Qiantang River is called "the first lake in the world". What is the reason for its formation?
"The Pearl of the West Lake descended from the sky, and the dragon and phoenix danced to Qiantang." The West Lake on the outskirts of Hangzhou is one of the most famous scenic spots in the history of China. Legend has it that the West Lake was originally a pearl in the sky and was carefully pecked by Yulong and Jinfeng. When the queen mother saw it, she wanted to keep it for herself. When she missed it, the beads fell into the world and turned into the beautiful West Lake on a Chinese Odyssey.
According to the authoritative textual research of Mr. Lan Keji, a famous geographer and meteorologist in China, the West Lake has only a history of more than two thousand years. According to legend, Qin Shihuang had been here during his southern tour. Legend has it that Qin Shihuang moored his boat at the foot of today's Baoshi Mountain, and the cable was tied to a large hanging rock by the sea. Later people called it "Qin Huang Cable Ship Stone". When the stone has a story, it has a line of life, so it witnessed the formation of a lake.
In ancient times, it was still a piece of Wang Yang, and the West Lake was a bay between rivers and seas, surrounded by mountains on three sides. During the Qin and Han dynasties, it changed from a bay to a lagoon and gradually became a lake. In the following thousand years, there were hundreds of dredging and more than 20 important dredging in history, which saved the West Lake from becoming a swamp and then a flat land, making it a world-famous lake. In the Tang Dynasty, the lake surface reached 10.8 square kilometers, twice as much as the present lake surface. In the Song Dynasty, when the lake was half silted, Su Dongpo used 200,000 migrant workers to dredge the lake and build the Su Causeway. In the Ming dynasty, the lake was half silted, so Yang began to dredge the lake, restore the lake view and build it. Since then, the West Lake has been dredged many times, and the dredged mud has accumulated into three islands: Huting, Santan Yin Yue and Ruan Gongdun, thus forming a modern West Lake. During the Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty, the west of Yang Gongdi gradually became a field swamp. At the end of 2002, after two years of investigation by the Hangzhou Municipal Government, the West Lake Project was launched. More than 300 days later, the first phase of the project was completed, and the West Lake first appeared 300 years ago. The water surface of the West Lake has increased from 5.6 square kilometers to 6.7 square kilometers, becoming a panoramic dream of "one lake, two towers, three islands and three dikes".
When it comes to West Lake, Bai Juyi comes to mind first. Bai Juyi arrived in Hangzhou at the beginning of the 9th century at the age of 50 and was demoted. So in a general sense, he came to Hangzhou for leisure, not to say that he wanted to engage in architecture. But as soon as he arrived in Hangzhou, he immediately found that the West Lake in Hangzhou was not well managed, and drought and flood could not play a role. At that time, people lived a very hard life. Bai Juyi did the most important thing in Hangzhou for three years, which was to manage the West Lake. He built a Bai Causeway in the West Lake, but it is not the Bai Causeway we see today. This Bai Causeway was called Baishadi in the Tang Dynasty. After the embankment is built, the West Lake is divided into an upper lake and a lower lake. The upper lake is inside the embankment and the lower lake is outside the embankment, which mainly plays the role of regulating and storing the lake, especially in dry weather. After the completion of Bai Causeway, Bai Juyi specially wrote the article "Ten Records of Qiantang Lake" and sent someone to engrave it on the edge of the West Lake to teach future generations how to release water, how to open floodgates, how to store water and how to protect dikes. Moreover, he also made a special punishment regulation: if the poor destroy the embankment of the West Lake, he will be punished for planting trees; The rich destroyed the bank and went to the water to catch weeds.
In 9 10, Hou Liang honored Qian Liu as her husband, and chartered him to expand the city and build palaces. Hangzhou city began its third large-scale construction. Qian Rong couldn't make up his mind where to build the palace. At that time, it was said that there was a very good Feng Shui master in Hangzhou. He predicted to Qian Liu that if the palace was still built on the original site, the country would be lucky for less than a hundred years. If the West Lake was filled up and a sub-city and a palace were built on it, you could enjoy the country for thousands of years. Qian Liu replied: "People live in the West Lake, and filling the lake will not harm the people. The Millennium dynasty has never existed since ancient times, and I will be satisfied if thousands of willows have a country for a hundred years. " So the palace was still built in the original site of the historical mansion at the foot of Fenghuang Mountain, and later became the foundation of Miyagi in the Southern Song Dynasty. The West Lake was saved, and it continued to irrigate thousands of acres of fertile land with its clean water source, raising millions of Hangzhou people.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the West Lake was fortunate to welcome another local palace, Su Dongpo, which made future generations proud. His position in the history of Hangzhou is comparable to that of Bai Juyi in the Tang Dynasty. Today, the Su Causeway on the West Lake is made up of silt dug out of the lake after Su Dongpo proposed dredging the West Lake. Su Causeway is about several miles long, which not only achieves the purpose of dredging the lake and storing water, but also connects the north and south of the lake, which is convenient for pedestrians. Moreover, during that time, disasters continued and the lives of ordinary people were difficult. Su Dongpo built long dikes and replaced traders with workers, so that ordinary people could survive the disaster. It is said that on the day of appointment, Hangzhou people slaughtered pigs and sheep and presented them to Su Dongpo. He refused to enjoy them alone, so he asked the chef to burn the meat into cubes for everyone to enjoy. This is the origin of the legendary Hangzhou famous dish "Dongpo Meat".
