Related history of the Afang Palace ruins

Did Xiang Yu burn the dragon veins of the Qin Dynasty with a fire?

In 356 BC, Qin Xiaogong appointed Shang Yang to carry out reforms. After the country became rich and powerful, the capital was moved from Yueyang to Xianyang, the ancient capital twenty miles northeast of the current Xianyang City. After Qin Shihuang unified the six countries, he moved 120,000 wealthy families from all over the world to this place and set it up as the imperial capital. Qin Shihuang repeatedly expanded the scale of the capital and built "five miles from east to west and thousands of feet from north to south", which could accommodate ten thousand people. The Epang Palace was not completed even after the dynasty was destroyed.

In the view of Feng Shui experts, Xianyang City is a rare Feng Shui treasure place. It uses Jiuwei Mountain as its ancestral vein, the Weihe Plain as its Mingtang, and the Wei River as its Suzaku. It blocks the Qi coming from Jiuwei Mountain and gathers it into the main acupoint. In this way, Xianyang is located between the south of Jiuta Mountain and the north of Weihe River, with mountains and rivers reflecting each other. At the same time, due to the tallness and uniqueness of the main line of Jiuwei Mountain and the fact that Qin Shihuang was seated here, Qin Shihuang imitated Ziwei Palace and built 145 types of palaces. The famous ones include Xin Palace, Ganquan Palace, Xingle Palace and other palaces. Xianyang Palace can be said to be lined with palaces, interconnected pavilions, winding corridors and secluded paths, with fragrant flowers and deep views. In the thirty-fifth year of Qin Shi Huang (212 BC), Qin Shi Huang ordered more than 700,000 prisoners to cut and transport timber from Sichuan, Hubei and other places, and excavate stones from Beishan, south of the Wei River between Feng and Hao, the capital of the Zhou Dynasty. In the Shanglin Garden, the royal garden, a new imperial palace was built that imitated the elites of architecture from all over the world. This imperial palace was later known as the famous palace of Afang Palace. Qin Shihuang also introduced the Wei River into the capital to symbolize the Tianhe River, and used the palace to mark the North Star, telling the world that Xianyang was the imperial capital and the palace was the unshakable residence of the emperor, building the entire capital into a cosmic schema. Not only that, after the death of Qin Shihuang, he chose to build his imperial mausoleum in Lintong, northeast of the Weihe River Plain, with Lishan Mountain to the south and Weihe River to the north, forming an extraordinary royal style. However, some people say that Qin Shihuang's grand design of relying on the dragon vein and attaching the Epang Palace and other palaces was completely burned by Xiang Yu. Is this true? Xiang Yu (232 B.C. ~ 202 B.C.), surnamed Xiang, courtesy name Yu, was a famous general and political figure in ancient China. He was a native of the Qin Dynasty (now Sucheng District, Suqian City, Jiangsu Province). He was conquered by King Huai of Chu at the end of the Qin Dynasty. He was named Lu Gong and led the Chu army to defeat the Qin army in the decisive battle of Julu in 207 BC. After that, he "led troops to the west to slaughter Xianyang, killed Qin Jiang's prince Ying, and burned Qin's palace. The fire will not be extinguished for three months." In "A Fang Palace Ode", the Tang poet Du Mu even described the Empress of Afang Palace with great color and emotion, and sang with infinite emotion: "The people of Chu burned the torch, but the scorched earth was pitiful." In order to find evidence that Xiang Yu burned the Qin Palace, archaeologists in 2002 We came to the south of Sanqiao Town in the western suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, starting from Jujiazhuang in the east and ending at Gucheng Village in the west, and started exploring. Although a variety of advanced equipment and methods were used, the result was beyond people's expectations: no traces of the Epang Palace being burned were found. Could it be that more than two thousand years have passed and countless wind, frost, rain and snow attacks have erased the traces left by the fire? For comparison, the Epang Palace archaeological team came to the site of Changle Palace in the Han Dynasty. 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. More than two thousand years have passed, but the traces of being burned here still remain. It’s vivid in my mind.

So, is it true that the two-thousand-year-old saying that Xiang Yu, the overlord of Western Chu, set fire to the Epang Palace and all its ancillary buildings and reduced it to ashes after his army entered the pass? Archaeologists have discovered that the ruins of Afang Palace that people usually call are actually the ruins of the front hall of Afang Palace. The rammed earth platform of the front hall of Afang Palace is 1,270 meters from east to west and 426 meters from north to south. There are already existing structures on the west, north and east sides of the platform. The rammed earth wall is built with tiles on the top; there is no south wall above the rammed earth platform. No Qin Dynasty cultural layer or Qin Dynasty palace architectural remains were found inside the three walls. Judging from the distribution of road soil, people transported the soil for ramming the platform foundation from the south to the north, and then gradually rammed the platform foundation starting from the north and working toward the south. Experts boldly speculate that of all the projects in Epang Palace, only the front hall has been built with a platform foundation, and other projects have not yet started. Epang Palace was not completed, nor was it set on fire by Xiang Yu as recorded in historical records!

When we look at history, we can find that "Historical Records: The Chronicles of the First Emperor of Qin" records: "Xiang Ji was the chief, and he killed his children and the clans of the princes of Qin. Then he massacred Xianyang, burned his palace, and captured his children. Collect the treasures and wealth and divide them among the princes." Xiang Yu adopted a policy of burning, killing, and looting Xianyang, but there was no explicit mention of burning Epang Palace. "Historical Records of Xiang Yu" records: "The fire in the Qin palace will not be extinguished for three months." There is no mention of burning the Epang Palace here.

It is likely that other palaces of the Qin Dynasty were burned. Another record in "Historical Records" also proves that Afang Palace was not completed: "In April, Qin II returned to Xianyang and said: 'The late emperor was the emperor of Xianyang, so he built Afang Palace. Before the palace was completed, the meeting was held. After the collapse, the author was restored to Tu Li Mountain. The affairs of Li Mountain were completed, and the Epang Palace was restored. This was because Emperor Zhang had done something wrong. However, in July of this year, Chen She and Wu Guang came to the palace. It's the other way around. In such a short time, it is obvious that Epang Palace cannot be built.

Since the Epang Palace has not even built the front hall, and there is no palace building on the rammed earth platform of the front hall, Xiang Yu has no need to cross the Wei River to set fire to a rammed earth platform without palace building. Therefore, the legend holds that Xiang Yu was wrong to burn down Afang Palace! Although Xiang Yu did not burn Epang Palace, it is an indisputable fact that he burned other palaces in Xianyang City built by Qin Shi Huang based on the dragon veins.