(1) Where is Taihang Bajing today?

The faulting activity of the Taihang Mountains 5 million years ago caused the western plate to rise sharply, 1,000 to 2,000 meters higher than the North China Plain. This high and steep cliff first collapsed in a large area, and then rainwater eroded it into a ditch, which formed a torrent and waterfall to the east. Due to the traceback erosion of flowing water, the new ravines rapidly expanded westward, forming a series of short and steep new gullies on the east side of the Taihang Mountains, cutting out a row of barrier valleys and narrow valleys.

Geographically, mountainous valleys are divided into three categories, namely canyons, barrier valleys and narrow valleys. The narrow valley is formed by a series of waterfalls and deep pools. It is inaccessible to people. The smooth rocks at the bottom of the valley are exposed and cannot retain any accumulation of gravel washed down by the river. The scenic spot is called "A Line of Sky" because its two cliffs are upright. , the ditch is deep and tortuous.

The second type is called barrier valley, which is the further development of the narrow valley, the valley slope becomes gentle, and the river channel changes from nearly upright to steep. At this time, sediments such as gravel and mud begin to accumulate on the river bottom, but these are unstable sediments that will be washed away during the rainy season. People can barely pass through the valley.

The third category is called canyons. At this time, the valley has taken on a "V" shape and has become more open. Stable sediment accumulation has begun to accumulate on both sides of the river. People can cultivate farmland and build houses on the river beaches.

Today, on the eastern slope of the Taihang Mountains, canyons develop in the valleys near the plains. The middle section of the valley is a barrier valley, and the upper section is a narrow valley. These mountains lined up for thousands of miles have become an obstacle from the North China Plain to Shanxi. From the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the Tang and Song dynasties 3,000 years ago, there were only a few passages connecting the two places, so there are only records of the eight passes of Taihang since ancient times. The eight ancient Taihang Mountains were arranged sequentially from south west to northeast, so the first of the Eight Mountains, located at the southwest end of Taihang Mountain, actually belonged to the eastern section of Zhongtiao Mountain.

Taihang Eight Stations

1. Zhiguanxing

The first station in Taihang was named Zhiguanxing. The place name of Zhi came from the Warring States Period and is now in South of Jiyuan, Henan, it has been changed to Zhi Town. Looking up the dictionary, Zhi is the outer end of the axle. It can be seen that there were vehicles there during the Warring States Period, and the ancients used wooden wheel vehicles. During the Warring States Period, the Central Plains had not yet entered the Iron Age and was still in the Bronze Age. The more sophisticated princes often used bronze inlays on the outer ends of their carriage axles.

At that time, the capital of the Western Zhou Dynasty had moved to Henan, which is equivalent to today's Luoyang. During the Spring and Autumn Period, the Jin Kingdom was divided into Zhao, Wei, and Han. Zhiguanxing runs east-west, and in the Yuncheng Basin at its western end are Shundu Puban (Yongji), Yudu Anyi (Yuncheng), and the ancient city of Quwo (now in the Houma area), all of which are under the jurisdiction of the Wei State. The location of Zhe City also belongs to Wei. Therefore, the first pass of Taihang should be an important passage for Wei State.

This ancient east-west road is located on the north bank of the Yellow River, on the loess slopes at the southern foot of Zhongtiao Mountain and Taihang Mountain, with Wangwu Mountain to the north. From Zicheng to the west, we generally followed today's provincial highway through Shaoyuan, into Shanxi Puzhang, to the ancient city of Yuanqu, and then traced the source of the Haoqing River north to reach today's Yuanqu City. This section of the journey is entirely between loess plateaus and beams, and only needs to cross a series of small branch ditches going south from Zhongtiao Mountain. Because the soil is soft, it is easy to build roads here.

After passing Yuanqu City, you will enter the Zhongtiao Mountain bedrock mountain. The ancient crystalline rock system forms a canyon. About 5 kilometers away, you will reach the source of the Haoqing River - Hengling Pass. It is speculated that this pass was built after the Warring States Period, possibly during the Han and Tang Dynasties. It is located on the low and flat pass of Zhongtiao Mountain. Its southeast is a canyon with a deep valley, and its northwest is a pass that is as flat as a square. It can be seen from the topography that it was built to defend against strong enemies coming from the south. It is speculated that Li built the pass to protect the base area in Hedong after establishing the Tang Dynasty.

