On the bank of the Yellow River, 2 kilometers west of Zhou Pu, there was another dangerous pass in ancient times, named Pujin Pass, which guarded an important ferry on the Yellow River-Pujin Gudu.
It is easy to see from the map that Pujinguan and Puzhou City are very important in history. Since ancient times, there has been a thoroughfare avenue, from Chang 'an in the west to Youyan in the north. It is in the key position for Shandong and Hebei to enter Guanzhong. It is the key to defend the capital and ensure Sanjin, and it has always been a battleground for ancient strategists. In order to ensure the smooth flow of this traffic artery, Pujin Bridge, the earliest pontoon bridge on the Yellow River, was built here as early as the Spring and Autumn Period.
When Qin Gongzi went to the State of Jin, he built a boat here, connected the boats, formed a bridge and crossed the river. During the Warring States Period, Zhao Xiang, king of Qin, built a bridge here twice for the great cause of reunification. Later emperors such as Gao Huan in the Eastern Wei Dynasty, Yu in the Western Wei Dynasty, Liu Bang, Emperor Gaozu of Zhong Ding, Emperor Wen of the Western Expedition, King Wen of Sui Dynasty, Emperor Taizong, etc. They have spent a lot of manpower and material resources to build pontoons here to help them cross the river.
It took more than 500 years for Pujin Bridge to cast a ground anchor mainly made of iron cows and replace the iron cable until Yuan was not burned. It can be said that the occurrence of iron cow anchoring has played a great role in the maintenance of Pujin Bridge. Before the Tang Dynasty, Pujinqiao had developed from a temporary pontoon to a fixed pontoon tied with bamboo cables. In the Tang Dynasty, Puzhou City, together with Shaanxi, Zheng, Bian, Jiang and Huai, was called the six major cities in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, reaching its peak: in the twelfth year of Kaiyuan in Tang Dynasty, Hedong County was promoted to the upper auxiliary of the four auxiliary schools. In this way, Pujin Bridge, which was very busy as early as the Sui Dynasty, was the lifeblood of the connection between the Tang Dynasty and the Central Plains, and the original bamboo cable pontoon bridge was not enough.
At that time, local officials asked Tang for approval and began a large-scale renovation project to maintain Pujinqiao. Since the 12th year of Kaiyuan, craftsmen have built stone dikes at both ends of the bridge, and cast stable and solid ground anchors on the shore. Iron cows, iron men, iron plates, iron mountains and iron columns are interconnected to replace the old ground anchors, and then bamboo cables are changed into iron ropes, and hundreds of wooden boats are tied to the horizontal axis of the iron cow tail. Soon, a new pontoon bridge with stable and reliable roads will cross the Yellow River.
After the completion of the new bridge, the government also built a "Tieniu Village" with more than 300 people surnamed Yang and Li near the east coast. They don't have to pay taxes on farming, eat imperial grain, and guard iron cows full-time. There is also a bridge gate in Pujin Bridge, with flowers and trees planted on both sides. The scenery is pleasant and it became one of the most famous tourist attractions on the Yellow River at that time.
According to experts who excavated the site of Pujin Bridge, the iron cow on the east coast alone weighs about 200,000 Jin, which does not include the weight of the whole ground anchor and the iron cable crossing the river. It can be seen that the consumption of iron in that year was huge, and the annual output of iron in the country at that time was only 600 thousand Jin.
It is said that the banks of the Yellow River in the Tang Dynasty were high, the river was narrow and the current was deep, and iron chains were laid straight on the river surface. The swift river in the north will wash the pontoon bridge connected by iron cables into a naturally curved arc to the south, which is very beautiful.
Needless to say, this huge bridge project can only be implemented and completed in the prosperous Tang Dynasty. First, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was a famous emperor who made great contributions in the history of China. During his reign, the country was rich and the people were strong, which was called "the rule of Kaiyuan" in history. Second, at that time, the country had high iron output, advanced technology and prosperous culture. In addition, the reconstruction and reinforcement of Pujin Bridge is related to the rise and fall of the Tang Dynasty. It is not only the needs of military and political culture and merchants' trade, but also the salt that Chang' an people eat again and again, and the bridge is broken, which will not help.
There is a saying that "an ox is better than water" and "an enemy will block it, and water will cover it with soil". In order to control the flood of the river, the ancients often cast the face of an iron ox on the river, hoping to symbolize the invisible mountains and mountains to help mankind stop the flood.
