The history of Xuanwu Lake Park
As early as about 6,500 to 4,000 years ago, Xuanwu Lake was connected with the lives of Nanjing people.
Historical records indicate that in the late Jian'an period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhuge Liang passed by Moling (today's Nanjing) as an envoy to Jiangdong and made a Feng Shui evaluation of "Zhongshan with dragons and cockroaches and stones and tigers perched on them. This is the residence of the emperor." The area of Xuanwu Lake during the Six Dynasties Larger than today, and directly connected to the Yangtze River, the lake could become a training ground for naval forces.
Xuanwu Lake is a lake basin developed through weathering and erosion in weak parts of magma intrusions and broken faults. The lake surface in history was much wider than it is today.
Xuanwu Lake was called Sangbo in ancient times, and its history can be traced back to the Pre-Qin period more than 2,220 years ago.
It turned out to be just a swamp wetland formed by faults, and the lake water came from the northern foot of Zhongshan Mountain.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Sun Quan, King of Wu, diverted water into the back lake of the palace garden, and Xuanwu Lake began to take on the shape of a lake.
Because Xuanwu Lake is located to the north of Yanque Lake and Miyagi City, it is also called "Back Lake" or "North Lake".
After Qin Shihuang destroyed Chu, Jinling was renamed Moling County, and Xuanwu Lake was renamed Moling Lake. Because Jiang Ziwen, the captain of Moling during the Han Dynasty, was buried by the lake, Sun Quan during the Wu Dynasty wanted to avoid the name taboo of his grandfather Sun Zhong, so he named it "Jiang". Mausoleum Lake".
From the Pre-Qin Dynasty in 221 BC to the Western Han Dynasty, Xuanwu Lake was called Moling Lake and Jiangling Lake respectively.
During the Southern Dynasties, Xuanwu Lake entered its heyday in history.
From the Eastern Jin Dynasty to the Liang Dynasty, Xuanwu Lake had successively had names such as Kunming Lake, Yinmatang, Lianhu Lake, Xiwu Lake, and Lianwu Lake.
After the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Xuanwu Lake gradually declined as the capital moved northward.
During the Six Dynasties, Xuanwu Lake was a recreational place for feudal emperors.
Due to the needs of the "four gods layout" of the imperial capital, and because the so-called "black dragon" appeared twice in the lake during the Song, Yuan and Jia years, the name of the lake began to be changed to "Xuanwu".
In the third year of Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, Shanglin Garden was established on the lake, and Leyou Garden and Hualin Garden were also established on the south bank.
During the next year of Qi Dynasty, Emperor Wu often went hunting in the middle of the night, either to Zhongshan Mountain or Mufu Mountain, accompanied by tens of thousands of palace ladies in strict attire. When he returned at dawn, he just heard the rooster crow, "The jade in Xuanwu Lake is leaking, This is the origin of the phrase "the chicken crows at Daikou and the embroidered rugs return". To this day, there is still the place name of cockcrow Daikou near the Wumiao Gate.
In the early years of Liu Song and Yuan Jia, Emperor Wen of the Song Dynasty carried out a large-scale dredging of Xuanwu Lake. The excavated lake mud accumulated together and formed a small island above the water.
The largest of them are "Penglai", "Abbott" and "Yingzhou" islands, collectively known as "Three God Mountains". Perhaps this is the predecessor of Liangzhou, Huanzhou and Yingzhou in Xuanwu Lake today .
Legend has it that "black dragons" appeared twice in the lake in the 25th year of Yuanjia of Liu Song Dynasty (448), so it was also called Xuanwu Lake.
Xuanwu Lake suffered two catastrophes, one during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty and the other during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty.
After Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty destroyed Nanchen, he ordered the city of Nanjing to be razed. Under this policy, Xuanwu Lake disappeared for the first time in more than 200 years;
During the reign of Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi was transferred to the governor of Jiangning and put forward the idea of "abandoning the lake and returning it to farmland". The nightmare of rain disasters in Nanjing lingered ever since, and it was only slightly improved after the completion of dredging measures in the Yuan Dynasty.
In the eighth year of Xining in the Song Dynasty (1075), Wang Anshi, Yin of Jiangning Prefecture, promised Song Shenzong to get the land from the lake. As a result, Xuanwu Lake disappeared for more than 200 years. After the fifth year of Dade in the Yuan Dynasty (1301), After two dredging operations in the third year of Zheng (1343), Xuanwu Lake reappeared on the map of Nanjing.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Nanjing's urban status plummeted, and Xuanwu Lake was also neglected.