From Hengling Pass to the northwest, there is the open Lengkou Valley. Although it is also a canyon landform, it is much flatter and wider than the Guannan dangerous valley. As soon as you exit Lengkou, you enter the Yuncheng Basin. Zhiguanxing has ended here. It can reach Anyi and Puban to the south, and Quwo and Pingyang (today's Linfen) to the north. There are only two sections of 5 kilometers of dangerous valleys along Zhiguanxing, and the rest are flat roads. This is the easiest mountain road to pass among the eight passes of Taihang. Walking along this avenue today, you can no longer see any remnants of the ancient road. At the beginning of this century, this ancient road was converted into a highway for automobiles. After the founding of New China, in order to develop the Zhongtiaoshan copper mine, the railway was built into Yuanqu (entering from the Nantongpu branch). Today, this ancient road has been built into an expressway, running parallel to the Longhai Railway and National Highway 310. It starts from Xinxiang in the east on the north bank of the Yellow River and connects to the Dayun Expressway in the west.

By the way, the special railway from Liyuan to Yuanqu was built in the 1950s to transport copper ore from Zhongtiao Mountain; in the 1960s, an ore processing plant was built in Yuanqu to transport copper ore from Zhongtiao Mountain. The ore is refined into concentrate powder and then shipped out; in the 1990s, Yuanqu built a copper smelting plant, and from then on the concentrate powder can be directly smelted into metallic copper. At this point, no matter the ore or concentrate powder no longer needs to be transported externally (it used to be transported to Shenyang for copper smelting), this branch railway finally stopped operating in this century. Therefore, the rise and fall of this branch railway is a microcosm of the increasing improvement of industrial technology in Shanxi Province. Nowadays, highways can be used to directly transport copper ingots to finishing and deep processing enterprises across the country, thus saving a lot of transportation costs.

2. Taihangxing

It is an ancient road running through Taihang in the north-south direction. It is bounded by the Dan River to the east and Qinshui to the west. However, the ancient road does not follow the river valley. It is built on the watershed between two rivers. The reason is that the valleys downstream of these two rivers are too deep and dangerous.

The Danhe River in Jincheng is entirely composed of barrier valleys. The valley bottom is 50 to 100 meters wide and is entirely made of Leilei boulders. Within a section of more than 20 kilometers long, there is not an inch of cultivated land, not a single house, or even a tree at the bottom of the valley, because Floods are raging every year and will wash away all man-made structures and trees. The bottom of the valley is connected by a series of rapids, falls, small waterfalls and pools. It is still extremely difficult to pass on foot, and of course it is impossible to build a road here.

The Qinshui River on the west side is relatively better. Most of the section is a canyon, but the river is winding and circuitous. Half of it is close to the steep wall of the river bank and is impassable. Although there are farmland and cottages at the bottom of the valley, roads need to be built. A large number of bridges need to be built. Without a large number of bridge projects, it is impossible to build a highway along the river. In ancient times, productivity was low, and digging holes in mountains was a difficult project. Therefore, Taihangxing had to abandon the rivers on both sides and build roads on the mountains.

Taihang Xing started from Qinyang in the south. Qinyang was called Yewangyi during the Warring States Period. It climbed to Taihang Mountain in the north, passed Tianjing Pass and reached Jincheng. Jincheng was called Gaodu during the Warring States Period. This road is dangerous on the southern slope of Taihang. The terrain is steep. From the loess slope at the bottom of the mountain to the top of the limestone mountain, the height difference is as high as 600 meters. The road winds back and forth. But once you reach the top of the mountain (900 meters above sea level), you will see gentle mountain ridges. On the way up the mountain, the road is built on limestone. There are often Carboniferous-Permian coal strata, sand, shale, iron ore, etc. at the gentle top of the mountain. Moreover, the top of the mountain is flatly covered with red soil, so this 900-meter-high mountain The planation surface should have been formed during the Pliocene Epoch 5 million years ago.

