Why are there cities under Qiandao Lake?

Reveal the largest underwater ancient city group in China

A few days ago, the First Institute of Oceanography of the State Oceanic Administration officially delivered the "Exploration Report on the Underwater Ancient City of Qiandao Lake" to the desk of Wang Chengshe, director of Qiandao Lake Scenic Tourism Bureau. In the report, the most complete and largest underwater ancient city discovered in China has uncovered the tip of its mysterious iceberg: after sonar detection, the Lion City, one of the two ancient underwater counties, has finally been completely revealed.

■49 years ago, two cities disappeared.

49 years ago, the first great migration of New China was in full swing in Chun 'an County and Sui 'an County at the junction of Anhui and Zhejiang, with 290,000 people in dozens of towns and villages. Because Xin 'anjiang Hydropower Station, the first large-scale hydropower station with self-designed and self-made equipment in China, is about to store water.

At that time, 23-year-old Shao left his home in he cheng, an old county town in Chun 'an "step by step" with his 3-year-old daughter in his left hand and a quilt in his right hand.

On July 26, at her home in Xinggang Road, Qiandaohu Town, a new county town in Chun 'an County, Shao Popo not only lamented the scene of that year, "At that time, in order to ensure the residents in the reservoir area to move as soon as possible, the relocation authorities asked us to sacrifice our personal interests and bring as few things as possible. Most of our furniture is still underwater! "

On September 2 1, 1959, the Xin' an River was cut off and the reservoir area began to store water. At the beginning of 1960, after 1800 years of vicissitudes, the former county town of Sui 'an and the former county town of he cheng of Chun 'an quietly sank to the bottom of the water and became ancient underwater cities. It is accompanied by 27 townships in two counties, 300,000 mu of fertile land and thousands of houses. As a result, the 1030 hill in the reservoir area became an "island" and today's Qiandao Lake was formed.

A "Annals of Chun 'an County" found by the reporter in the archives of Chun 'an County describes the immigration situation in that year: 1959, the bottom outlet of the dam was blocked, the water level rose, and towns such as Chuncheng, tea gardens and ports were flooded; 1April 1960, the water level rose to 68.38 meters, and 43 17 households and 17855 people were forced to quit early; 1973, the water level soared to 102 meters; 1980 The water level rose to108m, and * * flooded houses in Chun 'an County 156337.5, including 46,596.5 brick houses and 89,068.5 private houses in Sui 'an, including 32,527 buildings, and flooded 6 sites in the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period, with about 80 houses. At this point, the Xin 'anjiang reach below108m above sea level has all become waters, and 290,000 people have moved out.

When interviewing "Lao Chun 'an" who lived in he cheng and Yu Nianchun, who was nearly seventy years old, the old man showed me the map he had drawn after visiting more than 500 "aborigines" in he cheng. On this hand-drawn topographic map of he cheng, there are many streets and markets, and all the house numbers are actually very informative. According to Yu Lao, as the channel for Anhui to go to sea and the main channel for Huizhou merchants to do business, Lion City and he cheng are very prosperous and enjoy a high reputation along the route, and the Huizhou architecture in their territory is even more magnificent. "You can't imagine how spectacular the original Lion City in Sui 'an County and he cheng in Chun 'an County are. "On this topographic map about 2 meters long, the old man also recorded in detail the street names of various streets at that time and the names of people living there.

■ After 48 years, the remains of the Lion City began to appear.

Time passed slowly. When I sank into the water, I was silent until September 200 1 year, 48 years later.

When the reporter saw Wang Jianguo and Liu Jinyong, they were very tired after a day of diving. As divers of Beijing Long Yuan Diving Club, it was the first time that the two men had close contact with this ancient underwater city after a lapse of 48 years.

In July, 20001year, entrusted by Qiandao Lake Tourism Bureau, Wang Jianguo and Liu Jinyong always hoped to go down to Qiandao Lake to find an underwater ancient city. Moreover, the primary goal is the lion city in the former Chun 'an County, because "the lion city is on the tributary of Xin 'an River, and the water level is about 30 meters, so it is easy to dive. He cheng, the main road, has a water level of more than 70 meters. "It is really difficult to dive 30 meters, not only because the atmospheric pressure will increase every 10 meter, but more importantly, it is very difficult to find the ancient city under the water surface of dozens of square kilometers without any reference. To this end, the two men went into the water five times, each time looking for more than three hours in the water of thirty or forty meters, but they never saw the expected ancient city of Chun 'an. Later, their search scope expanded again and again.

Where there is a will, there is a way. On September 7th, 2000 17, just the day before the local "Xiushui Festival", when divers dived into the water for the sixth time, a broken wall made of gravel appeared in the sight of divers two or three meters away from their sight. ...

■ Sleeping ancient city

"We look forward along the residual wall. With the help of diving lights, a well-preserved megalithic wall stands not far away! ……"。 Recalling touching the ancient city wall, Wang Jianguo was still very excited. He said that at that time, I felt that a stream of blood filled their whole body at once-"I was shocked by what I found in front of me!"

With the faint flashlight light, the ancient city hidden in the depth of 30 meters underwater is revealed bit by bit: the trapezoidal wall is about 10 meter wide, the soil on the wall is brushed off, and the lime coated on the wall is still intact in the smooth and tidy stone cracks. Further on, a magnificent arched door stood intact in the water, slowly pushing open the covered wooden door, and the nails on it were clearly visible. The whole city gate is not damaged at all. "The city gate is about 2.5 -3 meters high, and the words can still be clearly seen on the stone on the Yuanmen."

