When Xiang Yu saw the super project Afang Palace, why did he burn it down?
"When the six kings are finished, the four seas are one. The Shu Mountain is in the mountains, and Afang comes out... The people of Chu are torched, and the earth is pitifully scorched." This is a sentence that many Chinese people are familiar with. The story that Xiang Yu burned Epang Palace has been circulated for about two thousand years and has almost become historical common sense. "Historical Records" seems to make it clear: "Xiang Yu led his troops to the west to massacre Xianyang, killing the princes and infants in bed; burning the palaces of Qin, the fire will not be extinguished for three months." However, this is just people's wishful thinking, and it is far from the reality of history. Far away... Qin Afang Palace is the planned political center of the Qin Dynasty. It is located 13 kilometers west of today's Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province, across the Wei River from Xianyang, the capital of Qin, and was founded in 212 BC. After Qin Shihuang unified the country, the country became increasingly powerful and the number of people in Xianyang, the capital of the country, increased. In the thirty-fifth year of the First Emperor's reign (212 BC), construction of a court palace, namely Epang Palace, began in Shanglin Garden south of the Wei River. Due to the vastness of the project, only one front hall was built during the reign of the First Emperor. According to "Historical Records: The Chronicles of the First Emperor of Qin": "The front hall of Afang is five hundred steps east to west and fifty feet north and south. Ten thousand people can sit on the top, and a flag of five feet can be built below. The pavilion road runs all the way from your highness to the Nanshan Mountain. The top is regarded as Que, and it is a restoration road. It crosses Wei from Afang and belongs to Xianyang. "It is conceivable that it is so large that it wastes people and money. After the death of Qin Shihuang, Hu Hai, the second emperor of Qin, continued to build it. Du Mu, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, wrote in "Afang Palace Fu": "It covers more than three hundred miles and isolates the sky. Lishan Mountain is built in the north and turns west, going straight to Xianyang. The two rivers melt and flow into the palace wall. Five steps to the first floor, ten steps There is a pavilion; the waist of the corridor is unobstructed, and the eaves are high; each one is fighting against the terrain. ""Shu Mountain is at the top of the mountain, and Epang comes out, covering more than 300 miles, isolating the sky." This shows that Epang Palace is indeed a very grand building complex. In the Qin Dynasty, one step was six feet, three hundred steps was one mile, and the Qin ruler was about 0.23 meters. Calculated in this way, the front hall of Epang Palace is 690 meters wide from east to west and 115 meters deep from north to south, covering an area of 80,000 square meters, which is more than enough to accommodate 10,000 people. According to legend, there are more than 700 large and small halls in Epang Palace, and the climate in each hall is different during the day. There are mountains of treasures in the palace and thousands of beauties. Qin Shihuang visited various palaces throughout his life, staying in one place a day, and he did not live in all the palaces until his death. According to the "Book of Han Jia Shan Zhuan", the entire scale of Epang Palace is "five miles from east to west and a thousand paces from north to south." Today, in the south of Sanqiao Town in the western suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, starting from Jujiazhuang in the east and Gucheng Village in the west, the Epang Palace ruins with an area of about 600,000 square meters are still preserved. It can be seen that the Epang Palace has many palaces, a wide building area, and a grand scale. It is an unparalleled palace building in the history of world architecture. There are only a few places in the world with more than 3,000 years of prosperity, and Xi'an is one of them. People who grew up here may not know that the land beneath their feet was once the most gorgeous palace in Chinese history. Just entering the 21st century, the Epang Palace Archaeological Team established by the Institute of Archeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Xi'an Cultural Relics Protection and Archeology Institute spent more than two years conducting a "carpet-style" comprehensive survey of the existing Qin Dynasty Epang Palace front hall site. Archaeological exploration revealed only the foundation of the front hall of Afang Palace. Since October 2002, the archaeological team has excavated an area of 3,000 square meters and an exploration area of 35,000 square meters at the site of the front hall of Afang Palace. During the exploration process, archaeologists have not spared the ruins area that is currently covered by villages. In addition to the cement floor and brick paving, even the flower ponds, sheep pens, next