It is more appropriate to describe Zhenjiang with "three green rings ups and downs, one river crossing" Zhenjiang is located in the middle of Jiangsu Province, bordering Shanghai in the east, Nanjing in the west and Yangzhou in the north. It is located at the intersection of the East-West Yangtze River and the North-South Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, like a pearl, embedded in the famous cross golden waterway. Zhenjiang section of Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is 42.6 kilometers long, which is one of the earliest excavated sections in the history of Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal.
"Dixiong Wu Chu Southeast Club connects the upstream and downstream of Jingyang by water." (Yuan; It can be said that the rise, development and prosperity of Zhenjiang are closely related to the Yangtze River and the Canal. The endless Yangtze River and the endless canal meet here, giving birth to the ancient city's long civilization of more than 3,000 years.
Zhenjiang: "the first mountain in the world"
The excavation of artificial rivers is of epoch-making significance in the development history of Zhenjiang. The famous Dantu Waterway was dug in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It starts from Yunyang (now Danyang) in the south and enters the river from Dantu in the north. It is the Tongjiang River in the northernmost section of the Jiangnan Canal. The excavation of Dantu Waterway can be said to be a great pioneering work of ancient Zhenjiang people. It connects Taihu Lake with the Yangtze River, strengthens the connection between Huaxia area in the Central Plains and barbarians in the southeast, and becomes one of the important ties between the north and the south in the pre-Qin period.
In the Qin Dynasty, the Dantu waterway entered the estuary and moved westward again. In the thirty-seventh year of Qin Shihuang (2 10 BC), he traveled eastward to Zhenjiang for the fifth time, sending 3,000 prisoners in ochre clothes, cutting off Jingyan Mountain, opening a canal, and cutting off the "Wang Qi". This is the origin of Zhenjiang's alias "Dantu". This negative action created the embryonic form of the Zhenjiang Canal "Qu 'a". Since then, the rolling Yangtze River water has been refracted to the southeast along this 124 km long artificial river channel, connected with the river channel opened by Fucha and Fan Li in the Spring and Autumn Period, meandering east to Changzhou and Wuxi, and directly to Suzhou and Hangzhou.
At the beginning of Sun Wu's capital Jianye (now Nanjing), Wu Hui's waterway transportation was mainly Dantu waterway, from Jingkou or Dantu to Jianye. In order to avoid the risk of Yangtze River storm when Cao Fu in the south of the Yangtze River passed through Jingkou to Jianye, an artificial waterway from Jurong to Jinling was opened. Sun Quan sent Chen Xun, a captain, to "break the governor". Pogangdu, located in the south of Jurong County, runs east-west, with Qinhuai River system in the west, Yanling and Yunyang in the east and Dantu Waterway in the east. It is called "breaking the governor" because it is formed by cutting mountains and breaking ridges. In Liang Wudi, it gave up "breaking the governor" and established "Shang Rong Capital". The paths of the two blasphemies are slightly different, but they are all from Jurong via Baoyan at the junction of Dantu and Danyang to Jianye and Chishan Lake. During the Six Dynasties, the two cities avoided the Yangtze River and communicated the Qinhuai River-Taihu Lake water system through the mainland, which strengthened the traffic links between Jianye, the political center, Wu Hui, the economic center and Jingkou, the military center, and promoted the economic development along the route. At this time, the ferry route between Jingkou and Guangling (now Yangzhou) has been fixed. At the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, in Yongjia Du Nan, Du Nan from Yangzhou to Jingkou had the largest population, accounting for almost half.
After the Sui Dynasty unified China, Chang 'an and Nanjing were no longer political centers but ordinary counties and cities, and the waterway traffic from Jingkou to the riverside was restored. In the six years of Emperor Daye's great cause, "Crossing the Jiangnan River, from Jingkou to Yuhang, is more than 800 miles wide and more than 10 feet wide, which makes the dragon boat connected and the palace grass and rice juxtaposed, and wants to swim east" (Song; Sima Guang et al. Zi Tongzhi Jian (Volume 181, Sui Shu Wu Ji). Therefore, Qianlong's "Zhenjiang Fuzhi" said: "There are canals in the mouth of Beijing, which originated from the emperor, not Sui. ..... Unless it was created by Emperor Yang, it just enlarged his ears. " After the Six Dynasties, Jiangnan's productive forces developed greatly. Sui Shu; Geographical Records says that the Sanwu area: "Jingkou is connected to Wu Hui in the east, rivers and lakes in the south, and the capital city in the west ... The meetings in the capital are also ... Sichuan, Ze and Woyan counties, where the land and sea are benevolent, the treasures are strange and the merchants are gathered. "The rich Sanwu made this area a new economic center, which was very attractive to the Sui regime. Political needs urged the Sui regime to adjust and improve traffic conditions as a means to manage the Three Wu Dynasties and strengthen control.
