The Road From Ye To Jinyang In Eastern Wei And Northern Qi Dynasties

Both the Eastern Wei Dynasty(东魏)and the Northern Qi Dynasty(北齐)put Ye City(邺城)as premier capital and Jinyang(晋阳)as secondary capital.As the stronghold of the cause of the Emperor of Gao Huan’s(高欢)family.The actual political and military function of Jinyang was not’ inferior to the Ye City.For almost half a century,Gao family and all officials,sergeants,monks and other entourage used to walk between the two capitals and attach great importance to the tours of inspection and the road itself.Bing-Ye road communicating two capitals became the important traffic base to maintain the political form of hegemonic government.Retrospecting the history of Bing-Ye road(并邺道),we will find that in the period of the late Eastern Han Dynasty(东汉)and the Three Kingdoms(三国),the war between Cao Cao(曹操)and Gao Gan(高干)was opened on this road.And in the Western Jin Dynasty,the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern Wei Dynasty,Bing-Ye road was an important military and migration route.There were many things happened in this road,such as the population flow in Disaster of Yongjia(永嘉之乱),the War of Luchuan(潞川)between the Former Qin(前秦)and the Former Yan(前燕),the War of Taibi(台壁)between the Later Yan(后燕)and the Western Yan(西燕).the Northern Wei’s(北魏)conquest of the Central Plains,Er Zhurong’s(尔朱荣)invasion of Ge Rong(葛荣),the war between Gao Huan(高欢)and Er Zhuzhao(尔朱兆)and so on.In the Eastern Wei Dynasty and the Northern Qi Dynasty,Bing-Ye road became the "Royal Road".In order to meet the needs of the tours of inspection between the two capitals.Gao family selected a more convenient traffic route.The road may have been totally repaired and the highway capacity was improved.After that.when communicating between these two capitals,people only need three days to arrive.Gao also created a number of royal grottoes and Buddhist temples along the way,such as Fukou(滏口)、Liaoyang(辽阳)and western mountains of Jinyang and other regions.The busyness of Bing-Ye Road was sustained for 43 years.In the first year of Chengguang(承光元年,577),the military of the Northern Zhou Dynasty(北周)attacked the Ye City through Bing-Ye road,and the Northern Qi was extinct.Three years later,Ye City was completely destroyed,then Bing-Ye road as a whole was no longer exist.The first step of studying Bing-Ye road is the recovery of the route.However,in the existing literature,the information about Bing-Ye road is relatively scarce,and the specific route and construction of the road are lack of direct record,so the existing research is relatively weak.However,the two aspects of particularity of Bing-Ye road in the geographical conditions along with the historical features can largely compensate for the lack of literature.The "geographical conditions" refers to the restriction of terrain.The Taihang Mountains(太行山)goes across the whole Northern China,so the communication between Bing and Ye can only choose limited canyons in the range of Fukou(滏口)and Jingxing(井陉).The "historical features" refers to a large number of Buddhist relics distributing along the way,such as stone cave temples,bas-reliefs on precipices and stone sculpture of buddhas.Through combing the patrolling places contained in the documents.investigating the geographical information along the way and combining with the distribution of Buddhist relics,we can find that Bing-Ye road is divided into two roads:the Fukou Road as the main road and the Jingxing Road as the secondary road.The Fukou Road in the west side of the Taihang is divided into eastern and western lines.The specific routes are as follows:The Fukou Road goes from Ye City to the northwest,crossing Zhang(漳河)through Zimo Bridge(紫陌桥),through the ancient city of Linshui County(临水县)and goes northwest from Fukou.Across the grottoes of South and North Xiangtang mountain(响堂山)and the Mujing Temple(木井寺).it is divided into east and west lines in She City.The west line goes from the Hukou Pass(壶口关).Taibi,Yiling County(刈陵县),along the Luchuan into the Tianjing