The top of the mountain is called Tianjingguan. The patio should have been dug by the ancients, with a diameter of 2 meters. It had no water for a long time and was later abandoned. This pass still exists today and is located at the south end of Tianjingguan Village. There is a two-story tower on the city. There is a car-blocking village in Guannan. This is the source of the allusion that Confucius was stopped from entering Jin during his study tour. At that time, Confucius was walking to the entrance of the village, and there were children playing house-building games in the road. The servant asked the child to give way, and the child replied: "Only people make way for the village, how can there be a village for people." After hearing this, Confucius felt that this was reasonable and sighed: "People in Jin are so smart even as children, why should I give lectures? "So he turned around and returned to the state of Lu. Heading north from the top of the mountain, the road gently slopes northward along the hillside, leading directly to Jincheng. After reaching Jincheng Basin, you can go north to Changzhi and west to Houma and Yuncheng to complete the mission of crossing Taihang.

The Taihang Xing Ancient Road has now been transformed into a provincial highway, and the north-south 207 National Highway crosses it in the west of Tianjing Pass. Railways have been built along the Danhe and Qinshui rivers on both sides of the ancient road, serving as channels for Shanxi coal transportation. The southbound expressway from Changzhi and the Dayun Expressway are connected by the horizontal expressway from Houma to Jincheng, passing through Taihang and crossing the Dan River directly to Jiaozuo.

3. Baixing

Baixing also crosses Taihang in a north-south direction. It starts from Bobi Town in the west of Xiuwu County, Henan Province, generally goes north along the Mohe River Valley, passes through dangerous canyons and local barrier valleys to Hengshui River, then reaches the canyon with gentle terrain, and then enters the Lingchuan Loess Area to the northwest. It can be reached north to Changzhi in a straight line.

This ancient road, at the entrance to Henan, has been transformed into a tourist area by the scenic area of ??Yuntai Mountain Global Geopark. The main road in the valley has now been transformed into asphalt roads leading to every village. Only a five-mile-long mid-mountain ancient road from Huangxi to Shuangdi remains. It is also the only section among the eight sections of Taihang where ancient roads have been preserved. This section of the ancient road is entirely made of stones and is 1.5 to 2 meters wide. The outside (near the ditch, downhill) is protected by a stone embankment that is 20 to 50 cm higher than the road surface. Every 2 to 3 to 5 to 6 meters, there must be artificial stone troughs crossing the road surface and leading to the gaps in the outer stone embankments to facilitate drainage. This kind of mountain road built with stones that is in line with modern drainage and slope protection is the result of continuous maintenance and renovation by later generations.

This mountain road is built horizontally on the horizontal layer of limestone, and is chosen between the marlstone at the bottom of the Ordovician system and the limestone at the top of the Cambrian system. Taking advantage of the weak lithology of the marlstone, it is easy to climb Due to the convenient construction conditions, the road can be completed with only a little excavation. The marl is a good water-proof layer for the limestone, so there is a spring overflowing along the way, which can be used by passers-by and livestock to drink. After the weathering of the marlstone, a concave corridor is formed, which can provide pedestrians with shelter from rain and snow. The stone pits dug for building pavilions and sheds in ancient times are still preserved on the roadside, and wooden pillars are erected. When the stone corridor was recessed and wide, there are still brick walls left. In those days, this 30-40 meter long stone corridor should have been a small rest stop, equipped with a snack shop and a simple hotel.

The east end of this remaining ancient road is the famous "Seventy-two Turns". The ancient road spirals rapidly in a zigzag shape on a concave slope 20 to 30 meters wide, with a height difference of nearly 100 meters. It has a steep slope of 1.5 meters and 72 sharp turns in one direction. From a distance, it looks more like a ladder. They are also built of stones, but because the terrain is too steep and in disrepair, the road surface has begun to deteriorate, and the slope protection stones often roll down. This section of the ancient road was probably no longer in use until the 1960s and 1970s when a road was built along the bottom of the ditch. Now it has become a cultural relic in the scenic area and is protected. It has a history of about two thousand years.