When Yan Zhenqing, the great calligrapher, was appointed governor of Shengzhou, he once changed Xuanwu Lake to "Release Pond".
Many famous poets, such as Li Bai, Du Mu, Wei Zhuang, Li Shangyin, etc., lamented the great changes in the status of Xuanwu Lake.
During the Southern Tang Dynasty, Xuanwu Lake was revived for a time, so that Feng Mi, a minister of the Southern Tang Dynasty, was greedy for the lake's "famous scenery and picturesque setting", and asked the emperor to donate the lake to him as a private park. The matter was stopped because Xu Xuan blocked it.
The real revival of Zhongshan and Xuanwu Lake was in the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty had three major impacts on these two areas.
First, in the early years of Hongwu, Xuanwu Lake became the location of the "Yellow Register" where the national population and land records (called "Yellow Register" at the time) were stored, and the public was also prohibited from entering.
The second is to build the city wall to the south and west banks of Xuanwu Lake, creating an insurmountable barrier between Xuanwu Lake and the main city, Fuzhou Mountain and Jilong Mountain, which completely changed Nanjing's history since the Six Dynasties. The visual landscape of connected mountains and rivers in the north of the city also blocks Xuanwu Lake’s previous connection with the Yangtze River, further shrinking the water surface of Xuanwu Lake.
The third is to build a Taiping Gate at the junction of Zhongshan Mountain and Xuanwu Lake, and build a "Taiping Causeway" outside Taiping Gate (now a section of Longpan Road), and connect Xuanwu Lake to the western foot of Zhongshan Mountain. The lake is divided into "Middle Lake", thus completely artificially dividing the originally continuous Zhongshan-Xuanwu Lake area into two places, changing the previous landscape pattern of this area for thousands of years.
In the 14th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1381), Zhu Yuanzhang selected Xuanwu Lake as the storage place for the Yellow Records of the Central Government of the Ming Dynasty, and built the Houhu Lake Yellow Records Library (equivalent to today's Central Archives).
Xuanwu Lake has since become a forbidden area, isolated from the outside world for more than 260 years.
After Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, made Nanjing his capital, he greatly expanded the scope of Nanjing City. Zhou) built the Huangce Treasury, which was a forbidden area for the Ming Dynasty to store the general register of household registration, taxes and servitude across the country, and ordinary people were not allowed to enter at will.
At that time, there was an irony that "Yingzhou is so close to each other, and the islands are soaring in the sky.
In order to preserve the territory, few people visit, and only the pavilions remain and the sunset is low."
Both Kangxi and Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty visited here and left poems.
After Tongzhi, Zeng Guofan, the governor of Liangjiang, rebuilt the Lake Temple in Liangzhou and added the Pavilion in the Heart of the Lake, the Daxian Tower, the Guanyin Pavilion, and the Lotus Appreciation Hall.
Zuo Zongtang, a minister of the later Qing Dynasty, also built a long embankment connecting Guqigeng and Liangzhou, which solved the inconvenient situation of "having to go out from Taipingmen to make a boat trip" when visiting Xuanwu Lake.
In the first year of Xuantong of the Qing Dynasty (1909), Duanfang and Zhang Renjun opened Fengrun Gate (today's Xuanwu Gate), built a new embankment, and expanded the green space in the lake. Xu Shaozhen also built Taogong Pavilion and Hushan Scenic Spot.
In the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the third major change occurred, that is, it began to develop in the direction of "public gardening".
After 1840, as the west wind spread eastward, modern "parks" open to citizens appeared in China, and their origin was in Shanghai, not far from Nanjing.
Public welfare "garden" concepts such as gardens are transformed into "park" forms.
In 1909, the Qing Dynasty organized the "Nanyang Entrepreneurship Conference" in Nanjing, and Duanfang, the governor of Liangjiang, decided to open Xuanwu Lake into a park open to the public.
In 1911, Xuanwu Lake was opened as a park, and later it was opened as Xuanwu Lake and changed back to Xuanwu Lake.
In September 1928, the name of the park was changed to "Wuzhou Park".
In April 1934, "Wuzhou Park" was renamed "Xuanwu Lake Park" and a number of buildings such as Xuanwu Hall and Nona Tower were completed successively.
After liberation, Xuanwu Lake was expanded and renovated on a large scale, the lake residents were relocated, flowers and plants were widely planted, more scenic spots were added, and the lake had a completely new look.
At the end of 2005, the scenic spot won the title of national AAAA tourist area.
Xuanwu Lake Park has been open to the public free of charge since October 1, 2010.