Why is the Qinling Mountains so important?

My first contact with Qinling Mountain should be in the geography textbook of middle school. Qinling Mountains and Huaihe River are called the geographical dividing line between north and south of China. Later, I fell in love with traveling, and I also fell in love with The Book of Changes, Shan Hai Jing and Tao Te Ching. I have been to Louguan, Qinling Mountain and Kunlun Mountain in Shaanxi, and have a field understanding of Qinling Mountain. Let me tell you why the Qinling Mountains are called the Long Mai of China. What's so special about the Qinling Mountains?

First, the myths and legends of Qinling Mountains

Qinling Mountains are divided into narrow Qinling Mountains and broad Qinling Mountains.

In a narrow sense, Qinling Mountain is limited to the mountain range between Weihe River and Hanjiang River in the south of Shaanxi Province, bordering Bahe River and Danjiang River Valley in the east and Jialing River in the west. There are not many myths and legends in the narrow sense of Qinling Mountains. There is an ancient myth (also called "Lotus Lantern") in Huashan Mountain in Qinling Mountains.

Qinling Mountains

The Qinling Mountains in a broad sense are called the Mount Zhongnan, including today's Kunlun Mountain, and extend to today's China-Pakistan border. The length of the Jogory Peak reaches 3,500 kilometers. It starts from Kunlun in the west, passes through Longnan and southern Shaanxi, and reaches Dabie Mountain in Hubei, Henan, Anhui and Zhangbaling near Bengbu in the east, which is the watershed of the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins. Before Qin Shihuang unified China, Qinling was called Kunlun. Later, because Qinling Mountain is located in the south of the capital of Qin State, it is also called Zhong Nanshan, or Nanshan Mountain. The earliest recorded Qinling Mountains are Shan Hai Jing and Yu Gong. Yu Gong was written in the Warring States Period. In its written description, the layout of Chinese mountains is a system of "three lines and four columns", in which Qinling Mountain is listed as the middle line, and now a branch of Qinling Mountain is also called Zhongtiaoshan Mountain. It was not until Sima Qian wrote the sentence "Qinling Mountain is a big obstacle in the world" in Historical Records that Qinling Mountain was officially recorded in words.

Qinling is like a dragon.

In ancient myths and legends of China, Kunlun Mountain is the first mountain in China.

On the mountain of thousands of ancestors, the ancients regarded Zhong Nanshan as a god, believing that the sun and the moon lived in Kunlun, which was the underground capital of the gods of the sun and the moon.

Kunlun myth and Greek myth are two great myths in the world, and their emergence and spread are synchronized with the survival and development of the Chinese nation. For example, in The Classic of Mountains and Seas, there are ancient mythological figures such as the Queen Mother of the West, the Emperor of Heaven, Pangu, Nuwa, Houyi and Chang 'e. It is said that there are nine heavies in heaven, and the Emperor of Heaven is the Yellow Emperor.

Zhong Nanshan is one of the birthplaces of Taoism, which is not only related to Huangdi, the ancestor of Taoism, but also the Dojo of Laozi. Since then, many hermits have lived in seclusion in Zhong Nanshan, leaving more mysterious legends for Zhong Nanshan.

Yellow Emperor

The ancient myth in China is that man is half man and half god, or that man and god are interlinked, and the nearest place, Kunlun Mountain, gets strength from the sky. The ancient myth of China expressed people's simple thought of conquering nature with divine power, but it was also used by the ruling class-this is the so-called "divine right of monarchy" thought that had a far-reaching influence on China, and the emperor was called "the son of heaven".

Second, Qinling Mountain is the land of Longxing.

At the northern foot of the Qinling Mountains (Jin 'an area), there were three dynasties, namely, Western Zhou Dynasty, Qin Dynasty, Western Han Dynasty, Eastern Han Dynasty, Western Jin Dynasty, Zhao Qian, Pre-Qin Dynasty, Later Qin Dynasty, Western Wei Dynasty, Northern Zhou Dynasty, Sui Dynasty, Tang Dynasty and Daxia Dynasty. The capital was established more than 1 100 years.

The emperor is called "the son of heaven" and is the embodiment of "dragon", or "the son of heaven". Kunlun Mountain is called the ancestor of Wanshan Mountain and the source of Long Mai.