Why is Changbai Mountain so "divine"?

In A Record of the Qing Emperor, there is a story about the origin of the Aisin Giro family:

According to legend, there is a Bulehuli Lake on Changbai Mountain in ancient times, with beautiful scenery and abundant aquatic plants. One day, three fairies in the Heavenly Palace, Engulun, Zhengulun and Fogulun, had a whim and wanted to visit the mortal world. They tried their best to escape the watchful eye of the celestial guards, sneaked into the world, and came to Lake Brehuli.

Seeing the lake clear and bright, three fairies jumped into the lake to wash away the dust. After landing, the youngest fairy, Fogulun, found a red fruit on her clothes, picked it up and put it in her mouth, and accidentally slipped into her stomach. The next day, when the fairy was ready to fly back to heaven, Fogulun found that she was pregnant and could not fly, so she had to find a place to rest her baby.

Be pregnant in October and give birth once. Fogulun later gave birth to a boy named Bukuri Yongshun, who could speak at birth. When Bukuri grew up, he behaved strangely and looked terrible. Under the instruction of the Oracle, the rebellion was put down and a tribe was established, which was the ancestor of the Aisin Gioro family in the Qing Dynasty.

Changbai Mountain, the default place of Longxing in Qing Dynasty, is not as fantastic as the legend.

Within the geographical scope of China, Changbai Mountain is a large mountain range from northeast to southwest, and it is also the ancestor of the mountainous areas in northeast China. It starts from the northern foot of Wanda Mountain in the northeast in the north and extends to Liaodong Peninsula in the southwest, connecting with Qianshan Mountain, including the parallel fault-block mountain areas such as Laoyeling, Zhangguangcailing and Hadaling in Jilin, with a total length of 1.300 km. At the same time, Changbai Mountain is also the source of Yalu River, Tumen River and Songhua River in northeast China.

Changbai Mountain has a vast territory, with as many as 16 peaks over 2500m above sea level. Among them, the General Peak at an altitude of 2,750 meters stands out from the crowd. Changbai Mountain is located on the northeast border of China. Geographically, it is the boundary mountain between China and Korea. The north of Changbai Mountain belongs to China, and the south of Changbai Mountain belongs to Korea. In China, the main peak of Changbai Mountain is Bai Yunfeng, with an altitude of 269 1 m, slightly lower than Jiangjun Peak.

The head of Changbai Mountain is covered with snow, and it is covered with snow for nearly nine months in a year. From a distance, the peaks of Changbai Mountain soar into the sky, natural and sacred against the background of white snow. But under its sacred and inviolable appearance, there is a restless heart hidden.

This is not groundless. Changbai Mountain is one of the "outstanding" volcanic distribution zones in China. Unlike some extinct volcanoes that have erupted many times in prehistoric times, Changbai Mountain is a dormant volcano with a high risk factor, and it is only a matter of time before the next eruption.

The Changbai Mountain volcano erupted many times in history, and the latest one was the seventh eruption in the forty-first year of Kangxi (1702). According to relevant historical records, at that time, "heaven and earth were dark, sometimes red and yellow, with the same smoke and flame, and the house was full of stench." If you put it in the oven, people can't stand such high temperature. After the fourth watch, it stopped, but when you look at it, there is rain and ash everywhere, just like the people who burn clam shells. " "On the same day of the same month, in a short time, a cloud of smoke suddenly came from the northwest. The ground was dark and the clothes smelled bad."

Later, according to geologists' research, the coke produced at the bottom of the charcoal cliff in Changbai Mountain was the result of the burning of trees caused by this volcanic eruption.

The reason why the "temper" of Changbai Mountain has become violent is nothing more than the changes in prehistoric times. At first, it was Wang Yang. Later, when the water level rose, the rock strata emerged from the water. Twenty-five million years ago, the fiery magma at the bottom of the rock erupted, which made Changbai Mountain enter the first wave of orogeny.

