Shimenguan: a living fossil of three thousand years of traffic

【Watching Home】

The traffic spectacle, five parallel roads-Qin Wuchi Road, Daguan River Waterway, Nei-Kun Railway, Kunshui Highway, Shuima Expressway, run side by side and staggered in front of the front, the achievement of "one eye for three thousand years, five roads crossing Xiongguan" wonder.

In a small place, the "five roads" of Qin's post roads, waterways, railways, national highways, and highways are scattered all at once. On this huge stave, different transportation vehicles and different sound shock waves jointly stage a traffic variation on the Gaoling Gorge. This is Shimen Pass, the "gateway to Yunnan and Sichuan".

Shimen Pass, located in Doushaguan Town in the southwest of Yanjin County in northern Yunnan, is the only pass between the ancient Central Plains and the southwestern frontier. The longest surviving Qin Wuchi Road remains here. The Wuchi Road, which is different from the thoroughfare lane in the Qin Dynasty, was the main mountain road on the eastern line of the Southern Silk Road more than 2,400 years ago.

Standing on the relics of Qin Wuchi Road and watching "Five Dao Parallel". From left to right in the picture are Daguan River Waterway, Nei-Kun Railway, Kunshui Highway, Qin Wuchi Road, and Shuima Expressway.

Sui and Tang Pass in the High Mountains

Shimenguan is located in Doushaguan Town, Yanjin County, at the northern end of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Surrounded by dangerous mountains and rivers, there are thousands of cliffs, deep rivers and high ravines. Since ancient times, transportation has been inconvenient. Even today, the transportation network extends in all directions. It is not easy to get there.

At the end of June 2020, I took my family to drive to Doushaguan Town by car, from Leshan City, Sichuan via Qianwei County into Yunnan, and then via Shuifu County and Yanjin County to Doushaguan Town. It took more than 7 hours to drive. Along the G85 highway, in Lengshuixi and Chuansi Township, there is a long downhill of more than 20 kilometers. The road is narrow and there are many bends. You can see a "self-help ramp" on the side of the road every few kilometers. This is like me in many places. The highway I saw was very different, and even made me suspect that it was not a highway at all. It is hard to imagine how difficult it was for the ancients to take this road from Sichuan to Yunnan, and even cost many lives.

Doushaguan Town is an important post between southern Sichuan and northern Yunnan on the ancient Southern Silk Road, but I am more interested in Shimenguan, the "gateway to Yunnan and Sichuan". In front of me, in the canyon at the foot of Wumeng Mountain, which was locked by clouds and mist, thousands of people stood on the wall, smashing into the natural danger of Xiongguan that locks Yunnan and Shushu.

The stalwart Shimen Pass has so far told the world the historical vicissitudes of the South Silk Road, "the key to the South Yunnan, the Throat of the West Shu"-after stepping through the Shimen Pass, you entered the Central Plains. The Yanjin County Chronicles edited by Chen Yide in 1945 stated that in ancient times, apart from being guarded by people at the gates, there were also heavy soldiers stationed upstairs.

Shimen Pass is called the precipitous pass. In ancient times, every time soldiers set off for war, family members would wait at Shimenguan, watching for the return of their loved ones. On the top of Shimenguan, stands a towering castle, which the locals call Guanlou. Below the Guanlou is the Guanyin Temple built in the Song Dynasty, the Dou Gong building.

The longest surviving ancient post road of the Qin Dynasty in China

The longest surviving Qinyi Road remains in China

After Shimen is closed, there is still the longest surviving Qinyi Road in China. Walking on it, the road drenched by light rain was wet and greasy. The ancient post road is built with bluestone strips and has been eroded over time. There are rows of moss-covered pits in it, and the rain in the pits reflects the shadows of trees whirling along the rocks.

On the post road, you can see the commentary board erected by the local cultural relics department from time to time. The above information shows that this is the longest preserved, most intact place and the most horseshoe prints of the Qin Wuchi Road site in China-about 350 meters long and 1.7 meters wide. , 243 horseshoe prints, some as deep as three or four inches. Over the years, I have visited many sites on the Southern Silk Road. I have rarely seen such a long post road and primitive horseshoe prints. Every stone ladder on the ancient road is a mottled historical chain.

