Composition of ancient buildings in Shanxi

At the foot of Hanging Wengshan Mountain, 25 kilometers southwest of Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, there is an ancient garden called Jinci. There are mountains and waters around here, and ancient trees are towering. In picturesque places, the working people have built nearly 100 temples, halls, buildings, pavilions, towers and bridges. Under the lush shade of trees, crystal-clear springs meander through temples and temples, and historical sites and natural scenery gather together, dazzling tourists and lingering. Jinci, as a national key cultural relic protection unit and a famous tourist attraction, receives thousands of tourists from home and abroad all the year round.

It's a long story about Jinci. According to the Records of Historical Records of the Book of Jin, his son became and was named. Because there is water in Jin, his son Xie changed his country name to Jin. In order to pay homage to Uncle Yu, later generations built a shrine in the source of Jinshui, which is also called Jinci. The founding date of Jinci Temple is still difficult to determine. The earliest record is in Li Daoyuan (AD 466 or 472? -AD 527), the book wrote: "There is Tang Shuyu Temple on the international mountain, a cool hall by the water, and a flying beam on the water." When sitting, the cultural relics in the scenic spot are already considerable, and the temples, halls and flying beams are all ready. It can be seen that the history of Jinci, even from the Northern Wei Dynasty, has a history of hundreds of years.

In the long years, Jinci has been built and expanded many times, and its appearance is constantly changing. In the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Levin, Wen Xuandi overthrew the Eastern Wei Dynasty, established the Northern Qi Dynasty with Jinyang as its capital, and expanded the Jinci Temple during the Tianbao period (550-559 AD) to "build a big house and a pond". In the first year of Emperor Yangdi's reign (AD 58 1-600), a relic health care tower was built in the southwest of the temple area. In the 20th year of Tang Dynasty (AD 646), Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong, went to Jinci, wrote the inscription on Jinci, and expanded it. During the years of Taiping and Xingguo in Song Taizong (976-983 AD), Zhao Guangyi built a large-scale building in Jinci, and after the renovation, it was engraved with inscriptions. Song Renzong Zhao Zhen established Tang Shuyu as the king of Fendong during his heyday (A.D. 1023- 1032) and built the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral for Tang Shuyu's mother, Yijiang.

Since the Notre Dame Cathedral and Fish Pond Flying Beam were built in the heyday of the Northern Song Dynasty, the architectural layout of the temple area has been greatly improved. Since then, Iron Man has been cast, and memorial hall, bell tower, drum tower and water mirror platform have been added. In this way, the central axis building with Notre Dame as the main body was completed for the second time. The Tang Shuyu Temple, which once lived in the right place, is located next to it and has been relegated to a secondary position.

The buildings on the central axis of the temple area, from east to west, are: Shuijingtai, Huixian Bridge, Jinrentai, Duiyue Square, the second floor of the bell and drum, Fairy Hall, Fish Bridge Flying Beam and Notre Dame Hall. This group of buildings, including Tang Shuyu Temple, Haotian Temple and Wenchang Palace in the north, Jellyfish House, Difficult Old Spring Pavilion and Relic Living Tower in the south, constitute a comprehensive building complex. The buildings along the east-west main line, together with the south and north buildings, were originally buildings of different periods, but they all seemed to be subject to a delicate overall design. They are not patchwork, but compact in layout, like temples, courtyards and royal palaces, which reflect the intelligence of Gongfang people in ancient China.

At the front end of the central axis is the water mirror platform, which was built in the Ming Dynasty and was the stage for acting at that time. The front part is a single-eaved rolling shed roof, and the back part is a double-eaved rest peak. In addition to the spacious stage in front, there are clear corridors on the other three sides, which is unique in architecture. Empress Dowager Cixi once built one in the Summer Palace as it was.

From Shuijingtai to the west, there is a main canal in Jinjiang-"Zhibo Canal", also known as Christina North River. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhi Bo, an official of the State of Jin, dug the canal by diverting water from Fenshui and Jin River to irrigate Jinyang in order to seize the land in Zhao Xiangzi. Later generations deepened the old canal and it became a canal for irrigating fields.

Crossing the Hexian Bridge on the Zhibo Canal is the Golden Terrace. The golden platform is square, and an iron man stands at each corner, each of which is more than two meters high. One statue in the southwest corner was cast in the fourth year of Shaosheng in the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 1097). After more than 800 years of rain, snow, wind and frost, it is bright and rust-free, which vividly reflects the height of smelting and casting achieved by the working people in China during the Northern Song Dynasty.

Go through the Moon Square, Bell Tower and Drum Tower to the Fairy Hall. This temple was originally a place of worship. It was built in the eighth year of Jin Dading (1 168). It is three rooms wide and two rooms deep. The beam frame is very distinctive. Only one layer of flat beam is placed on the four rafters, which is simple, material-saving, light and strong. Around the temple, except for the front and rear doors in the middle, thick sill walls and straight fences were built, making the whole hall look like a gazebo, which is particularly neat and open. 1955, the fairy hall was renovated with raw materials according to the original style, maintaining the architectural characteristics of the Jin Dynasty, and it is a treasure in my ancient buildings.