In the following four eruptions, the ejected magma solidified to form new peaks, which piled up layer by layer and held up the main mountain. According to experts' prediction, the magma layer accumulated during the early volcanic eruption raised the main peak of Changbai Mountain to more than twice its current height.

But all this came to an abrupt end with the fourth volcanic eruption 200,000-65,438+10,000 years ago. The violent eruption of the volcano blasted the cone of the crater. After the volcanic eruption, due to the recharge of groundwater and years of rainfall, Changbai Mountain Tianchi, the deepest volcanic lake in China, was finally formed in the crater of Changbai Mountain.

Now, although the mystery of the formation of Changbai Mountain has been solved, the Tianchi Lake in Changbai Mountain is still mysterious. For nothing else, people who have been to Changbai Mountain have probably heard that it is all luck to see the charm of Tianchi Lake in Changbai Mountain. It's true. Changbai Mountain is near Bohai Sea. Due to the influence of warm and humid airflow, Changbai Mountain is full of clouds and dense fog all year round, with fog for more than 260 days. Near Tianchi Lake in Changbai Mountain, due to the influence of altitude, the foggy days will be longer, and the person who can see the whole picture is probably "koi fish".

After the double baptism of fire and ice, Changbai Mountain has gradually formed a natural ecological treasure house integrating alpine tundra, mountain meadow, mountain coniferous forest, mountain mixed coniferous forest and mountain broad-leaved forest from head to toe. The gurgling mountain spring, the dense Millennium forest and all kinds of ancient creatures are silently waiting for the arrival of another creature.

In the long history, people's awe of mountains has always been the same. The record of Changbai Mountain first appeared in Shan Hai Jing, the first geographical masterpiece in ancient China, more than 4,000 years ago. "On the other side of the Northeast Sea ... in the wild, there are mountains that are not salty, and there are countries that host gods." Wild, that is, the most desolate place in Northeast China. And "not salty" comes from the "salty divination" in the Book of Changes, which means immortal induction. The title of "No Salt Mountain" fully shows the ancient ancestors' reverence for Changbai Mountain.

Therefore, the cautious people who lived here at first did not immediately choose to expand their territory, but used another form: paying tribute and silently expressing their innate awe.

According to relevant historical records, as early as the Shun and Yu dynasties, Sushen people living in the northeast had a close relationship with the Central Plains. They won the affirmation of the Central Plains Dynasty by paying tribute on time. For example, when people talk about territory and nationality in the Western Zhou Dynasty, they will mention: "Sushen, Yan, Bo, I am from the north."

In the long years, the cautious people who claimed to pay tribute changed their faces in the constant communication and integration with the Central Plains Dynasty. After caution, Loulou, Buji, Mohong, Bohai and Nuzhen all appeared in China's ancient history books. With the gorgeous transformation of the Soviet gods, the ancient salt-free mountain gradually has many new names, such as "Tutaishan", "Zongbaishan" and "Taibai Mountain".

In order to better implement the policy of popularizing the whole people, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did not forget to set his sights on this distant territory in the northeast while fighting against the Huns. From the northeast to Chang 'an (now Xi 'an, Shaanxi), and then from Chang 'an to the northeast, there are no fewer than two round trips to Wan Li. Perhaps out of the desire to protect the eternal tribute, or out of a more grand strategic vision, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty brought the Northeast and the Korean Peninsula into the imperial territory, forming four counties, namely Le Lang, Xuantu, Fan Zhen and Lintun, which were closely connected with the Central Plains Dynasty.

However, the great implementation of the idea of "great unification" by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did not last long. With Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han Dynasty and the collapse of the Western Han Empire, the fate of the four counties in the Han Dynasty was basically the same as that of other counties in the Central Plains, and they were soon lost in the dispute between the rise of heroes and the decentralization.

