Study On The City Evolution & Space Morphology Of Shenyang In Qing Dynasty

Shenyang locates in the north of Liaodong Peninsula and the south of North-East Greant Plain. It is the joint of Liaodong and Liaoxi, at the same time of Liaodong Peninsula and North-East Great Plain. From of old Shenyang has been extending in all directions, owning strategic importance and covering multiple cultures. Geologicly the main of Shenyang is plain, hills gather in the south-eastern region, Hui Mountain in the north-eastern region belongs to Changbai Moutain, its south-western part belongs to Liaohe and Hunhe alluvial plains that is flat and fertile. The industry and commerce didn't get developed a lot until the end of Qing Dynasty and the first of the Republic of China.Shenyang that is one of the earliest founded city in the north-eastern region has 2000 year history of city-founding. It had been positioned as a military defence city since long because it locates at the frontier fortress.It didn't changed into a political, martial, economical and cultural city center until Nuerhaci moved the capital to it. This is why we say Qing Dynasty means a lot to the development of Shenyang city. By the way of city historiography and the city morphology this article deals with case studies on the development of this city, the spacial and morphologic changes of the city, at the same time this article summarizes its spacial characteristics.After Nuerhaci raised troops he moved the capital to another five different places and founded 6 capital cities just in order to gain advantageously strategic position, which helped him to complete the transition from mountainous area to plains step by step. The Feiala City where Nuerhaci grew up is the mostly early founded city, then Nuerhaci moved to Hetuala City where his ancestors lived and established Houjin regime formally. More than ten years later Nuerhaci built Jiefan City, Saerfu City, then moved to Liaoyang City and establish Dongjing City at the east of Liaoyang City. Less than 3 years later Nuerhaci decided to move the capital to Shenyang and thenceforth Shenyang began to change a lot. Afterward people called Hetuala City, Dongjing City, Shenyang City the"three capitals outside Shanhaiguan".After Nuerhaci entered Shenyang he dealt with constructing the city but didn't change original city conformation and the cross-shaped street. He just defined the position of palaces and allocated the beile, the prince's residence, the cantonment and the government offices. During this period the Dazheng Palace and the Shiwang Pavilion were built and the king palace was built inside the north gate. Nuerhaci's heritor---Huangtaiji changed Shenyang City a lot from the city system, the scale and the city sight. He changed four city gates into 8 city gates, cross-shaped street into square street, then allocated his own palace in the middle of the square street so that the palace could accord with the city midline; built a commercial street behind the imperial palace and established drum tower and bell tower at the both sides of commercial street; set up six ministries and two academes in front of the palace; built the temple of Heaven, the temple of Earth, the palace temple, the royal ancestry temple and the state temple outside the city so that the city layout was quite close to"court front, market back, ancestor left and state right". Furthermore at the eastern, southern, western and northern corner outside the city established lamaseries and temples for blessings. Inside the city the temples, houses, roads and drainage system were all taken into considerations, the shape and structure of a capital was almost completed. After the Qing Dynasty moved the capital to Beijing in year 1644 Shenyang became the alternate capital and its political status got lowly, besides the Qing government carried out the policy of prohibitations in the north-east region, which influenced the economic and cultural development of Shenyang to some extent. But the court didn't stop caring about this city. When the emperors of past dynasties went back to Shenyang to worship their ancestors they did accomplishments to the city development, among which was the large-scaled outside city of Shenyang that is also called"Guo City"or"Bian City". The shape of Guo City was almost round and shared the same center with original square city, thereout formed the layout of"square inside round outside"that accorded with Chinese traditional concept of"round heaven and square earth".Like Chinese traditional city development Shenyang developed slowly and stablely during the process of capital establishing and this reflected the idea of paramount imperial power. This development trend wasn't broken until the foreign force invaded the city at the end of Qing Dynasty and the city conformation changed a lot. First Japan replaced Russia to establish Manchuria railway accessorily at the west of Shengjing City and developed large-scaled construction, then the self-commercial land was open between original city and Manchuria railway accessorily, new industrial zones were built at the north and east of city so that the city developed a lot along the eastern and western sides and a lot of independent new zones were formed at the north of city. The traditional Shengjing City didn't quickly evolved from single-center city to multiple-center city until the end of Qing Dynasty and the First of The Republic of China. The city formed the situation of coexistence of independent domains and many domains piecing together.This article isn't limited to the macroscopical description of historiography, furthermore it analyses the evolution process of the city by the way of city morphologic method. The latter part of this article tries to recognize the development of city and the factors influencing the development of city from different angles of city planning, city communications, city residence, city virescence, city environment and city culture, and then at last it can draw a persuasive conclusion.During studying, besides site investigation and photographing this article excerpts a lot of old photos and pictures in order to get a real description on the historical scene. At the same time it sets the development of individual city into the big backdrop of the development of Chinese traditional cities, which is quite beneficial for observing changing rules and characteristics of a city. City keeps evolving. We can get a clear recognition through studying certain history stage of the city, and this helps us to know the next development of the city.