The reason why this ancient road is named Baixing is because there is Baima Mountain on the north side of Bobi Town. When entering the Lingchuan small basin from the Baixing Ancient Road, the slopes on the roadside are covered with Carboniferous strata. Snail shell fossils are common in the limestone, and small round gravels are often distributed at the bottom of the Carboniferous System in this area. They were mentioned by Shen Kuo, a scientist in the Northern Song Dynasty, in "Mengxi Bi Tan": "Following Taihang to the north, there are often snail shells and pebbles like bird eggs between the cliffs, and they are like ribbons across the stone walls. This is the seaside in the past, and it is east of today. The sea is nearly a thousand miles away." Shen Kuo took the ancients' understanding of "the changes in the sea and the land" a step further. His theory of "sea and land changes" is better than the British geologist Lyall who proposed the principle of "discussing the past with the present" in modern geology. Hundreds of years earlier.

4. Fukouxing

To the north of the Zhanghe River, the Fuyang River originates from the Fengfeng Coal Mine Area, flows through Handan, and flows northeastward into the Haihe River. Fukouxing is not named after the outlet of Fuyang River, but named after a mountain called Fukou Mountain to the west of Handan in the late Sui Dynasty.

It starts from Fukou in the east at Fukou Xing, goes west across Shexian County and crosses the Qingzhang River, then climbs to Taihang from Dongyangguan in the northeast of Licheng, and goes southwest from Shiliang across the Zhuozhang River to Changzhi. The stone beam is a natural stone beam on the Zhuozhang River, that is, the Tiansheng Bridge. It is 3 to 4 meters wide, 15 to 20 meters above the river bottom, and 40 to 50 meters long. Both banks and the stone beam are made of limestone. It is the result of the rapid incision of the river when the earth's crust is uplifted. , formed when the dissolution residues originally located underground are exposed on the surface. This stone beam existed for thousands of years and only collapsed in modern times. Today you can still see the huge stone pillars broken off in the middle of the river, and the southern end of the stone beam is still tilted on the south bank. There are now railway bridges and highway bridges passing on both sides of the stone beam.

The journey from Fukou to Taihang is relatively flat. From the bank of Qingzhang River to the Dongyang Pass, it is 10 kilometers long. The height difference is only more than 300 meters, so the slope is very gentle, and once you cross Dongyang Pass, it is Enter the Changzhi Basin. The transportation conditions are relatively good, but you have to cross the Qingzhang River before going up the mountain. The surging river with a width of nearly 100 meters makes it very difficult to build a bridge. Until the 1970s, the local area still used steel cable ferries to cross the river. It is precisely because of this natural barrier that this originally superior ancient road has not been developed for a long time. It was not until the reform and opening up that bridges were built over the Qingzhang River, and roads and railways passed through Dongyangguan in Taihang, finally connecting the east and west.

Historically, the starting point of Fukouxing was set in the south of Wu'an County, on the east side of Fengfeng Mining Area, at Fukou Pass. From there, it went northwest to Cishan Town in Wu'an and connected to Fukou Mountain. route. I left the plain road alone and took an extra lap through the loess hills and hills. I really couldn’t explain the reason. In ancient times, both in the Qin and Han dynasties and in the Spring and Autumn Period, Anyang and Handan had already been built as cities and could be easily reached in a straight line on the plains. There is no need to take a detour to enter Shanxi, unless you take a shortcut from Anyang and take the incline, but you can also go directly to Shexian County along the Zhanghe River (the whole way is plain). Therefore, it is still a mystery that cannot be explained today by placing the starting point of Fukouxing at Fukou in Fengfeng instead of Fukou in Fukou Mountain to the west of Wu'an.

5. Jingxing

Jingxing is the most important channel between Shanxi and Yan in the Eighth Routes of Taihang. It is also the only ancient road named after a county-level city. It is also the first to be connected by cars, trains, The ancient road of the highway. Precisely because this Guxing has been modernized for a long time, very few people give up the convenient transportation conditions and get out of the car to see what happened to Guxing.

Jingxing should be the main road from Zhengding to Taiyuan. From east to west, as soon as you pass Toouquan (belonging to Jingxing), you enter the hilly mountainous area. After passing Yanhui, you enter the real canyon area. It is the canyon area where the Tao River from Shouyang in the west flows through. It is entirely composed of limestone and has roads and railways. Abandoning the ancient roads and blasting the mountains to create caves, tunnels and bridges, they were carved out of the limestone.

