Every day, during the opening hours of Guangxi Rongxian Museum, tourists who come to visit in an endless stream will be brought to this huge bronze bell by the docent. This is a well-deserved "treasure of the town hall". The bronze bell is cylindrical in shape and 183 cm high. The top of the arc is inlaid with fine dragon-shaped hanging buttons.
The front of the bell is engraved with two lines of regular script inscription: "Zhenyuan was twelve years old in Jingzi on November 22nd, and he was the imperial envoy, guard, and governor of Rongzhou. Together with the shogunate and the generals, they cast a red bell in Kaiyuan Temple, weighing 3,500 catties, and enshrined it forever." On the back, the six characters "Kaiyuan Temple Permanent Bell" are inscribed. The text is simple and rich in content, covering all aspects of Rongzhou's politics, economy and military at that time.
Fang Rufu, the caster of Jingzi's bronze bell, was the son of Fang Guan, the prime minister at the end of Tang Xuanzong. In the tenth year of Tang Zhenyuan (AD 794), he served as the governor of Rongzhou and the chief minister of the management of economics.
In the Tang Dynasty , local administration was set at the two levels of state and county, and the county was under the jurisdiction of the state. Later, in order to strengthen the defense of important areas along the border, the central ruler set up three administrative districts under the jurisdiction of Guiguan, Yongguan and Rongguan under West Lingnan Road. The military commander of Guangxi was assigned the jurisdiction of the prefectures and counties of Guangxi.
According to the inscriptions, Fang Rufu was not only an envoy of Rongjingjingjing, but also an administrator of Rongzhou's history of the state where he was located, and also a "Yu Shizhongcheng", shouldering the heavy responsibility of law enforcement, inspection and verification of officials at all levels in the jurisdiction on behalf of the central government. , in charge of the military and civil affairs in the area of southeastern Guangxi.
The place where Jingzi's bronze bell was cast, Rongzhou Kaiyuan Temple was built in the early Tang Dynasty, where the temple is located. In the Ming Dynasty, Kaiyuan Temple was abolished, and Jingzi's bronze bell was transferred several times. In 1963, it was rated as a key cultural relics protection unit in the autonomous region and protected. In 2010, after the new building of the Rong County Museum was completed, it was moved to its current location. It was during this transfer that its exact weight was measured: 1738.1 kilograms.
Since 1976, some copper utensils have been unearthed in Rong County, including the unique Warring States period horn button clock, bronze drum and other ethnic musical instruments, as well as copper pigeons introduced from the Central Plains and copper raw materials. Cake, does this mean that there were copper mines in Rongxian in ancient times?
In further archaeological exploration, researchers found ancient large-scale copper smelting sites in a place called Xishan according to the records in "Yuanhe County Map Zhi • Lingnan Road".
After investigation, Rongxian Xishan copper smelting site and Beiliu Tongshiling copper smelting site face each other across the river, with a total of 3.7 square kilometers. Together, they constitute the largest known copper smelting industrial area in ancient Lingnan. The time when the site was mined was more than a thousand years from the Western Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties. These pottery wind pipes, copper cakes, and lead cakes were all collected on the surface of the site. The Xishan Copper Smelting Site is located by the Xiujiang River, 20 miles away from Rongzhou City, and the transportation of ore is convenient enough to supply Kaiyuan Temple to cast bells.
In the 1980s, archaeologists unearthed copper slag and other wastes at the Kaiyuan Temple site, which may be the relics left by the casting of copper bells. Just four years after the bronze bell of Jingzi was cast (AD 800), Rongzhou Guannei Jingluo Weidan built a state with a complete layout and a large scale on the north and south banks of the upper reaches of the Xiujiang River with Kaiyuan Temple as the center. city.
The splendid Tang Rongzhou City has long since died out, but these uniquely shaped bricks and tiles show people its glory in the past. This Tang "Wang Zhiguan" seal tile shows that it was once a component of an official building. The ancient city of Rongzhou can reach the Xijiang River system in the north, leading to the Central Plains, and the Hepu Port in the south. It is a strategic fortress. Due to the development of water transportation, Rongzhou in the Tang Dynasty was mainly exported to Japan. The ceramic industry has developed rapidly. Although these surviving Qiongxin kiln porcelain bowls are not exquisite, they are also the physical testimony of Yulin 's early self-produced porcelain.
from the Western Han Dynasty to the Tang DynastyIn the Song Dynasty, Rongzhou, which connects the river and the sea, has always been an important node of the Maritime Silk Road. The unearthed wares from famous kilns in the Tang Dynasty, as well as fragments of Persian pottery, confirmed the prosperous history of the north-south connection and the integration of passengers and goods.