In the Southern Song Dynasty, although the swords and swords across the river made the dynasty thousands of miles away in the south look shaky, the West Lake was still a "castle outside the mountain" scene. There are a large number of literati gathered here. Painters want to paint and poets want to write poems. This is an irresistible elegance, which is the origin of the "Ten Scenes of West Lake" in the Southern Song Dynasty. The "Ten Scenery of the West Lake" includes the different natural features of the four seasons of the West Lake, shows the spiritual features of the traditional landscape gardens in the Song Dynasty, and at the same time injects the aesthetic interest of China literati in the relationship between man and nature and the landscape environment, showing the essence of the integration of natural scenery and human landscape of the West Lake.
At the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, the whole West Lake had been silted up badly, especially the part west of Su Causeway, which was basically wild and white. The whole lake was silted up, and there was only a narrow waterway left at that time. At this time, the West Lake ushered in a virtuous satrap, who is Yang. Yang fought for five years before the court agreed to govern the West Lake. In the process of managing the West Lake, because many settled people are unwilling to move, he has made great efforts, and it is hard to say how hard it is. Finally, the West Lake was finally managed and Yang Gongdi was built. In fact, there is still an episode in Yang's governance of the West Lake. In order to dredge the West Lake, Yang lost his official position, and Hangzhou people still recognize him. People in Hangzhou put his image in the Pantheon. There are only four people in the Pantheon. After putting Yang's portrait in it, the original Sixian Temple became Wudang Five Immortals Temple.
It can be said that the construction and protection of the West Lake landscape always runs through the spirit and concept of China traditional landscape culture, and reflects the continuity of the West Lake history and culture. In recent years, due to the development of social economy, the West Lake has a trend of eutrophication. To this end, Hangzhou has adopted the combination of conventional dredging and key dredging to rectify the upstream river, completed the sewage interception project around the West Lake, and introduced the water from Qiantang River into the lake, so that the West Lake can receive 300,000 cubic meters of living water from Qiantang River every day, thus closing the rivers and lakes. Today, the average depth of the West Lake is1.8m, and100000 cubic meters of water is equal to the three West Lakes in the past. The water quality has also been greatly improved, and groups of migratory birds come here every year, which has become another beautiful scenery of the West Lake.
The landscape of the West Lake is mainly composed of mountains, water, dikes, bridges and islands. The overall pattern of three sides of Yunshan and one side of the city has remained intact after several generations. In today's West Lake, there are three islands, namely, Huxinting, Zhou Xiaoying and Ruangongdun, in addition to the naturally formed isolated mountain. They were formed in the15-18th century, and they were completely artificially piled up, using the silt of the West Lake. The formation of the three islands in the lake carries rich historical information. Boating on the lake, looking at the misty island, accompanied by the sound of oars, I feel the boundless amorous feelings of the West Lake. The ancestors made a lot of efforts for the development of this lake. Nowadays, it is hard for people to imagine how such a huge project was completed in that era of relying entirely on manpower. The three islands in the lake that we see today have formed the separation and connection of the lake space, deepened the spatial landscape of the lake, and at the same time made the maximum use of sludge and waste, thus becoming one of the symbols of people's governance of the West Lake. The three islands in the lake are the perfect combination of humanity and nature, and also reflect China's traditional cultural thought, which can be regarded as the spiritual product of turning decay into magic.
As the saying goes, "the embankment crosses a line, and the island hides a bit". Hangzhou has water before the city. On the other hand, there is an island behind the West Lake. These three artificially built islands in the middle of the lake are an indispensable part of the West Lake landscape. Imagine how monotonous it would be to enjoy today's 5.6 square kilometers of West Lake without these three islands. It should be said that after the addition of the three islands, on the one hand, we stand on the shore of the lake, or stand on the mountain around the lake to see the lake, and what we see is not the monotonous water surface of 5.6 square meters, but the artistic conception like pouring large and small pearls into a plate of jade. Especially on the island, with the help of the skylight, the breeze and the bright moon, the West Lake borrows the bright moon and the mountains, which is also a very important means and method in Chinese garden art.