The ancient road was built along the right bank of the Tao River. Since the highway and railway avoid the ancient road, only those who get off the car specifically to look for the ancient road, and under the guidance of local fellows, can see every bit of it. Remains of the ancient road. For example, 5 kilometers east of Jingxing City, there is an ancient stone-built post station preserved. The three stone-built huts are engraved with the four characters "Li Ji Shou Ke" on the lintels. There is a guardrail in front, a drinking water trough next to it, and there are road construction monuments on the roadside. . Although this stele was left during the Yongzheng period of the Qing Dynasty, the ancient road can be traced back to the Qin Dynasty. At that time (Qin) there was already the place name of Jingxingkou, which was the link between Changshan (the ancient place name between Zhengding and Shijiazhuang) and Jinyang (Taiyuan). south) pass. The ancient stone road remains here, and two rutted grooves were made by ancient wooden wheels. The road is 3 meters wide and the rut is 1.2 meters wide. There is a stone tablet "Qin Shihuang Xiling Terrace" beside the road, which proves that it was a "national highway" built during the "trains on the same track" era after Qin unified the six kingdoms.

While walking along the old National Highway 307, only Niangziguan, named "The Ninth Pass in the World" (built in the Tang Dynasty), can be seen. If you travel along the newly built Taijiu Expressway, south of the ancient road, the Great Wall of Jiuguan and the passes are still hovering on both sides of the valley (part of them may have been newly built after the 1980s). Niangziguan is the main road of Gujingxing, while Jiuguan is the auxiliary road to the south. The former leads to Yangquan, and the latter leads to Pingding; the former is passed by Provincial Highway 315, and the latter is passed by National Highway 307.

Yangquan was originally a small village in Pingding County. In 1905, the Zhengtai Line established a station here, making Yangquan famous. It was only 20 years later that it became a small town producing coal and iron. It was not until the founding of New China in 1949 that it was established as a city. In 1952, it was officially placed under the jurisdiction of the province.

6. Puyinxing

Puyinxing is the ancient road to Tonglingqiu in Baoding. It starts from Shunping County at the eastern foot of Taihang Mountain and goes northwest over the hills, then goes northward against the Tang River, passes through Daomaguan (Tang County) and Zoumayi (Laiyuan), and enters Shanxi Lingqiu from Shuibao (Laiyuan) on the border of Hebei Province. Basin. Today it belongs to Provincial Highway 332 in Hebei and Provincial Highway 201 in Shanxi.

Puyinxing belongs to the seventh rank according to the ancient arrangement. It is located to the north of Feihuxing, the sixth rank. However, in terms of geographical description, Feihuxing is located between Laiyuan and Yu County in the north, while Puyinxing is located on the main road from Zijinguan to Datong in Yi County.

Zijingguan is located on the Juma River, which originates from Laiyuan County, downstream of Laiyuan County. If you want to go to Datong through Laiyuan, you need to go down the Juma River from Zijingguan to Sanpo Town (Laishui Town), then go up the Zhaojiapeng River, a tributary of the Juma River, and then go straight to Huailai along Provincial Highway 241, and then transfer Sanggan River or Yanghe River to Datong.

Arranged in this order, Puyinxing and Feihuxing both run north-south through Taihang, with Feihuxing in the west and Puyinxing in the east. But looking up ancient place names, Puyin is today's Shunping County. From Shunping to Datong, it is a shortcut to go up the Tang River to Lingqiu and Datong. From Shunping to the north, go around Zijingguan, and then from Sanggan River to Datong. Long way. Moreover, to go from the North China Plain to Laiyuan, you have to go over mountains and ridges and cross the mountains and hills on the eastern slope of Taihang. So where is this road? Where is Fei Huxing? No explanation. Feihuxing and Puyinxing have always been at odds because of their different understandings. Nowadays, when the ancient roads are named according to Puyin place and arranged in order according to the traffic conditions, it is more reasonable that the sixth pass should be Puyin pass, and we also have certain factual basis.

