Why aren't there more ancient buildings in China?

People who have been to Egypt, Greece and Italy cannot but marvel at the long history and well-preserved ancient buildings in those places. Not to mention those towering pyramids have experienced three or four thousand years of wind and frost, that is, the Roman Pantheon, which has been around for nearly 19 years, is not only basically intact, but now it is still a magnificent building. Many buildings in Europe since the Middle Ages, although they are hundreds of years old, are still in extended service today, and they still look elegant, perfect and comfortable. On the other hand, although China is known as a 5,-year-old civilization, there are few real ancient buildings that still exist today, and the age is much later. All the buildings in the pre-Qin period have long since ceased to exist, that is, the Great Wall of the Qin and Han Dynasties, which stretches across Wan Li, and the magnificent palaces of the Han and Tang Dynasties, leaving only rammed earth or piles of abutments. No ground buildings were left in the imperial tombs before the Ming Dynasty. At present, the earliest stone buildings are probably the Zhao Zhouqiao built by Li Chun in Sui Dynasty. The earliest wooden structure was the Bukkoji Hall of Wutai Mountain discovered by Liang Sicheng in 1937, which was built in the 11th year of Dazhong in Tang Xuanzong (857). The famous wooden pagoda in Yingxian County, Shanxi Province (Buddha Palace Temple Sakyamuni Pagoda) was built in 156, the second year of Liaoning Province. In the history of China, the proportion of buildings recorded in writing is extremely low, and only a handful can still be used today. Even the average "century-old house", if it is not a bit of a combination of Chinese and western, few people are willing to live. This is a great regret in the history of China, and it is also a pity in the ancient architecture of China. But after careful analysis, it is no accident that such a result appears. Almost all the ancient buildings or relatively complete relics in the world that have been preserved to this day are made of stone, such as the pyramids in Egypt, the Parthenon in Greece, the Taj Mahal in India and so on. However, the ancient buildings in China are basically civil or brick-wood structures, and stone materials are only used for steps, thresholds, column foundations, railings, local decorations, sculptures, etc., and even buildings with stone columns are rare. Wooden buildings are vulnerable to insects and rats, and they are not resistant to wind, rain, lightning, mildew and decay, and they are even more vulnerable to the disaster in Zhu Rong. Also suffering from natural and man-made disasters, stone buildings can generally preserve the skeleton and are easy to repair, while civil buildings are often gone. Even for routine maintenance, buildings with civil structures are more troublesome. This can't help but say that the superior geographical environment made our ancestors lose their selectivity, because in the places where early civilizations in China rose, there were generally dense forests, or they were not far from the forests, so it was convenient to use local materials. On the loess plateau and the loess alluvial plain, high-quality stone is not easy to obtain, and it is not easy to dig, so it is not as easy as using wood. Some places, such as the northern section of Taihang Mountain, also have good stones, but it is undoubtedly more convenient to use wood when there are still a large number of virgin forests. For example, when Shile wanted to build a palace in Xiangguo (now Hebei execution platform) during the Sixteen Kingdoms period, there was a flood that washed down a large number of trees on Taihang Mountain. However, in the Nile Delta, the mountainous Apennine Peninsula, the Balkans and the Peloponnesus, it is obviously more convenient to mine stone than to cut wood. Once the tradition is formed, even if the geographical environment has changed, people will act in the original way. For example, when the palaces, tombs and temples were built or repaired in Beijing in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, although there was no usable timber to cut in the north, huge timber was still transported from Sichuan and Yunnan at any cost to maintain the long-term wooden structure. Even the general folk architecture, the basic model has not changed. Civil or brick-and-wood buildings have solved the housing problem of the world's largest population for thousands of years, and also made China pay a heavy price-except for newly developed areas, all the forests have been cut down. On the other hand, the fires caused by natural and man-made disasters destroyed buildings again and again, the three-month fire in which Xiang Yu burned the palace of the Qin Dynasty, and the devastating fires in Hangzhou in the Southern Song Dynasty were just remarkable examples of countless fires, even the three halls in the Forbidden City in the Ming and Qing Dynasties were not spared. If the first reason is that the ancestors made a forced choice because of the restriction of geographical environment, then the second reason is entirely human factors, that is, people's attitude towards ancient buildings has always been to pursue "renovation as new" rather than "renovation as old". Of course, the emergence of this concept is also related to objective conditions. Wooden buildings cannot last long, and no one lives or uses them. A building will soon decay and even collapse. Even if people live or use it, they have to be constantly maintained. When the wood is easy to obtain or the price is not high, it is better to rebuild it as a whole than to replace it locally. But