To the west of the Fairy Hall is a fishpond flying beam connecting the hall of Notre Dame. The whole swamp is a square pool, which is the first Er Quan of water. There are thirty-four small octagonal stone pillars in the pool, and the cross-shaped bridge deck is supported by the bucket arch at the top of the column and the beam, which is a flying beam. The east-west bridge deck is 19.6 meters long and 5 meters wide, which is10.3 meters above the ground, and its western ends are connected with the fairy hall and the Notre Dame hall respectively. The north-south bridge deck is19.5m long and 3.3m wide, with both ends inclined downward and flush with the ground. The whole shape is like a big bird spreading its wings, so it is called a flying beam. The date and place of the establishment of Liang Fei are unknown. According to Zhu's records, it was established in the Northern Wei Dynasty. The existing bridge may have been built at the same time as Notre Dame in the Northern Song Dynasty. It was renovated in 1955. The architectural structure has the characteristics of the Song Dynasty, and the small octagonal column and the compound potted lotus petals still carry the legacy of the Northern Wei Dynasty. Although this strange and beautiful cross-shaped bridge is recorded in ancient books and occasionally seen in ancient faces, there is only one existing object. This is very valuable for studying the ancient bridge architecture in China.

On the east side of the north-south bridge deck in Liang Fei, there is a Song stone lion lying at each end, which is vivid in shape. There are a pair of iron lions on the platform of Qiaodong, which are mighty and magnificent. They were cast in the eighth year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1 1 18). They are the earliest iron lions in China.

At the end of the central axis is the magnificent Notre Dame Hall. Notre Dame is backed by the hanging urn mountain and faces the fish pond ahead. Another Er Quan-"Difficult to be old" and "Good to benefit" are left and right respectively. This temple was built in the heyday of the Northern Song Dynasty (1023- 1032) and rebuilt in the first year of Chongning (1 102). It is the oldest building in Jinci now. The temple is about 19 meters high, with double eaves resting on the top of the mountain, seven rooms are wide and six rooms are deep, and the plane layout is almost square. The hall is surrounded by cloisters, with two deep front porches and spacious corridors. Among the ancient buildings in China, the corridor around the temple is the earliest existing example. The pillars around the temple are slightly inclined inward, and the four corner pillars are obviously raised, which makes the curve of the front eaves of the temple very radian. The upturned temple corner and the folded wings of the flying beam set each other off and fell together, relaxing one by one, demonstrating the ingenuity of the flying beam and the openness of the hall. Temple, bridge, spring pavilion and fish pond are integrated. Notre Dame Hall was built by "column dropping method". Sixteen columns were dropped inside and outside the hall, and the roof truss of the hall was supported by colonnades and eaves columns. So the front porch and hall are spacious. Clever use of "column reduction method" shows that the mechanical principle has been further mastered in the architecture of Song Dynasty. The proper ratio of bucket arch to column height avoids the waste of materials in Sui and Tang Dynasties and is more artistic in architectural style. The wooden architecture in China experienced a development process from the grandeur of Sui and Tang Dynasties to the brilliance and lightness of Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the architecture in Song Dynasty was an important part in this process. Notre Dame is a masterpiece of architecture in Song Dynasty, which is of great value to the study of architecture in Song Dynasty and the development history of architecture in China. There is no column in the temple, which not only increases the majesty of the virgin in the tall shrine, but also provides good conditions for the statue. There are forty-three clay sculptures in the temple. Except for two small statues, most of them are original sculptures in the Northern Song Dynasty. The mother of Tang Shuyu and Zhou Chengwang, the wife of Zhou Wuwang, the daughter of Jiang Ziya, and the statue of the Virgin Mary are located in the shrine in the center of the hall. The other 42 attendants are symmetrically distributed on both sides of the niche. Among them, there are five eunuchs, four men's and women's officials and thirty-three ladies-in-waiting. The virgin ginger, sitting on a wooden chair decorated with crests, embroidered robes with crests and beaded gowns, is dignified and dignified, showing the dignity and luxury of the rulers. Forty-two attendants, each with his own duties, serve the Queen in all kinds of hard work, such as printing calligraphy, sweeping the floor and dressing, serving food and drink, serving daily life and even playing music and dancing. These statues are vivid in shape and natural in posture, especially the maids. Artists in the Song Dynasty, full of sympathy, created a group of women who were imprisoned in the palace for life, lost their freedom and buried their youth. These maids are well-proportioned, beautifully dressed, and their clothes are bright and smooth. They are different in age, plump or slim, round or delicate in face, bitter or naive in expression, distinctive in personality, natural in expression, close to real people in height, and even more lifelike. This group of statues broke through the stereotype that temple buildings made gods and buddhas, and truly showed the life spirit of the servants imprisoned in the palace, thus reflecting a side of feudal society. Technically, he mastered the proportion and anatomical relationship of the human body quite accurately, skillfully and artistically. They are treasures of ancient sculpture art in China and occupy an important position in art history. When people talk about Jinci, they always talk about these wonderful Song sculptures.