In the 4th century, with the rise of the southern foothills of Changbai Mountain and Koguryo on the Korean Peninsula, the influence of the four counties in the Han Dynasty disappeared. Fan Zhen and Lelang in the four counties were once the main battlefields of Koguryo and Baekje for hegemony.

It was not until the prosperous Tang Dynasty that the dispute between you and me really ended hundreds of years later. In 668 AD, Tang Gaozong sent troops to Liaodong, destroyed Koguryo, and established the Governor's Office of Anton, which governed the southern foot of Changbai Mountain and the vast area of the Korean Peninsula.

People who have lived in Yingzhou (now Chaoyang, Liaoning Province) for generations took this opportunity, under the leadership of the tribal leader Da, to break away from Andu's jurisdiction and advance to Changbai Mountain, and finally established their own country-Zhenguo in Tianmu Mountain (now Dunhua, Jilin Province) on the banks of Huhan River in Changbai Mountain.

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the earthquake-stricken country was strong in national strength and defeated Tang Jun many times under the leadership of the leader Da et al. In desperation, the Tang Dynasty could only adopt the system of "suppressing" millet flour, controlling foreigners by barbarians, exercising autonomy according to customs, and recognizing the legitimacy of the earthquake-stricken country.

In 7 13 AD, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was born for two years. Just acceded to the throne, Li Longji sent Cui Xin, secretary of the Temple of Cracks, to the Liaodong earthquake country, conferring the title of the leader of the earthquake country, General Zuo, and the king of the county of Bohai Sea, and set HuHanZhou (now Dunhua, Jilin) as its place, and increased it to the commander of HuHanZhou, allowing Bohai Sea State.

After Cui Xin went to Liaodong for a holiday, in order to commemorate this great moment, he ordered someone to carve a tablet on Changbai Mountain. Since then, the earthquake country under the great leadership has been renamed Bohai country, and envoys have been sent to carry out frequent political, economic and cultural exchanges with Datang in the form of tribute every year.

At the end of the Tang Dynasty, two ethnic groups, the Khitan and the Nuzhen, rose successively and established the Liao Dynasty and the Jin Dynasty. Like others before, the Nuzhen people who founded the Jin Dynasty were also "indigenous peoples" who originated in the northeast. Their awe of Changbai Mountain is unprecedented.

Under the auspices of the Jin Dynasty, the first mountain in Northeast China, which has been handed down through the ages, became the "birthplace" of the jurchen who established the Jin Dynasty, and finally got a fixed name "Changbai Mountain". As the representative of "divine right of monarchical power", Jin emperors need to climb the top of Changbai Mountain and worship the mountain gods in order to bless their country's prosperity and the emperor's longevity.

After Wan ascended the throne, in the 12th year of Dading (A.D. 1 172), he was conferred the title of king of rejuvenating the country, and ordered the famous scholars and academicians at that time to write the Book of Making Changbai Mountain King, trying to deify Changbai Mountain: "I am only a white man, but I am only a town in my old country ..."

In this paper, Changbai Mountain is called a beautiful mountain, and it is described as "take me to Jinde" and "stop its height", which shows the infinite admiration of this famous mountain in the Jin Dynasty. During the reign of Jin Shizong, he also presided over the construction of King Ling Ying Temple in the north of Changbai Mountain, and ordered ministers to hold festivals and prepare sacrifices.

Since then, the Jin Dynasty has achieved great national strength, which reached its peak in the Jin Zhangzong period after Jin Shizong. In order to thank the God of Changbai Mountain for his blessing, Jin Zhangzong honored the God of Changbai Mountain as "Emperor Tian Hong". The god of Changbai Mountain, from the king to the emperor, has become the highest rank among all the Yue people, equivalent to the five mountains praised by the Central Plains for thousands of years. Since then, incense has been smoked every year, and Si Chunqiu, Zhong Er, was ordered to choose a day to pay homage, and there was another eulogy.

However, if we talk about the admiration and awe of Changbai Mountain, after the Jin Dynasty, the Aisingiorro family, which started the Qing Dynasty, was "unprecedented, and there was no one after it".