The section of the river in Canal Town in the south of the Yangtze River is "like a mountain, covered with soil accumulated at that time", which embodies the wisdom and sweat of millions of working people. The completion of the canal makes the world beneficial to transportation, and it is also "for the benefit of future generations". However, because the Sui Dynasty was short and Yang Guang was a famous bad king, objectively speaking, talking about the river, which was beneficial to the national economy and people's livelihood, became a great crime of wasting people's money. The role of the Grand Canal was not fully demonstrated until later generations. Tang Xianzong Prime Minister Li Jifu said: "Although the Sui people worked hard, future generations actually benefited from it." (Tang; Li Jifu's "Yuanhe County Records" (Volume 5) The poem "Pinghu 700 Li, Worang 23 States" by Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi depicts the magnificent scene of Jiangnan Canal Basin.
The formation and development of Jiangnan Canal not only facilitated water transportation, but also cooperated with the development of water conservancy in Taihu Plain, which directly promoted the development of cities along the route, and Zhenjiang also benefited from it. Zhenjiang, as the mouth of the Jiangnan Canal, has unique advantages in river transportation and water transportation. Materials from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Taihu Lake basins are transported to Zhenjiang Port through Jiangnan Canal, and materials from the north are also transported to the southeast of Jiangsu and Zhejiang through Jiangbei Canal, which greatly improves the status and role of the port. Therefore, Zhenjiang could quickly become an important political, economic and military center in southeast China in ancient times, and then further developed into a city famous for its industry, commerce and transportation.
Zhenjiang has become the hub of north-south transportation and water transport, with frequent boat trips, so many ferries and docks have naturally formed, among which Xijin Ferry is the most famous, and it is crowned as "the first ferry in the world" by modern people. "There is no peak in the garlic mountain, and it hangs in the river in the north." "Suanshandu", also known as "Xijindu", was the only ferry from Zhenjiang to Jiangbei at that time. There is Xiangshan in the east as a barrier to stop the surging tide, and the north corresponds to Guhan ditch. Linjiang is a natural seaport with a stable coastline.
Thick Xijindu culture
Boarding from Xijindu can reach Guazhou on the other side. According to legend, during the Qin and Han Dynasties, the river here was 40 miles wide. By the Tang Dynasty, the river was still 20 miles wide. Because of the wide waves in the river, Meng Haoran, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, said with emotion in his poem "Wangjingkou of the Yangtze River in Tianjin": "The wind in the river is in vain, and people who cross the river are worried." During the reign of Tang Tianbao, hundreds of civilian ships were blown into the river by strong winds. During the Wanli period of Ming Dynasty, thousands of oil tankers were damaged by strong winds. Nevertheless, because this ferry is the key point of communication between the north and the south of the Yangtze River, there is still an endless stream of people crossing the river here. So since the Song Dynasty, Yidu and Life-saving Society have been established here. After the Qing Dynasty, due to the siltation of the floodplain, the riverbank gradually moved northward, and the ferry then moved down to Chao 'an Temple at the foot of Yushan Mountain. At that time, Xijin Gudu is now more than 300 meters away from the bank of the Yangtze River.
The ancient capital of the Western Jin Dynasty witnessed the development of Zhenjiang port economy from 65438 to 0600 years ago. During the Six Dynasties, the materials transported by Jingkou Market included rice, cloth, silk, seafood, celadon, gold, silver and jade articles. From the Sui and Tang Dynasties to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, food, tribute, silk and other materials from the south of the Yangtze River were also transported to Beijing.
In the late Eastern Jin Dynasty, the political situation was chaotic, and the system of reclaiming farmland was once destroyed. As a result, state and county officials, people and soldiers in wasteland took advantage of superior traffic conditions, engaged in the transshipment of commercial materials, and led their families to the south one after another. His brothers, sons and nephews each "associate with Huo Zhi" and soon became rich, with vast fields and thousands of handmaiden. His grandson Diao Kui, relying on his power and wealth, closed mountains to occupy Ze, and became a "moth of Jingkou". Later, Emperor Wu of Song cut it down, and Diao's fortune was scattered into the hands of ordinary people. It is said that people try their best to get it, but there is no end. "There are thousands of officials in Jingkou, and the residents before and after are extremely rich." There are only a handful of officials in Jingkou who are not engaged in transportation business. Locals are also mostly vendors. Liu Yu, the founding emperor of Liu and Song Dynasties, lived in Jingkou when he was young and had the experience of selling shoes.
This business style in Jingkou has promoted the development of local businesses, and various businesses such as grain shops, cloth shops, hotels, chicken and duck shops, and local goods shops have flooded the city and outside. With the activity of business, the service industry has also developed, and hotels, restaurants, teahouses, theaters, bookstores and bathrooms are all over the streets and lanes inside and outside the city. Zhenjiang's "Silver Wharf" attracted merchants from all over the country, and countless foreign merchants gathered in Zhenjiang, which in turn promoted the development of the catering industry.