This is the largest restoration in history, and the first phase of the project will cost10 million yuan and will be completed in September this year. Previously, Linfen Municipal Committee also took the lead in setting up the Yao Culture Research Association, whose main task was to sort out, protect and excavate "the ideological, political and cultural achievements created by Emperor Yao and his subjects, as well as related cultural relics, relics, legends and stories", and to discuss and publish related books.
Almost at the same time, in March this year, Zhangzi County, Changzhi City, Shanxi Province also invited experts and scholars from inside and outside the province to hold a unique "hometown and Yao culture seminar". It is understood that Zhangzi County will also invite experts and scholars from all over the country to demonstrate Wang Yao's hometown. For a time, the debate about the authenticity of Yao's hometown was discussed by people.
The dispute over hometown is confusing.
"The hometown of Emperor Yao is of course in Linfen!" Interviews in Linfen City, both experts and scholars and street citizens, gave the same answer. According to Gao Shude, secretary of the Party Committee of Yaodu District Cultural Relics and Tourism Bureau and a local recognized expert on Yao culture, Linfen, formerly known as Pingyang, "has been recognized by historians as the ancient capital of Yao Emperor". Many historical sites in Linfen are even more powerful evidence. There is Yi village in the south of Linfen, which is consistent with the surname of Emperor Yao. There is a fairy cave in the west of the city, where the legendary emperor Yao got married and the chessboard stone that Yao taught to play chess; There is a golden palace in the south of the city, which is Pingyang's hometown and is called Yao Site in history. There is Yaoling in the east of the city, which is the most magnificent mausoleum among the Three Emperors and Five Emperors.
"Yao's hometown is the eldest son" is a new saying in recent years. At the end of 2005, a professor from taiyuan normal University published a long article "An Examination of the eldest son of Dan Zhufeng —— Also on Yao's birthplace, birthplace and place of origin", and thought that his hometown and birthplace were probably in today's Changzi County. One article stirred up a thousand waves. In March, 2006, Zhangzi County CPPCC invited Li Xi to give a local academic report, and burned the contents of the speech into a CD, which was broadcast on local TV stations for several days. Subsequently, CPPCC of this county took the lead in conducting a large-scale investigation throughout the county, searching for ancient books, poems, songs, folk customs and other materials related to Yao Wang, and compiling them into a book "Yao Wang and the eldest son". Shen Xiufu, president of the Yao Culture Research Association in Zhangzi County, said that the arguments collected by the Yao Culture Research Association were more vivid and rich, and it was initially determined that the eldest son was the hometown of Yao Wang and the birthplace of Yao culture.
In fact, the dispute about "Yaodi's hometown" is not limited to Yaodu District in Linfen, Shanxi and Zhangzi County in Changzhi. Heze, Dingtao and Qufu in Shandong, Shunping and Tangxian in Hebei, Lanxi in Zhejiang, Taoyuan and Changde in Hunan all joined the "hometown dispute". As early as the early 1990s, Shunping County in Hebei Province advertised in authoritative newspapers that Wang Yao's hometown was Shunping. Jiangsu also held a seminar to demonstrate that Yao's hometown is Jiangsu; A media in Shandong claimed that "the mausoleum of Emperor Yao was finally decided in Heze".