From the myth of the birth of ancestors to the admiration of emperors such as Huang Taiji, Shunzhi and Kangxi, the Qing Dynasty pushed Changbai Mountain to an incomparably lofty throne. In addition to following the usual four-season sacrifice, when the country faces major changes, the rulers will go to Changbai Mountain to sincerely pray for the gods and protect the dynasty and the country.

Therefore, in order to protect Changbai Mountain, the "land of Longxing" in the Qing Dynasty, emperors in the early Qing Dynasty, such as Huang Taiji, Shunzhi and Kangxi, did their best. Before entering the customs, Huang taiji ordered people to dig deep ditches and draw boundaries with wicker to enclose all the surrounding areas of Changbai Mountain and protect them closely. During the Shunzhi period, in order to divide farming areas and nomadic areas, the boundaries of wicker borders were continuously extended and wicker borders were built, which was called "Shengjing Border Wall" in history.

Since then, Changbai Mountain has only been owned by the emperor, and its sacredness is no less than that of Long Mai in Qing Dynasty.

In the sixteenth year of Kangxi (1677), the young Emperor Kangxi sent Wu Muna, the imperial clan, to worship the mountain gods in Changbai Mountain instead of himself. More than 200 people from Wu Muna and his party went upstream from Songhua River, passed through Manchu hometown, went through hardships to reach Changbai Mountain, climbed Tianchi Peak and got a glimpse of Tianchi.

After returning to Beijing, Wu Muna compiled what he saw and heard into Notes of Wu Muna, reported it to Kangxi, and asked him to be the god of Changbai Mountain. Kangxi was very happy. He planned to build a memorial hall on Xiaobaishan in Jilin City as a place of worship at four o'clock. Since then, under the leadership of Emperor Kangxi, the emperors in the early and middle Qing Dynasty have made ten expeditions to worship their ancestors. Among them, Ganlong, who was named "the old man in Shiquan", went to the Western Ocean four times in his life. Although the route of each emperor's eastward tour is slightly different, their devotion to the pilgrimage to Changbai Mountain is the same.

On the way to the east, Kangxi wrote poems such as Looking at Changbai Mountain and Sacrificing the Millennium, and Qianlong and Jiaqing also wrote large-scale works such as Sacrificing Changbai Mountain and Sacrificing Changbai Mountain. Out of reverence for Changbai Mountain, Kangxi pointed out that Mount Tai, the head of the Five Mountains, was actually formed when the Changbai Mountain Range entered Shandong Province through Liaodong Peninsula and Bohai Sea. If we say "the ancestor of the five mountains", Changbai Mountain should be the first to be respected.

Under the propaganda of emperors in previous dynasties, since the Jin Dynasty, scholars in previous dynasties have gradually focused their attention on this "famous mountain in Kanto". In the face of the majestic and cold Changbai Mountain, Zhao Bingwen, a poet of the Jin Dynasty, once left a famous sentence: "Changbai Mountain is located in the North Pole, and immortals in white often haunt it. Yulong hangs its claws and falls off the cliff, and the four rivers fly straight down. "

Wang Jie, a poet in the Yuan Dynasty, once described Changbai Mountain in his long poem "A Noble Woman in Liaodong": "The east of the sky is white, near Peng Ying, with ethereal fairy jade and clear snow. When the phoenix goes to the purple flute, there is no sound, and Qingluan is alone in Jing Yao. "

In the poem, Changbai Mountain is compared to Penglai and Yingzhou, the fairy mountains on the sea, and it is said that jade ice and white immortals often haunt the mountains, which is consistent with the myths and legends about Changbai Mountain in previous dynasties.

From the Jin Dynasty to the early and middle Qing Dynasty, emperors and literati who had close ties with the northeast of China praised Changbai Mountain many times, but there was never a picture depicting the "fairyland" of Changbai Mountain. It was not until the late Qing Dynasty that a person appeared that the true meaning of Changbai Mountain was finally presented to the world.