The ancients who mastered the mystery of the coexistence of right and wrong and yin and yang, while casting iron oxen, also imitated the layout of the Big Dipper in the sky to cast seven-star pillars, so heaven and earth ghosts and gods could be used. Amazingly, even these seven-star iron columns have the practical function of mooring piles, which are integrated with iron cows, iron mountains and iron men to become giant ground anchors for binding pontoons.
At present, we can see four iron bulls of Tang Kaiyuan, which have typical Tang style and combine realism and abstraction in modeling. Although their manners are different, they all hold their heads high, their eyes are wide open, their ears are upright, and their legs are eager to try, like vivid things.
The most unusual thing is that there is an iron cow outside each of the four iron cows. After careful observation, we can find that its god-shaped clothing is different. It turns out that each iron man represents a nation respectively, which vividly shapes the characteristics of their respective nationalities from their posture to their facial expressions, showing the importance attached by the Tang Dynasty to the friendship and unity of the Chinese nation.
Pujin Bridge, which is mainly used for military purposes, has greatly promoted the social development of Puzhou City after large-scale reconstruction. Since the Tang Dynasty, countless politicians, strategists, writers, historians and scientists have emerged.
Such as Lu Lun and Geng Pei, followed by Liu Zongyuan, one of the eight famous essayists in the Tang Dynasty. Si Kongtu pioneered the artistic conception of China's poetic criticism with poems. There are eight famous poets from Zhou Pu in Selected Poems alone. In the Song Dynasty, Wang Chuangjian, Wang and Ma Yuanjia were the national masters of Danqing, while in the Ming Dynasty, Meng Shifang was the patriotic minister. Wang Shifu, a playwright in Yuan Dynasty, wrote the legendary West Chamber according to the true story of Puban Pujiu Temple. Even Yang Yuhuan, a peerless beauty in the Tang Dynasty, was born on the Yellow River.
Therefore, there is an old ballad that sings:
Before the Tang Dynasty, the Yellow River near Puzhou City was still cutting down, with a width of only 200 steps, and the river only flowed through the valleys.
Later, due to the destruction of vegetation in the upper reaches, soil erosion was serious, and a large amount of sediment was deposited year by year, which led to the continuous elevation of the Yellow River bed, the slowdown of the river speed and the oscillation of the river course.
In the fourth year of Ming Dynasty, the Yellow River was seriously flooded in Qin Long. The river surged and flooded in Zhou Pu, flowing to the east and west sides, forming a 40-mile-wide Yellow River beach. After the water receded, the original riverbed was leveled by serious sediment deposition, and the river finally lost its restraint and became "East River in 30 years, West River in 30 years", which flowed to the changeable disaster river.
Yongji folk is still widely circulated here. A hundred years ago, magical changes took place in the Yellow River. /kloc-one evening in 0/902, the main stream of the Yellow River flowed through Pujin Guandong as usual, and Shanxi merchants crossed the Yellow River from Puzhou City and stayed at Pujin Pass, preparing to go to Chang 'an by bus or on foot the next day. At the same time, many businessmen in Shaanxi stayed in Pujinguan and planned to cross the river to Zhou Pu and other places tomorrow. But when I got up the next morning, everyone was surprised. The main stream of the Yellow River quietly moved from Pujin to Kanto overnight, passing through Kansai, making Shanxi people going to Shanxi have to cross the river again. People who go to Shanxi from Shaanxi have never crossed the river before, but they have already crossed it unconsciously. So he left an anecdote of "crossing the river, crossing the river, crossing the river."
The iron ox of Tang Kaiyuan was buried seven or eight meters in the Yellow River, so it can escape the natural and man-made disasters for hundreds of years.
The site is located in the Yellow River beach, with high groundwater level and serious water seepage. During the excavation, eight wells were drilled around the site, and the water was drained day and night. Up to now, there are still several pumps pumping water regularly.
It is said that the iron cow was shiny when it first broke out of the ground and clanged under the impact. More than ten years have passed, although iron sheds were built to block it, and some of them were less exposed to the sun and rain, but they could not stop the wet erosion of acid rain and alkali fog. The embarrassment that extremely precious cultural relics are losing their luster is really unexpected!
In this case, since there is no ability to protect it, it is better to let the precious wealth left by our ancestors continue to be safely hidden underground for future generations!