the result of "renovating the old as new" again and again is precisely the destruction of ancient buildings again and again. For example, Fan Zhongyan's "The Story of Yueyang Tower" mentioned that when Teng Zijing rebuilt Yueyang Tower, he was "adding to its old system" rather than "restoring its old system" or "following its old system". Because of this, although Yueyang Tower was built in the fourth year of Kaiyuan in Tang Dynasty (716), it has been rebuilt again and again by "adding its old system", and now it is no longer the original ancient building. We can often hear the introduction that the existing buildings were built in what dynasty, but the buildings we see can't see the shape and style of that era at all. Most of them are the styles of Ming and Qing architecture, and even have become the products of the last century. The real ancient buildings that have been preserved to this day are often in the backcountry and deep mountain wilderness. Although they have not been valued and protected by the world, they have escaped the "renovation of the old as new". Although most of them are in jeopardy, their appearance has not changed. The third reason is the defect of China's architectural concept itself-paying too much attention to the ceremonial, political and public functions of buildings, but ignoring or even ignoring their life functions. As a result, almost all magnificent, spacious and comfortable buildings belong to this category-palaces, tombs, yamen, temples, ancestral halls, halls, buildings, platforms, etc., while private houses, especially those of ordinary people, are inferior. The autocratic hierarchy is fully reflected in the specifications of buildings. People of different grades and identities can only build or live in houses with corresponding specifications. Only a few nobles, bureaucrats and local tycoons dare to "exceed the system", but they also take great risks. When I visited the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii in Italy, I was very impressed by the specifications of civilian houses in the city. In this city, which is equivalent to the early Eastern Han Dynasty in China, ordinary residents have an independent house, including three to four bedrooms, living room and bathroom, which is much more spacious and comfortable than the civilian houses in China at the same time. Even in private houses, halls and ancestral temples (family temples) used for family or family sacrifices, rituals, receptions and gatherings are generally the main body of the building, with high standards, while private spaces such as bedrooms are often dark and narrow. I visited Liukeng Village, Le 'an County, Jiangxi Province, which is known as "a village through the ages". I observed the rooms in several ancient houses I saw, and found that they were all in the subsidiary position of the hall, all in the mezzanine, wing and back room, which seemed narrow, dark and sultry. Because of this, rich and powerful people will try to "exceed the system", or abandon the old and build new gardens, other businesses and bookstores. Even the Qing emperor and Empress Dowager Cixi, who are expensive monarchs, prefer to live in chengde mountain resort, Yuanmingyuan and Summer Palace. Some European houses built three or four hundred years ago still feel very comfortable to live in today, but there is really nothing enviable about the living quarters of the Empress Dowager of Ming and Qing Dynasties and the inner houses of the Confucius House in Qufu. No wonder the Qing emperor built western-style houses when he repaired Yuanmingyuan. In the late Qing Dynasty, all the officials and gentry in Shanghai lived in new-style houses. In the Republic of China, the former Qing emperors in Tianjin and Qingdao all lived in villa houses. The "palace" of the puppet Manchuria Puyi was also a combination of Chinese and western, with the west as the mainstay. Who are the experts and scholars who study and protect ancient buildings today who still live in a thousand-year-old village and a hundred-year-old house? Who wants to move into the quadrangles, Huizhou architecture, Shikumen, Diaojiao Building, Earth Building, Diaolou and caves that have not been transformed or modernized? Although they belong to "traditional culture", they also have endless "benefits". The above statement is not a comprehensive evaluation of the ancient buildings in China. The first point is just to point out its congenital deficiency. Generally speaking, it was caused by the geographical environment at that time and inevitable in the process of historical development, but we should face up to this fact. The second reason is that we should learn a lesson today, so we must persist in "renovating the existing ancient buildings as old as before", and we can only prolong their life as much as possible, instead of easily hurting the bones. According to today's material conditions and technical means, any ancient building can be rebuilt, but the preservation of real ancient buildings still faces many problems. Only in this way can ancient buildings be cherished by all mankind. The third reason affects our attitude towards ancient buildings-should we protect and preserve them as part of our history and culture, or should we continue to play their functions? It should be admitted that most of them are no longer suitable for modern people. No one should unilaterally emphasize their "advantages" (even if they did exist in the past), but ask people to live patiently, even if they want to. Only by facing up to this contradiction and solving it, can China's few ancient buildings with a short history be effectively protected and not disappear into constructive and protective destruction.