This man was Liu Jianfeng, the first governor of Antu County in Changbai Mountain in the late Qing Dynasty. 1908, Liu Jianfeng, then the alternate magistrate of Mukden, received an order from Xu Shichang, the governor of the three northeastern provinces, and boarded Changbai Mountain with equipment to record the actual situation of Changbai Mountain and report it to the court. When he was ready, Liu Jianfeng set out with reverence for the mountain gods, just like the messengers sent to Changbai Mountain by the Qing Dynasty.

But unlike before, Liu Jianfeng lives in an era when modern photography technology is mature. During this dangerous journey, Liu Jianfeng recorded the real image of Changbai Mountain with his camera.

In view of the limitation of "only knowing its name, not respecting its name" when Kangxi awarded the title of "God of Changbai Mountain". Liu Jianfeng, lucky enough to be ordered to climb Changbai Mountain and enter its hinterland, decided to record the beautiful scenery at that time with a camera. At the same time, the sixteen peaks around Tianchi Lake in Changbai Mountain were named as:

Crouching Tiger Peak, Tieyunfeng, Jade Everest, Bai Yunfeng,

Crown Peak, Duying Peak, Zixia Peak and Astronomical Peak ......

Later, the self-styled "Tianchi Fishing" ambassador also symbolically left a good sentence of "It's suspected that snow is spraying in Longtan, just like flying from the sky". Then, according to what Liu Jianfeng heard and recorded, Shamanism finally completed the image-building of the God of Changbai Mountain, which was finally formed after thousands of years of transformation.

Today, due to the emperor's "mountain protection" of the Qing government, people can refer to Liu Jianfeng's album "Full Shadow of Changbai Mountain" to find the original scenery of Changbai Mountain.

Changbai Mountain, once revered by emperors for thousands of years, has lost its mystery and become the oldest mountain in China that pursues nature.

Because the natural scenery here has never been artificially developed for thousands of years, there is an underground forest in vast expanse at the bottom of Changbai Mountain. In the forest, on the wet moss, flowers, mushrooms and other natural creatures are emerging from the soil with vigorous vitality, stretching their bodies under the sparse light and shadow in the forest.

On the other hand, because Changbai Mountain has been carved by wind, frost, snow and ice for many years, there is a huge gap between Skyfire Peak and Longmen Peak at the top of the mountain. Groundwater stored in Tianchi for 10 thousand years can gush out and tilt downward. The long-term erosion of the water along the fault zone has caused the riverbed to continuously cut and expand, forming the shortest river on Changbai Mountain-Tongtian River.

The cheerful current decided to continue down the river. When passing through a naturally formed cliff, the speed of water falls directly from the valley that jumped 68 meters, forming a huge water curtain, namely Changbai Waterfall. Then supplemented by Changbai Mountain geothermal hot springs, the water continued northward, forming Erdaohe, Erdaohua River and other "mother rivers" that moisten the people in Northeast China.

Under the breeding of Changbai Mountain, rivers not only bring rich black soil resources, but also build many modern cities on both sides of the river.

Today, Changbai Mountain has already become a famous tourist attraction in China, where tourists from all over the world gather and linger. Perhaps, it is the true "God" of Changbai Mountain to fade away the unique color of emperors, raise thousands of families in the mountains and protect the people for thousands of years!

References:

Liu Housheng: Changbai Mountain Culture in China, Jilin Publishing Group Co., Ltd., 20 14.

Li Lixian: Interpretation of Changbai Mountain, China Pictorial Publishing House, 2005.

Zhang Fuyou: Koguryo, Bohai Kingdom and Changbai Mountain Culture, Journal of Changchun Normal University, No.6, 2004.

Chang Jianhua: Sacrifice: A New Exploration of Emperor Kangxi's Eastward Journey to Liaoji, The Eighth Series of Random Studies, 20 18.