to toilets, and open spaces between houses have been inspected. Intensive exploration was carried out and only the remains of the city wall from the Qin Dynasty were discovered. The collapsed deposits contained a large number of Qin and Han tiles, but no remains of Qin Dynasty palace buildings such as palace sites, pillars, corridors, drainage facilities, etc. were found, nor were tiles, an essential building material of the Qin Dynasty, found. . Therefore, archaeological experts believe that the Epang Palace project only completed the construction of the front hall building foundation and part of the palace wall, and the parts above the palace building foundation were not built in the future. For the Epang Palace, which has been covered in dust for more than two thousand years, the archaeological team's intention is very clear, which is to find the ruins of the palace that were destroyed by fire. The results of the excavation were completely unexpected... because there were no traces of the fire in Epang Palace! Could it be that more than 2,000 years have passed and countless wind, frost, rain and snow attacks have erased the traces left by the fire? Woolen cloth? In order to understand more exactly what the burned ruins looked like, the Epang Palace archaeological team came to the ruins of Changle Palace in the Han Dynasty. It was once one of the most gorgeous palaces in Chang'an, the capital of the Han Dynasty, and the residence of the mother of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
It is said that more than 2,000 years ago, Gillian, who was good at dancing and long-sleeved, met Liu Che, the young Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, here, creating a romance that has been passed down for thousands of years. However, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Changle Palace, like other palaces in the Han Dynasty, could not escape the fate of being burned down. More than 2,000 years later, the traces of the fire are still vivid. After the members of the Epang Palace archaeological team carefully compared the two sites, they became increasingly uneasy because Epang Palace did not look like it had experienced a fire at all. If they were both burned down, why do these two buildings of similar ages look so different? Everyone was wandering around the palace of the Han Dynasty, and they had a bold guess in their minds, but they didn't dare to say it out loud. Afang Palace was burned down by Xiang Yu. This story has been circulated in China for 2000 years and has been cited as an allusion by countless literati. It also seems to be a conventional thing in the archaeological community, so even though almost every member of the Epang Palace archaeological team at that time had it in their hearts. I have the same thought - Afang Palace is not burning! But no one dared to say it. Is it because there were too few places excavated and the part where the Epang Palace was burned was just missed? After repeated consideration, the archaeological team improved their method and used a large area of exploration to confirm whether this land had been exposed to fire, because this method can quickly detect conditions tens of centimeters below the ground. In order to find the fire that occurred more than 2,000 years ago, the Epang Palace archaeological team drilled five detection holes per square meter within the site, but the results still disappointed them. So, the time has come to tell the truth. "Efang Palace was never burned at all." The legend that people have believed for 2000 years is actually a misunderstanding. This argument triggered a controversy in the Chinese archaeological community as soon as it was raised. Someone bluntly pointed out: Did the archaeological team get the location wrong? After digging for a long time, it turned out to be not Epang Palace at all? Could it be that "Historical Records" misremembered it? According to historical records, in order to build Afang Palace, Qin Shihuang invited countless wizards and searched for geomantic treasures near Xianyang. Finally, he thought that the place between the two capitals of the Zhou Dynasty was the most suitable. Based on the work done by predecessors and the personal experience of the Epang Palace archaeological team this time, the archaeological team believes that the current excavation site is the only possibility. Although the archaeological team believes that the evidence is conclusive, they are still facing tremendous pressure. The reason is simple, because some scholars believe that if they admit that Epang Palace was not burned, then the "Historical Records" is wrong. For thousands of years, "Historical Records" has been considered the best book for studying ancient history. Some people even believe that overturning "Historical Records" would be equivalent to shaking China's ancient history. More than ten years ago, when people were deciphering the history of the Yin and Shang Dynasties, they encountered a similar situation. According to "Historical Records", the brutal Yin Shang Dynasty ruled for