In 917, Liu Yan, who separatized Lingnan, proclaimed himself emperor in Guangzhou, and the country was named "Dayue". The following year, Liu Yan changed the name of the country to "Han", which was called "Southern Han" in history. He was the founding emperor of the Southern Han Dynasty.
In 919, Liu Yan built the royal palace in Guangzhou City and built a royal garden in the west of the city, which was connected with the South Palace.
Liu Yan used natural ponds to carve out what became the "West Lake", which is more than 500 feet long and covers an area of ??several hundred acres. The layout of the royal garden was centered on what would later become the West Lake, with a small island in the middle.
Legend has it that after Liu Yan dug the lake, he gathered alchemists to refine elixirs on the island to seek immortality. "He threw medicine into it, and the water changed color, so it was called "Medicine Island". It is also said that because he was on the small island, he Red peony is planted all over the island, so the island is called "Yaozhou" and "Xianhu".
At that time, in order to embellish the aura of Yaozhou, Liu Yan collected a large number of strange stones from all over the south of the Yangtze River to decorate it. On the lakeside, there are "stones like a forest", and there are pavilions, buildings, pavilions, pavilions, etc. along the lake. The scenery is very beautiful and beautiful.
Among them, the "Sunlight Strange Stone" is placed on the medicine island. "The nine famous Lingbi stones are the most fascinating ones later called "Nine Obsidian Stones".
In ancient times, "Nine" means many, and "Yao" is originally the name of a star. , moon, and stars are all called "Yao", and the seven stars of sun, moon, fire, water, wood, metal, and earth are collectively called "Qi Yao", and "Nine Stars" is another name for "Nine Stars"
It is said. Most of these stones were brought by Liu Yan from Taihu Lingbi to punish the criminals. Among them, 9 "Nine Obsidian Stones" were eight or nine feet to more than one foot high. Although they were irregular, they were green in color. The shape is like running clouds.
Nine obsidian stones are "thin", "transparent" and "wrinkled", with different shapes, sizes and colors. They stand in the green lake and complement each other with the beautiful sky and water. The stone scenery and changing reflections make people feel like seeing the wonders of a mirage. The garden was named after Jiuyao Stone after Yaozhou.
The winding corridors in Jiuyao Garden. The fenced water pavilion is clearly visible. There is a lake in the garden, covering an area of ??about 440 square meters. The inscriptions of Yaozhou, Jiuyao and the academy are embedded in the Hubei corridor wall in the garden.
After the unification of Lingnan in the Northern Song Dynasty, Jiuyao. The garden became a summer resort for boating, singing and sightseeing, and was known as the "West Lake" in history. At that time, the West Lake had a gate tower and stele corridor in the style of the Five Dynasties, which was 7 meters wide and 4.8 meters deep.
During the Xining period, Mi Fu, a famous calligrapher in the Northern Song Dynasty, inscribed the word "Yaozhou" on a 1.5-meter-high stone on the north bank of Jiuyao Garden and signed it "Mi Fu Yuanzhang Ti". This stone was known as the "Mi Ti Yaozhou Stone" and was soon moved to the east courtyard of the Guangdong Governor's Office.
Mi Fu wrote this while boating on the West Lake in 1073. He wrote the poem "Jiu Yao Stone" and inscribed it on a huge stone on the south side of the stone in the east of the pond in Jiu Yao Garden:
The blue sea emerges from the mirage pavilion, and the blue sky rises with strange summer clouds. The stones are scattered and moving.
The first sentence "The blue sea emerges from the mirage, and the blue sky rises with summer clouds" compares the mirage and the ever-changing summer clouds. This huge stone and the poem complement each other. Because someone inscribed the word "celestial palm" next to the palm of the stone, it was known as the "celestial palm stone".
Not long after Mi Fu visited Jiuyao Garden, a calligrapher named Xu Yanxian of the Northern Song Dynasty. His family also came here to visit the garden. Because of his interest, he became very popular in poetry. He found a piece of stone on the north bank of the garden to the west, two meters high, with a round stone as a top, like an ox's head, and there were more than ten "sea islands" with sinuses piercing it on all sides. Inscribed with a poem:
Anthers are floating on the boat on the sea, with cloud shadows and sand flowing in the water.