Through the arched gate, a large area of residential buildings are exposed in the city wall, the window lattice is intact, and the wood carving in front of the wooden door of Huizhou architecture is still intact. "You can still see the exquisite craftsmanship of that year." And some houses are still closed, as if the hut is still quietly waiting for the owner to come home. In some damaged houses, they also found the wooden floor that the owner stepped on with his feet, and the traces of wear were still faintly visible.

"At that time, I was preparing to dive, and suddenly I found a dark thing below, as if there was a hole." Unable to restrain my curiosity, Liu Jinyong fell into a black hole. "ah! I entered a quadrangle, and the black hole is the courtyard of the quadrangle. The yard, which has been flooded for 40 years, is very quiet under the irradiation of flashlight. Everything seems to be asleep. I really can't bear to disturb it.

When leaving, the diver picked up a tile at the bottom of the lake and saw the words "Guangxu fifteen-year system" engraved on it; On the top of the city wall, the two also found a stone tablet of the Ming Dynasty, which read the words "Ming Wanli XXX years, Taishou XXX".

Later, Wang Jianguo and others made many underwater explorations, and found that the underwater lion city site is located in Maotoujian waters of Qiandao Lake Scenic Area, about 40 kilometers away from Qiandao Lake Town (Pailing Town). From the underwater video, it can be confirmed that according to the elevation level of 99 meters of the reservoir, the ancient city is about 25 meters deep underwater, the water temperature is kept at around 20℃ all the year round, and most of the surrounding walls are intact. The wall is made of stone and city brick, and the surface is smooth and flat. The three city gates that have been discovered are quite complete, of which half of the west gate can still be opened and closed, some wooden beams, stairs and brick walls of the houses in the city are still standing, and there are some big houses.

"For more than 40 years, why is the ancient underwater city so well preserved?" Chen Bin, deputy director of Qiandao Lake Tourism Bureau, explained that after the dam of Xin 'anjiang Hydropower Station was cut off in advance, the water level rose rapidly. At that time, Lion City, one of Sui 'an counties, was quickly flooded, and many cultural relics could not be moved for rescue, so it was too late to completely clear the library. In addition, the traffic conditions were poor at that time, mainly relying on human transportation. If the migration distance is less than 200 kilometers, all of them will walk, and the immigration information will be collected by members outside the library. It's all transported by car 200 kilometers away, but there are few cars and small capacity, and very few things are shipped out. The most important thing is that the collection of Qiandao lake water is an extremely gentle process, and the water flow has not caused impact and damage to the house. The bottom temperature is kept at 20℃ all the year round, so the corrosion of the lake water to the house is very small.

The news that Qiandao Lake has discovered a rare underwater ancient city in China has spread like wildfire, which has attracted close attention from all sides.

■ The world's top instruments detect ancient cities.

At present, the diving depth is only about 40 meters, and the deepest part of Qiandao Lake is 108 meters. In order to accurately determine the location of the ancient city and obtain detailed data of the ancient city, Chun 'an County Scenic Tourism Bureau decided to use the most advanced instruments to detect the underwater ancient city.

So, in July this year 10, an exploration team led by Wu Yongting, a senior engineer of the First Institute of Oceanography of the State Oceanic Administration, entered Qiandao Lake. On July 13, a probe ship transformed from the cruise ship Xianfu II sailed into Maotoujian waters more than 50 kilometers away from Qiandao Lake Town.

Wu Yongting and his partners have rich experience in underwater exploration, and more importantly, they have the most advanced instruments in the world. According to Wu Yongting, the instruments used in this ancient city exploration include GPS positioning system, OmniSTAR wide-area differential positioning system, multi-beam positioning system, HPR4 10P underwater ultra-short baseline positioning system, side-scan sonar fishing positioning system, multi-beam measurement system (system measurement resolution is 1cm) and other world-class underwater test systems.

On July 15, the exploration work ended. Then, the experts processed the data collected by the sonar test. From this, we can clearly find the main geographical elements of the ancient city:

(1) Wall-The wall and the tower are clearly visible. And accurately calculate the height of the city wall. Finally, it is calculated that the area of the "Lion City" is 0.432 square kilometers and the length of the city wall is 2.57 kilometers, which is completely consistent with historical records.

② Roads-The main roads in the "Lion City" are clearly visible, such as Rudong Street, North Street and South Street. Some alleys can also be clearly identified, such as "Wuju Lane", "Zhang Jiajie" and "Zhijie".

(3) Water system-Because there is almost no water flow in Qiandao Lake area, the water system and ponds (lakes) inside and outside Lion City are well preserved. From the multi-beam image, we can clearly distinguish Wuqiangxi outside the south gate, Linwen Lake in the west of the city, Shengchi in the north of the city, and Wuqiangxi flowing from the northwest of the city wall to the southwest of the ancient city from the west gate to the east.

(4) Other buildings-the wall left after the demolition of residential buildings, with seven piers of Nanmen Bridge (Eight-hole Bridge) across Wuqiangxi outside the south gate.

The conclusion issued by the First Institute of Oceanography of the State Oceanic Administration shows that from the underwater exploration, there are many cultural relics in the underwater ancient city ruins, and the walls and other buildings are well preserved. "This kind of underwater tourism resource is rare in the whole country and even in the world. It is very ornamental and has the characteristics of uniqueness, rarity and mystery."

■ Future: Underwater Submarine Appreciates the Ancient City

According to Deputy Director Yu of Qiandao Lake Tourism Bureau in Chun 'an County, after the basic situation of the underwater ancient city is clearly detected, the tourism bureau will develop the underwater ancient city on the basis of protection.

It is reported that at present, two development methods have been brought into the consideration of the Tourism Bureau, including diving by divers with diving qualification certificates and 38 passengers under the leadership of the staff, and experiencing the mystery of the ancient city through the glass window of the submarine.