Going down the Tang River from Lingqiu is a narrow canyon area, and it is only when you reach the Shuibao Valley at the provincial boundary that it becomes clear. The river valley is open and not winding, making it easy to build a major road. However, below Daomaguan, the meandering of the river intensifies, so you can change the route to National Highway 241 to Quyang; or take Provincial Highway 331 to Baoding. In the canyon from Lingqiu to Shuibao, there is a row of square holes with a side length of 15 to 20 centimeters on the cliff on the west side of the west road of Hongshilang Village, the last village on the Shanxi border. More than 100 meters away from today's Provincial Highway 201, there are That is the remnant of the ancient plank road. It marks that there was once a major ancient road, which happened to be connected with Puyinxing.

7. Feihuxing

Feihu, an ancient place name, first appeared in the Tang Dynasty and has been preserved to this day. Feihuxing is a north-south valley between Yu County and Laiyuan in the northern section of Taihang, 60 kilometers long. Its south-eastern section should go from Yixian County over Wuhuiling Mountains and through Zijing Pass to Laiyuan. Flying Fox was named because there was a fox that became an immortal and ascended to heaven. Yu County enters Guangling County in Shanxi to the west. There is Wangwanghu Village on the west side of the county and Huyukou on the east side of Wutai County. Therefore, there are more places named after foxes in northeastern Shanxi. Foxes are still common in Wutai Mountain and Taihang Mountain.

When Feihuxing arrives at Yu County, it enters Huliu River, a tributary of Sanggan River. At this point, you can go north to the Sanggan Mainstream and flow into Datong, or you can go west to the Guangling Dividing Range and enter Hunyuan to reach Datong. Both of these two roads are very flat, without dangerous canyons, and both belong to the loess basin. The strata that the above two ancient roads pass through are complicated, but there is a general rule. When the road passes through crystalline rocks, the valleys are usually open and the watersheds on both sides are low; and once it enters the Proterozoic dolomite area or the Early Paleozoic limestone In this area, the canyon immediately becomes narrow, the valley slopes are steep, and the valley becomes very tortuous. Of course, when you enter the Loess Basin, the terrain will be flat and the mountains will be low and gentle. In fact, as long as you cross Taihang, you will enter the northern end of the Shanxi Fenwei Rift Valley - the extension of the Datong Basin. The northern end of the Taihang Mountains also ends in the Huailai-Yuxian Basin extending to the northeast.

8. Junduxing

This is the most familiar Juyong Pass under the Badaling Great Wall. It starts from the south entrance of Changping West, passes through Juyong Pass and enters the Badaling Great Wall, and descends to Kangzhuang. Enter Huailai Basin. From here you enter the open Sanggan River Valley.

The reason why this county is named Jundu Xing is because it is named after Jundu Mountain, the westernmost mountain in the Yanshan Mountains in Luxi. By the end of the 1970s, this ancient road only had an ancient tower in Juyongguan and a Great Wall on Badaling. With the rise of tourism in the 1980s, every section of the Great Wall is overcrowded during holidays. The walls are so crowded that even leaving a distance of 1 to 2 meters to take a photo is very difficult. As a last resort, in the late 1980s, another Great Wall was built south of the Badaling Great Wall, also across the valley, and connected to the original Great Wall at both ends. Therefore, for tourists visiting Badaling, as soon as the Badaling Great Wall parking lot is full, traffic police will stop the vehicles and allow latecomers to climb the new Great Wall.

Juyongguan in the south has undergone extensive construction since the 1980s. New Great Walls were built at the north and south ends of the ancient city gate, enclosing the upper and lower passes, and the Great Wall of the pass was built to the mountains on both sides. This construction will naturally expand the tourist attractions in Badaling and relieve the pressure on the Badaling Great Wall. In the 1990s, an expressway was built and a tunnel under the Badaling Great Wall (above the Qinglongqiao Railway Tunnel) was opened. Even so, the Badaling Expressway was often blocked by too many tourist buses.

The southern section of Junduxing is the south entrance of Changping, which is composed of Proterozoic quartz sandstone. Badaling itself is a granite body of the Yanshan period. This ancient road is now connected by railways, roads (National Highway 112) and expressways. Only the isolated city gate in the middle of Juyongguan and the authentic Great Wall entrance above Badaling are the remnants of the ancient road.