nearly a thousand years, making it the longest-lived dynasty in history. However, according to people's archaeological discoveries, the era of Shang's demise was much earlier than what Sima Qian recorded. The fallacy in this is more than 500 years old. Could it be that "Historical Records" also made mistakes this time regarding the issue of Afang Palace? Like other history books, Sima Qian also hopes to achieve the effect of using the past to satirize the present. For this purpose, could he have fabricated the fire 2000 years ago? After careful analysis of historical data, the archaeological team found a reasonable explanation for the sentence in "Historical Records" that "burning the Qin Palace will last for three months". In the piles cleared out in Xianyang, they clearly saw traces of the fire. The fire mentioned by Sima Qian in "Historical Records" really happened in Xianyang, so who moved the fire to Afang Palace? Or that there were two fires in more than 2000 years? The most famous person who clearly pointed out that Epang Palace was destroyed by fire is the great poet Du Mu of the Tang Dynasty. To this day, some scholars insist that the archaeological team's conclusion is wrong based on his "Ode to Epang Palace". However, it is not enough to convince the public to deny the archaeological team's point of view simply because Du Mu is a litterateur. Seeing that Xiang Yu's charge of being an "arsonist" was about to be cleared, unexpectedly, another "strong news" broke out in the media, claiming that "evidence was found that the Epang Palace was destroyed by fire." What happened? This starts from two aspects: First, since the Epang Palace was not burned by fire, why did Xiang Yu burn the Epang Palace? During the entire archaeological exploration of the Epang Palace site, archaeologists found no trace of being burned by fire at that time. According to reports, the legendary incident of Epang Palace being set on fire by Xiang Yu is not recorded in the "Historical Records". On the contrary, there is a record in "Historical Records" that Xiang Yu burned the palace buildings in Xianyang, the capital of Qin.
"Historical Records of Xiang Yu" says this: (Xiang Yu) "then slaughtered Xianyang and burned his palace..." The latter mention also said "burning Qin's palace, the fire will not be extinguished for three months." The "palace" mentioned here should be the Xianyang Palace in the capital of Qin and other Qin Dynasty palaces that were discovered to have been burned by fire during archaeological excavations. Previously, archaeologists discovered traces of the palace building ruins being burned by fire during the archaeological excavation of the No. 1, 2 and 3 palace buildings in Xianyang, the capital of Qin. From this point of view, what Xiang Yu burned at that time should be Xianyang Palace in the capital of Qin or other Qin palaces. This arson scene was in Xianyang, not the Afang Palace in Shanglin Garden south of the Wei River. Later generations misunderstood it and called it Afang Palace. Second, where did the media find the “evidence” that Afang Palace was destroyed by fire? It was when the archaeological work on the ruins of the front hall of Afang Palace was basically completed. The archaeological team wanted to determine the western boundary of Afang Palace. As a result, they discovered a large-scale garden 1,150 meters west of the ruins of the front hall of Afang Palace. Architectural ruins. Judging from the piles of collapsed buildings at the garden building site, it appears that the garden had been exposed to fire. As a result, the media released the above-mentioned news. However, experts believe that this garden is not a building of Afang Palace. They identified and analyzed the building materials such as slab tiles, tube tiles and tiles unearthed in the garden, and concluded that this was a garden building of the Qin State during the Warring States Period, that is, a royal garden built by Qin Shihuang's ancestors before he unified China. One of the buildings in Shanglin Garden. The Epang Palace was built in Shanglin Garden by Qin Shihuang after he unified the world. It was built much later. The two cannot be confused. Originally, the burning of Epang Palace would have ended here, but Epang Palace was indeed a troubled "palace". After further excavations, archaeologists revealed another shocking news: Epang Palace was never built at all. ! At the end of 2003, the Epang Palace archaeological team discovered a large number of broken tiles on the north wall of Epang Palace. Where did the large number of Han Dynasty tiles come from? Why does it appear on the buildings of the Qin Dynasty? Could it be that Afang Palace was still used until the Han Dynasty? This might excite the archaeological team. Since everyone said that Afang Palace was not burned, what is puzzling is why Xiang Yu let Afang Palace go? Even the experts on the archaeological team are puzzled. Since he has burned down the Xianyang Palace, the Terracotta Warriors and Horses and other treasures of the Qin Dynasty, why is he so arrogant