40 Years of Yecheng Archaeology: The "Ancient Capital of the Six Dynasties" that Sleeps for a Thousand Years

Handan, December 12 (CNN) -- 6 years of archaeology in Yecheng: the "ancient capital of the six dynasties" that has been sleeping for thousands of years

Author: Niu Lin, translated by Wang Tian

This is an ancient Chinese capital buried under the sand of the Zhanghe River for thousands of years, and its status as the national capital is comparable to Nanjing, both of which are "the hometown of the Three Kingdoms and the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties".

Yecheng (now Linzhang County, Handan City, Hebei Province), from the Spring and Autumn Five Tyrants Qi Huan Gong built the city wall, to the Northern Zhou Dynasty Elephant two years (AD 580) once burned down, a generation of famous people have experienced little-known prosperity and loneliness.

In 1983, the Yecheng archaeological team, jointly established by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics (now the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology), was stationed in Linzhang and began to explore and excavate the Yecheng ruins. Over the past 40 years, this ancient capital, which has been lost in the long river of history, has gradually revealed its true face, and the civilization that has been dormant for thousands of years has been re-concerned, recognized and interpreted by the world.

Schematic map of the ruins around Yecheng. Courtesy of Yecheng archaeological team

Linzhang is a county under the jurisdiction of Handan City, Hebei Province, with a total area of 752 square kilometers and a total population of 76,4. In the eyes of most people, this small county in the Central Plains is unknown, but in the history of China's <>,<>-year civilization, Linzhang has been the political, economic, military and cultural center of northern China for nearly four centuries, and its position is pivotal in its heyday.

Linzhang was called "Ye" in ancient times, and "Ye" as a place name originated from the fiefdom of Daye, the son of the granddaughter of the Yellow Emperor, Zhuān Xū, and gradually evolved into Ye, more than 4000,314 years ago. In the second year of Jianxing in the Western Jin Dynasty (<> AD), in order to avoid the name of Emperor Sima Ye of the Jin Dynasty, it was renamed Linzhang because of the north of the Zhanghe River.

According to historical records, in 658 BC, the head of the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons, Duke Qi Huan, built Yecheng and built it as a strategic place for him to dominate the Central Plains, and Yecheng gradually rose. During the Warring States Period, Wei Wenhou took Yecheng as the accompanying capital, and a generation of honest officials Ximen Leopard and Shi Qi successively served as Ye Ling, eliminating bad habits, building water conservancy, and vigorously developing agricultural production, so that Yecheng soon became a prosperous and rich, easy to defend and difficult to attack, and a strategic place with convenient transportation. In the long years that followed, the Qin Dynasty set up a county here, the Western Han Dynasty was where the Wei County was located, and the Eastern Han Dynasty became the Jizhou Governor's Office at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Yuan Shao once said after occupying Yecheng that "I am based on the river in the south, block Yan and Dai in the north, and the people of Rong Di, and fight for the world in the south", but unfortunately his ambition is sparse and indecisive, and finally Cao Cao rushed to meet the Han Xian Emperor in exile.

Yecheng began to move towards its peak and glory, and it was inseparable from a generation of heroes Cao Cao. In 204 AD, Cao Cao invaded Yecheng with the remnants of the Battle of Guandu, eliminating the remnants of Yuan's father and son, and initially unifying most of northern China. After mastering the power of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cao Cao placed Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty in Xuchang, and took Ye as his royal capital, and began to build large-scale according to the regulations of the royal capital. In order to increase the function of the city, Cao Cao successively built the world-famous Tongjue (Bird) Terrace, Jinhu Terrace (Later Zhao was renamed Jinfengtai because of the avoidance of Emperor Wu Shihu's name), Bingjing Terrace, known as "Bronze Bird Three Platforms" in history. At the same time, a large-scale government-run handicraft workshop was built, and a commercial market dedicated to commercial circulation was opened, Yecheng quickly became one of the cultural and economic centers of the country, opening it as the prelude to the capital of the six dynasties of Cao Wei, Later Zhao, Ran Wei, Qianyan, Eastern Wei and Northern Qi during the period of the Three Kingdoms and the Jin Dynasty and the Northern and Southern Dynasties.

After entering the Eastern Wei Dynasty and Northern Qi Dynasty, the development of Yecheng reached a historical peak. In 534 AD, the Eastern Wei Dynasty moved the capital from Luoyang to Yecheng and built a larger Yenan City. Since then, Yecheng includes two parts, the north city and the south city, and the periphery has also formed a <>-square-kilometer outer Guo city. During the Northern Qi Dynasty, the northern city of Ye and the southern city of Ye were greatly rebuilt, and the intensity exceeded that of Cao Wei and the Later Zhao period. At this time, after several generations of careful design and operation, Yecheng became increasingly powerful and perfect in terms of urban scale and function, and became an international metropolis with a certain status in China and even the world at that time.