How was this road built? After the Qin State destroyed Shu, Li Bing served as the prefect of Shu County and was ordered to build a post road from Chengdu to Yunnan. Most Chinese people only know that he built the famous Dujiangyan, but they didn’t know that he used the ancient method of burning rock with accumulated salaries to build a passage from Shu to Yunnan in southern Shu. Later, because the rock in Shu was hard, Li Bing only repaired it. The section from Chengdu to Yibin is called "Bo Dao".

In 221 BC, Qin ruled the world, and Emperor Qin Shihuang sent a general Chang Qian to enter Shu, and then repaired the unfinished Shu-Dian passage. Chang Qian not only widened the old road in the Li Bing era to five feet, but also connected the road to Xianyang in the north and Shuyun to the south, stretching for more than 2,000 miles. Therefore, people called the Bodao Road built by Li Bing and Chang Yan as the "Five Chi Road" or "Qin Dao".

When the ancients built roads, they used hard limestone to pave the ground. Limestone is a kind of calcium carbonate rock, which is ubiquitous in the karst mountains of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and is mostly used for burning lime in folk. The existence of calcium carbonate rock seems to be born to contend with the years and be with the mountain. No wonder it has been preserved for thousands of years and still rarely deformed or damaged. Only in the distant past, the horse caravans in Sichuan and Yunnan carried cloth, salt, rice, mountain products, medicinal materials, tea, silver, copper and other items on this ancient road in an endless stream, and the sound of horseshoes was endless.

The great wheel of time has not only worn away memories and crushed history, but also covered the original appearance. I rebuilt it word by word in my mind.

The weather is clear and visibility is high. Standing on the top of the Guanlou, looking across the river towards the cliff 50 meters away, you can clearly see that there are eight or nine Bo people hanging coffins in the crevices of the cliffs 100 meters above the water. Looking through the camera lens, the hanging coffin is often hewn out of whole wood and placed in a crack in the rock for shelter from the rain. Although the earthquake in July 2006, it was not damaged. It is understood that in June 2015, the Yunnan Provincial Department of Cultural Relics and Archaeology discovered these eight or nine coffins in a 10-meter-high, 4-meter-wide sloping cave on the cliff. The funerary inside is a small amount of wood and linen fragments, the original shape is no longer visible...

The remains of Qinyi Road are about 350 meters long, and there are 243 such horseshoe prints.

Three thousand years at a glance, five passes through Xiongguan

Walking down the old stone ladder to the mountainside, through the trees, I saw three powerful words engraved on the rock wall above the Guanyin Temple: "Shimenguan". After years of wind and rain, the handwriting has become somewhat blurred. The sign stated that this was engraved when the Sui Dynasty opened and closed.

Shimenguan has another name: Doushaguan. It is said that Zhuge Liang led the Shu army to march south and came to Shimenguan. The guard general wanted to test Zhuge Liang, mixing a few handfuls of peas into the sand, saying that if they could pick up the peas from the sand within three days, they would be allowed to pass. Zhuge Liang thought about it for a long time. When he saw the green bamboo in the mountains, he came up with a way to sieve the beans with a bamboo sieve. As a result, he separated the peas from the sand in one night. The guard general let the Shu army pass. Later generations expressed their respect for the great wisdom and wisdom of the prime minister Zhuge, and Shimenguan was also called "doushaguan".

The Daguan River under my feet winds and flows in the south of Shimenguan, among the mountains and mountains. It has bypassed the obstacles of many mountains, refused the retention of many mountains, and sang forward. If you unfold a mountain map, you can see clearly that the river is like a mess of lines drawn randomly by someone's hand, twists and turns, intertwined.

The Daguan River, which accumulates the power of moving mountains, flows through this place, splitting the thousands of stone rocks that stand on the wall into two, forming a huge stone gate. Here, Qin Wuchi Road, Sui Dynasty ancient castles, Bo people hanging coffins and other historical and cultural monuments, the Central Plains culture, Jingchu culture, Bashu culture, Bo culture, and ancient Dian culture are magically integrated and converged as if all the water returned to the sea.

Shimenguan is a must pass through the Southern Silk Road, the Ancient Tea Horse Road, the Bonan Ancient Road, the Yanmi Ancient Road, and the Yunnan-Burma Highway in history. It has rarely formed the "five roads in parallel".

