There is a brick placed on the wall of Jiayuguan Urn City. Why has no one dared to touch it in the 600 years since the Ming Dynasty?
Chinese culture is vast and profound, and there are many things that foreigners cannot understand. For example, the "township objects" that have been passed down for thousands of years are said to guard the house and ward off evil spirits.
Everyone who has been to Jiayuguan has noticed that there is a "city-defining brick" placed on the eaves of the Wengcheng to the west of Jiayuguan. That brick was incompatible with the clean surroundings. When I meet someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder like me, I really want to get rid of it.
But people have said that they are old city bricks that were placed during the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty and have been placed for more than 600 years. That's because the "security objects" cannot be taken. Jiayuguan relies on "city bricks" to hold it in place. If you take them away, it will fall. So I heard the allusion of "Dingcheng Brick":
During the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, the officials who repaired Jiayuguan Pass and supervised the construction of Jiayuguan Pass invited an expert who was good at calculation named "Yi Kaizhan". Look at the name. There is "Yi" and "Zhao". At first glance, you will be a master who understands Feng Shui. It is said that this person can calculate the materials used for the project exactly. He calculated that Jiayuguan required 99,999 bricks.
The construction supervising official said that if it was finally discovered that too many or too few bricks were used, Yi Kaizhan would be punished, and all the craftsmen involved would also be fined with three years of hard labor.
When Jiayuguan was built, the construction supervising officials saw an extra brick and placed it on the eaves of the West Urn City. They also wanted to use this as an excuse to punish Yi Kaizhan and the craftsmen. Why is there an extra brick? Maybe an extra piece was shipped, or maybe someone left one on purpose.
However, Yi Kaizhan frightened the construction supervising officials with one sentence: "This last brick is called the Ding City Brick. If this brick is removed, the city will collapse." Will the construction supervising officials be convinced? Of course it will. The idea of "holding things down" to hold down houses has been around since ancient times. People today believe it, let alone people in the Ming Dynasty.
So, is the Jiayuguan “Ding City Brick” really useful? I don't know either. Anyway, many rural areas still have this custom: after a newly built house is built, a brick must be placed on the roof. In some rural areas, a brick is placed on top of a new grave.
People in some places believe that the old bricks of the Great Wall have the effect of "tightening the house and warding off evil spirits". People often steal a piece of the Great Wall brick and put it back in their own yard as a "tightening object".
Speaking of "town objects", there are many kinds of folk customs. For example, Buddhist and Taoist portraits and ritual implements; such as stone darts; such as door mirrors. These customs are actually very widespread, and many can be found among rural folk. The "screen walls in the courtyard" and "stone lions at the gate" that we usually don't pay much attention to are actually customs formed by "township objects". Nowadays, many people do these for the sake of decoration and forget the original meaning.
Speaking of which, the more noble a person is, the more they believe in these things. For example, the Cangzhou Iron Lion built by Chai Rong, Emperor Shizong of Zhou Dynasty, also has a name called "Zhenhai Roar". You can tell from the name that it is a town object. For example, the old city of Beijing has the famous five town objects. The five elements of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth correspond to the directions of east, west, south, north, and center. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the old Beijing city had “township objects”: the golden nanmu outside Guangqumen (east), the big bell of Juesheng Temple (west), Yanding Gate Yandun (south), and the bronze bull of the Summer Palace (north). ), Jingshan (middle).