In the south of Notre Dame Hall, there is a pavilion called Pyramid Top, which was built by Tianbao in the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-559 AD). Difficult old spring, the main source of Shanxi's water, flows out from the cave under the pavilion all the year round, day and night, so it was named after the sentence "Never tin is difficult to get old" in the Book of Songs in the Northern Qi Dynasty. The spring water is clear and transparent, and the long-lived duckweed and colorful stones in the water are dazzling and spectacular under the sunlight. Li Bai, a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, was full of praise and wrote beautiful sentences such as "Jinci flows like jasper" and "Long Lin sedge is microwave green". Difficult old spring water comes from fault rocks, and the annual water temperature is kept at17 "C, which irrigates tens of thousands of acres of rice fields nearby. Fan Zhongyan, a poet in the Northern Song Dynasty, said: "There are thousands of people in Qian Qian, and there are rice and fields everywhere." "All like Jinci, people have no dry years. "It's a spring that praises Jinci.

Jellyfish House, also known as Crystal Palace, is located in the west of the South Pavilion. Built in the forty-second year of Jiajing in Ming Dynasty (1563), the whole building is divided into two floors. There are three caves in the cave downstairs, and a bronze jellyfish statue is placed in the middle cave, sitting on an urn-shaped seat. Sit upstairs and set up a shrine to worship jellyfish from west to east. There are eight handmaiden statues on both sides of the shrine, which are beautiful in posture, elegant in clothing lines and unique in shape, and are also rare artistic masterpieces.

The famous Tang monument in Jinci stands in the pavilion of Zhenguan. This tablet was made by Emperor Taizong of Li Shimin in the 20th year of Zhenguan (AD 646), and it is called "Jinci Inscription". The word "Quanbei 1203" aims at promoting the literary martial arts of the Tang Dynasty and consolidating one's political power by praising Zhou Zong's politics and Tang Shuyu's founding policy. Li Shimin loved Wang Xizhi's Mo Bao very much, and he also had high attainments in calligraphy. The preface to the inscription on the tablet of Jinci is free and easy in calligraphy, strong in bone and vigorous in brushwork. The sculptor fully demonstrated the charm of the original calligraphy with the method of washing and refining the knife. Tang Bei is the earliest existing calligraphy tablet in China, which is of great value to the study of China's calligraphy art.

There is Tang Shuyu Temple in the north of the temple area. According to Li Daoyuan's Notes on Water Classics, "There is Tang Shuyu Temple in the pillow water in the west of Numa." In the Northern Song Dynasty, it was described in the Inscription of the Golden Temple in Taiping Xingguo that "there is a meandering marsh in front of it" and "there is a dangerous peak behind it". The location of the old temple seems to be different from the present. The existing building is divided into front and rear rooms, which are quite spacious. There are cloisters around the front yard, three halls in the back yard, and Tang Shuyu Hall in the north. The temple is five rooms wide and four rooms deep, and there is a statue of Tang Shuyu in the middle shrine. On both sides of the shrine are twelve statues moved from other places, mostly women, whose height is close to reality. She also plays flute, pipa, sanxian and cymbals, which seems to be a relatively complete band. The statue in the distance is a work of Ming Dynasty, which is a rare material for studying the development of China's instrumental music and the history of its music system.

The relic health tower is located in Nanrui, the ancestral land. It was built during the reign of Emperor Kai of Sui Dynasty, rebuilt in Song Dynasty and rebuilt in the 16th year of Qing Qianlong (175 1). The tower is 38 meters high, with seven rooms and eight octagons, glazed tile roof. From a distance, the towering ancient pagoda sets off the blue sky and white clouds in the village, which is very spectacular.

The towering ancient trees in Jinci are also impressive, including Bai Zhou and Sui Huai. According to legend, Bai Zhou was founded in the Western Zhou Dynasty, located on the left side of Notre Dame Hall. The tree leans to the south at an angle of about 40 degrees to the ground, and the branches and leaves cover the temples. Ouyang Xiu, a writer in the Song Dynasty, praised: "The earth is rich in vegetation and cypress contains pale smoke." It was highly respected for its antiquity more than 900 years ago, and it is still vigorous and upright. It is also called "Three Musts of Jinci" with the spring water in Lao Wei and the exquisite statue of the girl in the Song Dynasty. Sui Huai is in Guandi Temple, and the old branches are intertwined. These ancient trees are so old, but they are still full of vitality and shade. The combination of gloomy old trees and golden water and three springs makes the pavilions and pavilions of the hall hidden in the shade and still water rapids, and the scenery is extremely beautiful.