Standing at the pass and looking south, the blue sky is far away, the earth is vast, and harriers and eagles flew over the pass. "Five Roads Parallel" is trembling-Daguan River Waterway, Nei-Kun Railway, Kunshui Highway, Qin Wuchi Road, Shuima Expressway. Five roads, scattered high and low, meet in front of the eyes and walk in their own ways, achieving the spectacle of "three thousand years at a glance, and five roads crossing the Xiongguan". It is known as the living fossil of ancient traffic changes.

Daguanhe waterway also carried the glory of an empire. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the Daguan River Channel set sail here: Jingtong from Dongchuan, Yunnan, Zhutiyin from Zhaotong, and Zhutijiang from Shimenguan to Beijing all the way. Along the way, white sails lined with white sails, boats floated, and chants shook the sky, and the foothills of the military pass became a market town port where goods were piled up, ticket numbers exchanged, and crowded. The gleaming silver Zhu Tiyin has been well-known at home and abroad since ancient times. The Book of Han Geography says: "Zhu Ti, the mountain produces silver", and the Book of the Later Han Dynasty · The History of the Prefecture also says: "Zhu Ti, the mountain produces silver and bronze" . During the Han Dynasty, Zhuti, an important town in northern Yunnan, was rich in copper deposits, which provided a guarantee for the development of local bronze culture.

Today, the ancient post road has long lost its traffic function, but the other "four roads" are still flowing continuously, with busy cars and boats, sometimes boats and boats crossing, sometimes cars galloping, and sometimes trains roaring... the white cranes on the river pass by, the birds in the sky scream for joy, a place of victory Draw a magnificent traffic corridor.

Moya stone inscribed "Nanzhao to Tang"

According to the Yanjin County Chronicles, Shimen Guan had two 1.2-foot-thick wooden doors before the Republic of China. They were heavy and hard, with a creaking door, separating the Central Plains and the frontiers on both sides.

In the Tang Dynasty, after Nanzhao rebelled against Tang, Shimenguan Pass was more than 40 years old. It was only when Yuan Zi was ordered to go to Nanzhao to enshrine Yi Mouxun (the sixth king of Nanzhao), and Shimenguan was reopened. On the cliff on the west side of Shimenguan, the "Inscription on the Cliff by Yuan Zi" is still preserved, which remembers the long history of "The King of Nanzhao returned to the Tang Dynasty". This inscription was listed as a national cultural relics protection unit.

The inscription of Yuan Zi Moya stone inscription, the full text is more than 120 characters, except that the 3 characters "Yuan Zi inscription" are in seal script, the rest are in regular script, 8 lines, from left to right, the handwriting is still basically intact. A small dougong stele pavilion was built beside the stone carving of Yuan Zimoya. The original text of "The Moya Stone Inscriptions of Yuan Zi" reads: "On September 20th, in the tenth year of Zhenyuan in the Datang Dynasty, Yunnan Xuanwei Envoy Ju Wenzhen, the judge Liu Youyan, the young envoy vomited and inherited the bright, and the Nanzhao envoy Yushi Zhongcheng Yuan held the record Zi, deputy envoy of Chengdu Shaoyin Pangqi, and the judge supervised Yushi Cui Zuoshi, and went to Yunnan with gracious orders to enlist Meng Yimou as Nanzhao. During this period, Shangshu shot Chengdu Yin Jian Yushi doctor Wei on the right and sent him to visit. The official supervised the censor Ma Yi, led the battalions and horses, opened the way and set up the post, so Shi Jizhi was published."

According to "Old Tang Book · Nanban Biography" and "Yanjin County Chronicles" edited by Chen Yide, let's restore this story:

In the Great Tang Dynasty, Nanzhao rebelled against the Tang, 42 years later, in the 9th year of Tang Zhenyuan (793), Nanzhao Wang Yimouxun sent envoys to request the Tang Dynasty. In order to appease southern Xinjiang, the imperial court also took into account the geographical factors of "locking the key to southern Yunnan" and sent Yushi Yuan Zizhijie to Yunnan to canonize Yimuxun as the king of Yunnan. Yuan Zi entered Yunnan from Rongzhou (now Yibin) and received an unprecedented grand reception. When passing through Shimen Pass, he felt inscribed in stone. The historical facts of the friendly relationship between Tang and Nanzhao contained in the Yuan Zimoya stele have the important historical role of "maintaining the unification of the country, defining the boundaries of the territory, appreciating the harmony of the nation, and filling the lack of the Tang book".