Yongji city, known as Puban in ancient times, is one of the important birthplaces of the Chinese nation. This ancient city has a long history, rich culture and numerous historical sites. There are 447 existing cultural relics, which are known as "the hometown of China poetry" and "the hometown of China poets". When traveling to Yongji, the most unforgettable attraction is the site of Pujin Ferry Mouth on the east bank of the Yellow River outside the west gate of the ancient city of Zhou Pu.
Pujin Ferry is a big ferry on the ancient Yellow River. It is adjacent to the Pujiu Temple, where the story of The West Chamber takes place, and to the Golden Temple, the first of the four famous buildings in China, in the west. Because the Yellow River is silted in this area, it will be diverted every few years, so it is only necessary to build a pontoon bridge. The Pujin pontoon bridge in history was built with wooden boats and covered with planks. In order to reduce bumps, both sides of the wooden boat are fixed with chains.
During the Tang Dynasty, Yongji region enjoyed economic prosperity. In the 12th year of Kaiyuan reign of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (724), the Pujin Ferry was rebuilt and expanded on a large scale nationwide, and ironware such as iron ox was cast as the anchor of Pujin pontoon bridge. After the completion of Pujin Ferry pontoon bridge, it became the lifeline of the whole country at that time and has been in use for 500 years. Later, due to the diversion of the Yellow River, Kaiyuan Iron Bull sank into the sediment and gradually disappeared into history.
199 1 year, the joint archaeological excavation team cleaned and excavated the Pujin Ferry site. Four iron oxen, four iron oxen, two iron mountains, four iron piers, a group of seven-star iron columns, a bank of more than 70 meters in the Ming Dynasty and a memorial tablet in the 16th year of Zhengde in the Ming Dynasty (152 1) have all been unearthed, but the whereabouts of the other four iron oxen in the west bank of the Yellow River are unknown.
Four iron cows face the Yellow River and line up in two rows. After scientific calculation, each iron cow is 1.9 m high, 1.3 m wide, 3 m long and weighs about 40 tons.
In order to fix the rope, an iron mountain with a height of about 1 m was placed between the two rows of iron cows to prevent the rope from swinging left and right. The total weight of these ironware is 146 tons, which is the heaviest precious cultural relic found in China at present. This is a great discovery of the achievements of ancient civilization in China.
Half a meter next to each iron cow, there is also an iron man with a high nose and deep eyes standing and pulling. The costumes, expressions and movements of the four iron men are different. According to experts' research, they represent a nation. Judging from the friendly relations between the Tang Dynasty and the ethnic groups at that time, there should be four different ethnic groups: Uygur, Mongolian, Tibetan and Han. This also shows that as early as the Tang Dynasty, all ethnic groups in China were United and harmonious.
Interestingly, one of the iron men is wearing a lapel suit, so some people say that the suit originated in China.
In fact, these iron men also play the role of rope piles like iron cows. Tang Huancheng, a famous bridge expert, praised after inspecting the site of Pujin Ferry: "These iron oxen and iron men are China people's contributions to world bridges, metallurgy and sculpture, and they are the only priceless treasures in the history of world bridges."
According to reports, when the iron cow was unearthed, the whole body was shiny, like it was newly polished, without a trace of rust.
According to expert analysis, Tieniu 1200 has not been eroded by river water for 200 years. First, ancient craftsmen paid attention to anti-corrosion and anti-rust technology in the process of casting iron cows. Second, the local people in the past dynasties paid attention to the protection of iron cows and carried out long-term rust-proof maintenance.
1997, these buried iron cows were carried out more than ten meters and displayed in the open air. The underground part of Pujin Ferry Site and Cultural Relics Museum was built.
In the museum, you can see that there are four iron pillars under the iron cow, which are 6.5 meters.