here in Afang Palace? So the archaeological team came up with an explosive idea - Epang Palace was not built at all! In early 2004, "Efang Palace was not burned" finally became a conclusion in the archaeological community; at this time, Li Yufang, the leader of the archaeological team, threw out another Explosive point of view - Afang Palace was not built at all. This greatly disappointed the fellow villagers who were waiting to see the treasure, and also greatly surprised the entire archaeological community. While we are debating endlessly about whether Xiang Yu burned Afang Palace or not, one of the most fundamental questions has been ignored—did the poetic and imaginary Afang Palace really exist? Afang Palace has been rumored for two thousand years, so how can we conclude that it exists? According to the exploration and excavation, the rammed earth platform of the Afang Palace Front Hall site is 1,270 meters long from east to west, 426 meters wide from north to south, with a maximum existing height of 12 meters. The rammed earth platform covers an area of more than 540,000 square meters. It is the largest known area in the ancient history of China and the world. The rammed earth platform foundation of the grandest palace. Judging from the platform base of the front hall alone, which is more than 540,000 square meters, a building of the scale of Epang Palace was impossible to complete under the conditions at that time. In addition, all political activities from the late Qin Shihuang to Qin II and then to Qin Prince Ying were in Xianyang Palace or Wangyi Palace, and Epang Palace was never mentioned. The ironclad evidence for the existence of Epang Palace can only be written records or physical objects at that time. However, no such physical evidence has been found to date. If the palace is built, no matter how it is burned down, it should be like the Qin Xianyang Palace ruins, where there will be a pile of rubble more than one meter thick, but the Epang Palace ruins do not. Besides, if the palace is built, the gold and silver treasures will be looted, but why is there not even a broken bowl? At the same time, documentary materials can also prove that Epang Palace was not built. The "Historical Records" clearly remembers that when Qin II came to the throne, "the rooms and halls of Afang Palace were not completed". Because the first emperor "collapsed", work was stopped and all 700,000 laborers were rushed to build the Qin Mausoleum. In April of this year, "Afang Palace was restored", and in July Chen Sheng and Wu Guang revolted. In such a short period of time, it is obvious that Epang Palace cannot be built. There is also a clear statement in "The Chronicles of the First Emperor of Qin": "...Afang Palace has not been completed; when it is completed, I want to change its name. I built Afang Palace, so the world calls it Afang Palace." Because this palace is built nearby, it is temporarily It was called "Afang Palace". This was not a name. Qin Shihuang originally planned to name it after the construction was completed. However, it was not completed, so it did not have a name, but "Afang Palace" has been called it until now.
As for Du Mu's eloquent "Ode to Afang Palace", the archaeological team believed that it could only be his imagination based on the palaces he had seen in his life; while the pictures of Afang Palace that appeared after the Ming Dynasty were based on Du Mu's Imagination based. Cheng Dachang of the Southern Song Dynasty wrote in "Yong Lu": "The top can seat ten thousand people, and the bottom can build a five-foot-long flag. This is the model for the purpose." The meaning of the last two sentences is: That is the model of the design. , hoping to achieve this. This shows that in fact, someone in history has long pointed out that the front hall of Epang Palace was not built, and the descriptions of its scale were based on drawings rather than actual. It is a pity that this voice has not attracted the attention it deserves for a long time. In history, Afang Palace was never built, let alone burned down. It was just an unfinished dream of Qin Shihuang. Its excessive beauty and luxury exacerbated the Qin Dynasty's bad luck, which made it an infamous palace. Today's people have built a total area of an open space across the road from the ruins of the front hall of Afang Palace in Qin Dynasty, including the front hall of Afang Palace, Lanchi Palace, the Palace of the Six Kingdoms, the Long Corridor, the Shangtian Terrace, and the Earth Sacrifice Altar. Qin Afang Palace, a man-made landscape covering an area of 780 acres. The legendary Afang Palace is known as the "No. 1 Palace in the World". Although the luxurious and majestic Afang Palace was never built in history, it did not witness the Qin Empire's short-lived glory and the end of the Qin Empire. But the concept of Afang Palace has already been deeply rooted in people's hearts. Just giving Xiang Yu an unfounded charge of "burning Epang Palace" is indeed an injustice to this generation of overlords who enjoy a high reputation in history