Today’s Yanshan, justifiably transformed into a swallow, wears the clothes of dreams, and athletes from all over the world glide and fly between the ice and snow, like swallows in spring.
View of Chongli District, Zhangjiakou City (drone photo) Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Shiyao
“Yanshan snowflakes are as big as a seat, and pieces blow down Xuanyuan Platform”.
In the autumn of 752 AD (the eleventh year of Tianbao), Li Bai traveled to Yanshan Mountain and wrote the famous “North Wind Xing”. Among them, there are good sentences, which are extremely cold and cruel to war.
Xuanyuan Tai, where is it now?
It is located between Chongli District, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, and Yanqing District, Beijing, where the main venue for the Beijing Winter Olympics will be held. This area belongs to Yanshan.
Yanshan Mountain is the main mountain range in northern China, stretching from Zhangjiakou in the west, Shanhaiguan in the east, the Ba Shang Plateau in the north, the Hebei Plain in the south, and the Taihang Mountain in the southwest. The overall area is about 420 kilometers long from east to west, nearly 200 kilometers wide from north to south, and 600 to 1500 meters above sea level.
Yanshan Mountain is a natural barrier in the north of North China, Xifengkou, Gubeikou, Huanghuacheng, Juyongguan, Dongfangkou, Dushikou, Zhangjiakou, etc. are all important passes of the Great Wall, and are the necessary places for the Inner Mongolia Plateau and Northeast China to enter the North China Plain. The easternmost Shanhaiguan is the throat, known as “the first pass under the world”.
Often, staring at the Yan Shan Yan character, I was full of doubts.
The name of Yan, from whom? In order to open up this fog of doubt, I consulted many history books. Surprisingly, literary and historical sources on this subject are extremely scarce and vague. Even if the “History” says, it is in the clouds. Due to the burning of books by the Qin Emperor, a large number of historical books of the Yan Kingdom were destroyed, and Jing Ke’s assassination of Qin caused the Qin Emperor to hate retaliation, and even more directly led to the “Six Kingdoms Duyan without a queen” (Gu Yanwu).
After repeated comparison and mutual corroboration, an approximate conclusion was reached: In the Shang Dynasty, in the area of Liulihe Town in the Fangshan District of present-day Beijing, there was a state of Xi (also known as the State of Zhao). In 1044 BC, after King Wu of Zhou destroyed the merchants, he made his brother Zhao Gong Zhao here, and the historical name was the State of Yan. In the 7th century BC, the Yan kingdom expanded into northern Hebei and western Liaoning, and after annexing the state of Ji, the capital was established in Jixian (present-day Beijing). It is very paradoxical to check the existing records, the Yan Kingdom of the Warring States as we know it now, was not this name at that time, but “the Kingdom of Qi” or “The Kingdom of Zhao”. Since the capital of the Zhou Dynasty has been moved, the borders of the country have been greatly expanded, and the country is so long, can it still use the same country name as the previous dynasty?
Without a history of faith, it cannot be asserted.
When did the history books first call the Kingdom of Yan?
After the reunification of the six countries.
Why was it renamed Yan Guo?
Opinions are divergent.
Photo by Yang Shiyao, reporter of Xinhua News Agency, National Ski Jumping Center in Zhangjiakou Competition Area
According to most experts, the words “匽” and “郾” and “Yan” have the same pronunciation and are borrowed from each other. “Say Wen Xie Zi” said: “匽, hide also, 妟音”, “妟, An Ye, from the sun, female.” It originally means “to gather with female relatives at dusk and rejoice”, which is a metaphor for happiness and comfort. “Yan”, in the oracle bone is a hieroglyph, that is, the appearance of a swallow: a bird’s head, long and pointed wings, and a forked tail. The main characteristic of this migratory bird is that it murmurs in the nest.
Another meaning of the Yan character is spring messenger and auspicious bird, which in turn means a good life and peace in the country.
When the Zhou Dynasty was founded, there were three great heroes, namely Zhou Gongdan, Jiang Gongshang, and Zhao Gongxie. Then, why did the head of the meritorious hero Zhao Gong be sealed in Yandi, which is farthest from the capital.
There is only one answer: the barrier of the state, which is incomparably important.
It both hopes for happiness and warmth, but also calls for peace and tranquility. Yan, what a beautiful ideal.
However, for more than two thousand years, Yandi has been a place of bitter cold and war.
The fuse of the first peasant uprising after the unification of Qin, was sounded. In 209 BC, Chen Sheng, Wu Guang, and nine hundred people were sent to the edge of Yuyang, deep in the Yan Mountains, but they could not arrive on time due to heavy rain. According to Qin Law, overdue should be beheaded. In order to survive, it rose up, which led to the collapse of the Qin dynasty.
The decline and fall of the Tang Dynasty also began. The Anshi Rebellion goes without saying. An Lushan’s entrenchment is around the Yanshan Mountain Range, and the name of the country he called the emperor is actually “Yan”.
In 936, the Later Jin emperor Shi Jingyu ceded the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun and the Khitan centered on the Yanshan Mountain Range and proclaimed himself “Emperor Er”. Since then, the north gate of the Central Plains has been opened, and the legacy is endless. The main reason for the collapse of the Northern Song Dynasty was this.
From 1211 to 1215, the Mengyuan army besieged Jinzhongdu (Beijing) three times, the main force was over the Yanshan Mountain Range, and after destroying Jin, the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed.
Until the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di’s father and son deeply realized the great calamity of the country. Therefore, the political center and military center were all moved north, the capital was moved to Beijing, and “the Son of Heaven guarded the gate of the country.”
But ah, the Yanshan defense line is always in frequent dangers. In September 1449, it was in the Tumu Fort near the main venue of today’s Winter Olympics that the sixth emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Ming Yingzong Zhuqi Town, was captured by the invading Mongolian Warabu, creating jokes for the ages. In the end, the fall of the Ming Dynasty was still due to the fall of Shanhaiguan, the most important pass of the Yanshan Mountain Range.
In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, the focus of the war was long focused on the Great Wall in the Yanshan Mountains. The Great Wall fell, and the country fell into trouble.
Check the history and indignate. As a barrier to Kyoto, the ice and snow of Yanshan are always bitterly cold; Yanshan’s wings are never heavy.
Zhangjiakou National Biathlon Center Track (drone photo) Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Shiyao
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the country has been unified and stable. International relations, peaceful coexistence. With the advent of a new era, the solid ice in the depths of Yanshan Mountain finally melted completely. The whole mountain range became richer, more beautiful, and lighter. “Cold resources” finally bring “hot energy”, especially Chongli District relies on the natural endowment of ice and snow, vigorously develops ecological economy, realizes beauty and wealth together, and has created a “Chongli path” where ice and snow are also gold and silver mountains.
Swallows, spring, happiness, and tranquility have long become Yanshan’s regular dance partners.
Now, on the cold and frozen snowfield where Li Bai once was sad, there is a joyful Winter Olympics. Athletes from all over the world glide and fly between the snow and ice, like swallows in spring. Mountains, villages, ice mounds, melting snow, and frozen snow are also dancing.
Today’s Yanshan, the bitter lover of hundreds of millions of years, showed a smile for the first time. It can finally justifiably transform into a swallow and put on the clothes of dreams.
The view of the Olympic Village in Zhangjiakou competition area Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Yang Shiyao
The spirits of heaven and earth, puffing up their bodies as strong as black iron, flapped their snow-white and light wings, flew in the spring breeze of the new era, and flew in the sky of Greater China. (Li Chunlei)