Persian silver coins were unearthed for the first time in Guangxi, and they have witnessed the prosperity of local foreign trade. Not only Persians , but also Sogdians from Central Asia came here.
This rubbing handed down from the Guangxu period records the past of a Sogdian named An Xuanlang and his family in the Tang Dynasty. The Sogdians are famous for doing business in the world. They are the main force of the Silk Road. They originally lived between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya in Central Asia. From the Western Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Sogdians migrated to all parts of the Central Plains on a large scale. During the Tang Dynasty, cultural tolerance was unprecedented, and many civil servants and generals were aliens.
An Xuanlang's great-grandfather was credited with quelling the rebels during the Jingyuan mutiny and . Benefiting from the "door shadow" system in the Tang Dynasty, the descendants of the An family successively obtained official positions.
On the long Silk Road, the Sogdians imported many new cultures into China, and they themselves integrated into the Chinese nation. An Xuanlang's marriage followed the traditional marriage of Han people , and he married Liu's of a famous family in Hedong as his wife. This family produced three prime ministers in the Tang Dynasty and Liu Zongyuan, a great writer. As a Chinese military general, An Xuanlang participated in the third war between the late Tang Dynasty and Nanzhao .
Nanzhao is an ancient kingdom founded on Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau , with the support of the Tang Dynasty, it unified the Erhai area. Since July 858, Nanzhao, which was originally a vassal of the Tang Dynasty, began to frequently invade the frontiers of the Tang Dynasty. This year, An Xuanlang was thirty-two years old. His residence and the Annanzhi office are close at hand, and they have been repeatedly affected by wars. Since then, the peaceful and quiet days of him and his family no longer exist.
In November 862, An Xuanlang came to the aid of Annan as one of the six thousand reinforcements. It is a pity that there is no need to wait. The Nanzhao army encircled the city of Jiaozhi with iron barrels. An Xuanlang was among the reinforcements, and he could only look at the city of Jiaozhi, which could not be seen, and could only be worried and sighed. In the end, Annan Jinglu Shi Cai, who was alone in defending the city, was hit by ten arrows and threw himself into the sea.
In March 863 AD, Nanzhao invaded Zuo, Youjiang , approaching Yongzhou . In July, the administrative office of the Annan Duhufu was temporarily moved to Haimen Town (now Hepu, Guangxi, China). An Xuanlang probably served as the military envoy of the Haimen garrison during this period. According to the epitaph records, An Xuanlang was honest and self-defeating, acted impartially, planned well, trained well, and was quite loyal to the military. He and everyone worked together to accumulate counterattack strength. The turnaround came soon. In July of the following year, Haimen ushered in the newly-appointed Protector of Annan, and the manager of the management and economics, Gao Pian. After a brief rectification of the army, the last famous general of the Tang Dynasty, Gao Pian, who was both civil and military, boarded the battlefield where he became famous.
In September 864 AD, Gao Pian took the initiative to attack Fengzhou (now Baihe County, Vinh Phu Province, Vietnam), killing 50,000 enemies; in 866, Gao Pian recovered the entire territory of Annan from Nanzhao. In 875, Gao Pian's army pacified Nanzhao.
An Xuanlang participated in this grand battle throughout the whole process, and he was rewarded for his merits. He wanted to return to a happy life with his family, but unfortunately, the long-term struggle has overdrawn his health.
On August 23 of the year when Gao Pian pacified Nanzhao, An Xuanlang died of illness in Haimen and was eventually buried in the family cemetery in Anyu Township, Puning County (now Rong County, Guangxi, China). His ancestors came from far away Central Asia, and the hot land of South China was his final destination.
's lost epitaph only leaves this rubbing, with white characters on a black background, as if to convey An Xuanlang's last words: "I am a Sogdian, and I am from the Tang Dynasty. I fought to recover Annan and protect the country, and I did my best. After the Song Dynasty, there is no record of the Sogdians in the land of China, and they have integrated into the Chinese nation.
Strolling in the scenic area of the ancient city of Rongzhou, looking back at the prosperous Tang Dynasty, there are not only the most romantic literati, but also the charming demeanor of Rongzhou beauties, the bravery of foreign soldiers holding Gewei Sheji, and Wan Guo came to the DPRK The high spirits of . The openness and tolerance of the barbarians in that dynasty, who chose the good and obeyed, were also deeply integrated into the blood of the Chinese nation. Today's Chinese people still continue to integrate the genes of the Quartet and usher in a new era's Hua Zhang.
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Tonight (October 8th) 21:20
Guangxi Satellite TV broadcasts
"Guangxi Story, Tang Dynasty Charm, Prosperous Rongzhou"
