and covers an area of 2.4 hectares. There are three doors on the south wall of the palace, which are called the "main entrance". There is a memorial archway outside the door, which is as big as the Temple of Chang Ling En, and it is the place where the coffins of the emperor and queen are parked. The East Hall and the West Hall are the bedrooms of the emperor and the queen. The security guards around the house are Sui Luanwen and eunuch Wu. This place. Outside the palace, there are more than 500 barracks and an eye-catching warehouse on the east, west and north sides, which are used for garrison, grain storage and materials storage. In the sixth year of Qin Long, 3000 soldiers dredged the 75-kilometer-long Wenyu River from Anji Bridge in the south of Gonghua City to Tongzhou Ferry, and from then on, they could transport the royal stores and materials to Gonghua City Palace by water. There is a pier on the north bank of Nanshahe River, also called Diaoyutai, which is made of granite.

There are three doors in the south of the palace, facing the Fujing Gate. There are doors in the east, west, north and south, and there are more than 100 temples in it. The main hall is as standardized as the Linggen Hall of the Ming Tombs, and it is the parking place of Zigong (coffin) of Empress Dowager Cixi. This palace is used as the queen's bedroom.

There are imperial roads in the north and south of the palace, which are connected with Fu Jeer and Zhansi. There are 500 military camps around. At present, the original site of Gonghuacheng Palace is Shahe Middle School Campus, and there are many palace building stones around the school playground, which are still lying in the same place, and the architectural pattern of the palace has changed beyond recognition.

There have always been many explanations about the reasons for the construction of Gonghua City, and the most popular one is the saying that "the imperial tomb rests on the middle road". Gonghuacheng site is located between Beijing City and Tianshoushan Imperial Tomb (Ming Tombs). Tired of the fatigue of north-south exchanges, the harems set up a place to rest and settle down, so they built the city. There is some truth in this statement, and the history after the Ming Dynasty also proves that the establishment of the Palace City has indeed provided great convenience for the royal ancestor worship activities.