Floor plan of Yecheng ruins. Courtesy of Yecheng archaeological team

But Yecheng soon decayed. In 577 A.D., the Northern Zhou Dynasty destroyed the Northern Qi Dynasty, changed Ye to Xiangzhou, and Yecheng was reduced from the national capital to the state. In 580 A.D., the governor of Xiangzhou, Wei Chi Yuan, raised troops from Ye to oppose his relative Yang Jian's good government, and then failed. Yang Jian was worried that the old capital Yecheng would rebel again, so he ordered all the people of Yecheng to move south to Anyang, forty-five miles away, and ordered the complete destruction of Yecheng.

At this point, the palace was demolished, the city walls were torn down, and a generation of names became ruins, gradually disappearing into the long river of history. After 580 A.D., Yecheng was basically reduced to a suburb, and Yecheng, which was built on the Zhanghe River, was finally buried under the sediment with the repeated flooding of the Zhanghe River.

"A large capital city is deserted, and it is impossible to completely disappear from the human world, nor can it completely disappear from human memory." He Liqun, an associate researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and head of the Yecheng archaeological team, said that Yecheng was successively the capital of the six dynasties of Cao Wei, Later Zhao, Ran Wei, Qianyan, Eastern Wei and Northern Qi, from 204 AD to 577 AD, for more than 370 years. The approximate location and situation of Yecheng are recorded in the documents of the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties in later generations, which do not need to be rediscovered. "It's just about how the academic community discovered it and understood it, and the discovery here is a discovery in the modern scientific sense that has been proved through archaeological techniques and methods."

In the 20s of the 50th century, the famous archaeologist Yu Weichao went to the Yecheng site for a short-term ground survey, and published a rough restoration map in the "Yecheng Investigation". This is the first time that Chinese archaeologists have used modern archaeological methods to conduct archaeological investigations on the Yecheng site, which can be called the beginning of Yecheng archaeology.

Systematic archaeological work on the Yecheng site began in 1983. In this year, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics (now the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) jointly established the Yecheng archaeological team.

Schematic diagram of the layout and central axis of Yecheng. Courtesy of Yecheng archaeological team

Why do you want to do Yecheng archaeology? In this regard, He Liqun explained that because cities, especially ancient capitals, are the best examples of studying the various aspects of ancient society. After the 20s of the 80th century, with the development of archaeology, everyone gradually recognized that in addition to Chang'an, Luoyang, Beijing, Nanjing and other ancient capitals, Yecheng also had a very important position in the development and evolution of the capital in the Middle Ages. But how important it is, due to the relative scarcity of documentary data, archaeological materials are needed to prove it. In order to explore the development and evolution of China's ancient capital, the Yecheng archaeological team was formed for the purpose of academic research.

Archaeologists have noticed that from Chang'an City in the Han Dynasty and Luoyang City in the Han and Wei Dynasties to Chang'an City in the Sui and Tang Dynasties and Luoyang City in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there are many missing links in the development of the capital. How did the city go from having a weak regularity to having a central axis? How did you change from a double city circle or a double city circle to a triple city circle of Miyagi, Imperial City, and Waiguo City? When does partitioning by function start? How did the checkerboard-like structure develop? And Yecheng "inherited the Qin and Han dynasties and the Sui and Tang dynasties", which just filled a series of missing links in the development of the Han and Tang capitals.

"One of the important tasks of Yecheng archaeology is to make up for the missing links and establish and improve the development sequence of the capital city in the Middle Ages in China." Ho Liqun said.

Xu Guangji, an 88-year-old researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the first leader of the Yecheng archaeological team, pointed out another importance of Yecheng archaeology: "Internationally, Japanese scholars are also studying the origin of their capital system. A common view is that the Japanese capitals, such as Fujiwara-kyo, Heijo-kyo (Nara), and Heian-kyo (Kyoto), were all learned from Chang'an Castle in the Sui and Tang dynasties of China. So where is the source of Chang'an City in the Sui and Tang Dynasties? There are many differences between Chang'an City in the Sui and Tang dynasties and Chang'an City in the Han Dynasty, so some Japanese scholars believe that this urban layout may have originated from Yecheng, the capital city earlier than the Sui and Tang dynasties, and it is not known. ”

All of this has yet to be answered from Yecheng. (ENDS)