Valley(天井谷),passing the King Mountain(大王山)and Wuwang docking(武王坞),across the Lutai mountain(鹿台山).It goes north to Xiangyuan County(襄垣县)and its ancient city,passing Shile City(石勒城)to Xiang County(武乡县)and goes across Wei City(魏城),Wuxiang City(武乡城),Yushe City(榆社城),along the Jianggu Avenue(蒋谷大道)into the Yangyi County(阳邑县).Then it goes northwest 55 km from the big Qian Mountain(大嫌山)to Jinyang City.The east line pass the Zhonghuang mountain(Wahuang Palace 娲皇宫),along the Qingzhang river(清漳河)to the Songmenling(松门岭)and Wujun Yi(武军驿),northwest passing "Gao Huan clouds hole"(高欢云洞)Grotto and "Gao Huan summer Pavilion",going west to Liaoyang City(辽阳城)and Pingdu City(平都城),over the BaFu Ridge(八赋岭),along the Pu Valley(蒲谷)to the the ancient city of Zhongdu County(中都县),west passing the Zhongdu County,Qianting(前亭),capital of Jinyang County(晋阳县),Big Cizhao Temple(大慈照寺)to Jinyang City.The west line was the main line of Bing-Ye Road from late Han Dynasty to the Gaohuan era.And in Gaocheng era,the east line became the main line of inspection tour between two capitals of the Eastern Wei and the Earthern Qi.Jingxing Road goes north along the eastern’ road of Taihang Mountains,passing the ancient city of the Linshui County,Handan County(邯郸县),Yiyang County(易阳县),Xiangguo County(襄国县),Zhongqiu County(中丘县),Fangzi County(房子县),Yuanshi County(元氏县)to Jingxing County(井陉县),going northwest into the Tumenkou(土 门口),and arrives into the Taihang Mountains.Then the road western pass along Weize Pass(苇泽关),Panshi Pass(盘石关),Jingxing Pass(井陉关),Pingtan City(平潭城)to Shouyang City(寿阳城),around which are the areas of residing counties and.prefectures of the Shuo,Xia,Yan counties.Then the road goes southwest along Zhuanjing(塼井)and Carp Gate(鲤鱼栅),finally arriving to the Jinyang City.In addition to traffic recovery work,more than 100 Buddhist stone carvings along Bing-Ye Road are worthy of attention.The atmosphere of the stone carving in surrounding areas lasted about 300 years from the late Northern Wei Dynasty(北魏)to the middle of the Tang Dynasty(唐代).The length of time span and the width of geographical scope provide a rare first-hand information and adequate analysis of the sample for us to observe the face of the regional society.The previous surveys of stone cave temples often connected the site selection near stone cave temples of the Eastern Wei and the Northern Qi and Bing-Ye Road as well as the tours of inspection between two capitals.From the aspects of statistical data of age and size of stone carving and identity of the statue makers,the Buddha worship of the royal families of the Eastern Wei and the Northern Qi and their contacting activities indeed provided an opportunity for the development of the large Buddhist stone caving in the surrounding areas and Bing Ye Road.But they had little impact on the statue activities of the majority of people along the way.And in the statue activities of people,there was a religious order that was relatively independent of the political order.Although the emperors often went near the line,they still continued statue habits and stylized wish contents of the Northern Wei Dynasty.In fact,in the same Bing-Ye Road,the Buddha behaviors of the royal families,the ordinary officials and the common people were in different places.However,the state power’s influence on the statue activities near Bing-Ye road has a slight difference in different regions.In addition to the traffic and location factors,the difference in population identity behind the regional differences is also an important reason.As the area which the main line of patrolling between two capitals passed by,there was little interaction between the statisticians and the power groups in the Shangdang area with lower political status.However,statisticians located in the core area of the Easteen Wei Dynasty and the Northern Qi Dynasty,even that they were not in the Royal Road,they still showed a relative sensitivity to the current affairs,and even directly expressed the political support of the royal family in the Northern Qi Dynasty.