Zhiying Road connects with Yinhuang, and visitors often come to bullfight.
In the Southern Song Dynasty, West Lake in Guangzhou began to be silted up. In 1208, Chen Xian, the economic envoy of Guangzhou, dredged and renovated the West Lake. At the same time, he not only planted a large number of white lotus on the West Lake, known as the "White Lotus Pond", but also built a lotus pavilion on the lake. According to legend, Chen Xian built the pavilion "Ai Lian Pavilion", which took the meaning of "Ai Lian Shuo" written by Zhou Dunyi, a scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty.
In the early Ming Dynasty, the West Lake in Guangzhou still covered an area of ??several hundred feet. There were still scenic spots such as Gemstone Bridge and Oriole Harbor, and the tall Jiuyao Stone stood proudly in the lake.
At dawn, everything in the city is silent, the rising sun is rising, the sky is full of colorful clouds in the east, reflecting in the lake, the water and sky are the same color; famous stone and ancient bridges are dyed with a layer of golden color. The blue waves are sparkling, and the ripples are rippling.
The green lotuses and red lotuses on the water, and the weeping willows and catkins on the embankment, make the world more tranquil, peaceful and peaceful, creating the charming scenery of "Spring Dawn". This scene was known as "Spring Dawn on Yaozhou" and was one of the eight scenic spots in Yangcheng at that time.
During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, someone carved an inscription on the east side of the stone embankment in Jiuyao Garden, which is shaped like a turtle, 3.4 meters high and weighs about 25 tons. It is known as "the first stone of Jiuyao" at the bottom. It is the first stone of Jiu Yao." On this stone, there were later inscriptions such as "worship the stone" in seal script and "dragon cave" in official script inscribed by famous calligraphers.
In the late Ming Dynasty, the siltation of Guangzhou's West Lake became more serious. The lake gradually shrank, and finally changed from a lake to a pond. Later, due to the expansion of the city's streets, only the name of West Lake Road was left.
"Jiuyao Garden" is fortunate to have been preserved. Although it is not big, it is named after the stone. At that time, the Jiuyao Stone was engraved with some calligraphy inscriptions by literati from the Song Dynasty. Among them, the two characters "Yaozhou" written by Mi Fu in the Song Dynasty were the most famous.
In the Qing Dynasty, a famous calligrapher also left stone carvings on a strange stone called "Yaozhou Stone" when he visited Jiuyao Garden. Yaozhou Stone is located in the west of Jiuyaoyuan Lake. It is shaped like a bamboo shoot peak and is 2.4 meters high. It has the words "Yaozhou" inscribed by Weng Fanggang engraved on it.
At that time, Wu Lanxiu, a poet of the Qing Dynasty, once wrote poems praising Jiuyao Garden such as "Nine stars fell to the ground and turned into stone", "Nine natural hibiscus are thin". In addition, another long poem by Zhao Jun, another poet of the Qing Dynasty, also described the Jiuyao stones in Jiuyao Garden one by one.
Due to the popularity of Jiuyao Stone, even in the Qing Dynasty, the nearby Huatuo Temple was also called the "Jiuyao Ancient Temple", and the bridge next to the temple was also called Jiuyao Bridge. After a street was formed in the nearby area, it was called Jiuyaofang.
However, by the late Qing Dynasty, the only remaining Taihu Lingbi stones in Jiuyao Garden were the "Yaozhou" stone, Xianzhang stone, Haihaizhou stone, Jiuyao first stone, Yaozhou stone, There are 8 pieces of Chidong Stone, White Hollow Stone and Pearl Quan Stone.
Chidong Stone is located at the east end of Jiuyao Garden. The upper and lower stones are stacked on top of each other. The upper stone is smaller, shaped like a black pig, and the lower stone is shaped like a giant turtle, weighing about 16 tons. The stone body has small foam holes like lotus leaves. The white hollow stone is located to the west of the "Yaozhou" stone, with two inscriptions from the Qing Dynasty on it.
The Zhuquan Stone is located in the southwest of Jiuyao Garden, with "Zhuquan" engraved on the west and "Diaoji" on the east. In addition, there are six larger stones scattered in the southwest corner of Jiuyao Garden and among the stones on the west and north banks.
Jiangnan Garden Restoration Model