What did Liu Bowen think? Why did he design Nanjing Tongji Gate into a big ship?
The reason why Liu Bowen designed Tongjimen as a big ship is to comply with the "divine image", and at the same time it also embodies the profound meaning of "reaching far and benefiting the world". The meaning chosen by Liu Bowen comes from the "Book of Changes", and it is stated in the book: The convenience of ships is that they can reach distant places when there is no way to cross, thus making it convenient for the world. Therefore, Liu Bowen chose to use this meaning to express his best wishes for Zhu Yuanzhang's rule.
Since ancient times, people have begun to conduct detailed studies on the sun and moon in the sky and the four seasons on the earth, thus giving birth to the phenomenon of "observation and instrument making". ?Observation of utensils? means observing the sky, stars, weather, ground, etc., and using the observations to decide how to make utensils. There are detailed records of this ancient way of fortune-telling in the ancient book "Book of Changes", which not only lists a variety of hexagrams, but also lists the meanings represented by each hexagram.
In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang was an enthusiastic fan of fortune-telling, and his minister Liu Bowen was also a person who was proficient in fortune-telling. Liu Bowen learned Feng Shui from his master when he was young. After following Zhu Yuanzhang, he relied on his skills to help Zhu Yuanzhang fortune telling. This is how the Tongjimen ship design came about.
The geographical location of Tongjimen is at the junction of the inside and outside of the Qinhuai River, so the water flow is very strong. This landform is exactly in line with the "Huan" hexagram described in the "Book of Changes", so Liu Bowen decided to build Tongjimen Designed to look like a big ship. In addition to Tongji Gate, Shuiximen is also located in a location with a large flow of water, which is very consistent with the hexagram of "Huan". Therefore, Liu Bowen planned to design Shuiximen to look like a big ship.
It was not enough to convince Zhu Yuanzhang to agree to design Tongjimen into a big ship just by relying on the hexagrams. Therefore, Liu Bowen thought of a way, that is, to combine the hexagrams of Tongjimen with Zhu Yuanzhang's rule. Get in touch. The large ship shape of Tongjimen was regarded as conforming to the ground, and it was God's expression of good wishes for Zhu Yuanzhang's rule. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang was overjoyed and agreed to Liu Bowen's design.