There is a clear record of the "Shu Road" in the history books, which was opened up by the Qin State in the middle of the Warring States Period when it annexed Bashu. Since the Hanzhong Valley is located between the Qinling Mountains and Daba Mountain, it is a strategic point and transit point between Guanzhong and Bashu.
Therefore, Shu Road is bounded by Hanzhong and is divided into two parts: north and south.
The Shu Road in the south connects Hanzhong-Daba Mountain-Chengdu Plain, and there are three main ones - Jinniu Road, Micang Road, and Yinping Road. The Shu Road in the north connects Guanzhong-Qinling-Hanzhong, and there are four main ones - Meridian Road, Fu Luo Road, Bao Slope Road, and Chencang Road.
Previously, in the cover news wayfinding Shu Road series of reports, readers have been taken to appreciate the charm of Shu Road in the south, and next, we want to talk about Shu Road in the north.
Cover News Reporter Liu Yanjun, Yan Wenwen, Wu Yong, Zhou Qin, Shaanxi Qinling Photo Report.
If you take out a map and look at the location of 32°-34°N, 100°-112°E, you can find a magical mountain range here.
The mountains are wide and thick, the mountains are continuous, lying in the middle of the Chinese mainland, stretching for more than 1,000 kilometers from east to west, and 1,200 kilometers wide from north to south, like a backbone, dividing China into the south and the north.
This is Qinling. Qinling is also the meaning of the existence of Shu Dao.
Broadly speaking, the road out of Sichuan and into Sichuan can be called Shu Road.
Aerial photography of the rolling Qinling Mountains by Wu Yong.
To the east, the Shu Road can be a waterway, winding in the natural danger of the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River;To the west, the Shu Road can be the Heavenly Road, straight up to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau;To the south, it can be the road of foreign exchanges, along the Lingguan Road and Wuchi Road, all the way to Vietnam.
But from a narrow point of view, there are only a few "Woohoo, Danger is high!" to the northThe ancient road is the Shu road. In a sense, Shu Road is a road that connects with the Qinling Mountains or Daba Mountain.
In fact, the main peak of the Qinling Mountains, Taibai Mountain, is 3771 above sea level2 meters, compared to the peak of more than 5,000 meters in western Sichuan, it is not high. So, why did the Qinling Mountains become a natural danger that separates the 800-mile Qinchuan River from the Chengdu Plain?
Li Wei, director of the Department of Geology of Northwest University, has traveled through the Qinling Mountains dozens of times, and in mid-October, he has studied the Qinling Mountains for decades, and from a geological point of view, he explained the relationship between the Qinling Mountains and Shu Road to the cover news reporter.
Why is it difficult to do so?
The mountains are high and the water is long, and the road conditions are steep.
Shu and Han are blocked by the Qinling Mountains. The mountains are high and the waters are long, and the peaks and valleys are narrow.
Shu Dao, in a sense, is the process of fighting between man and nature, and then peaceful coexistence. For thousands of years, the connection between Sichuan and the Central Plains has required the crossing of the Qinling Mountains through the Three Gorges and then from Hubei to the land route.
However, in the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court stipulated that from Beijing to Chengdu should be taken by land, not the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River. "Why can't the Three Gorges?Feng Suiping, editor-in-chief of the Philosophy and Society Edition of the Journal of Shaanxi University of Science and Technology, deputy director and researcher of the Hanshui Culture Research Center, once mentioned that once the waterway capsizes, it is irretrievable, so he would rather go slower, but the safety factor is high.
In ancient times, when there were only sailing ships, sailing the Three Gorges was a journey full of dangers and uncertainties. More often than not, there are ancient roads that cross the mountains and ravines between Sichuan and Shaanxi like a gray line of grass snakes.
Therefore, the Shu Road through the river valley was the most convenient and safe way for the ancients. Professor Li Wei said that due to the barrier of the Qinling Mountains, there were no other safer roads to pass through at that time.
Professor Li Wei at work Photo provided by the interviewee.
There are four main passages through the Qinling Mountains, which are Chencang Road, Bao Slope Road, Fu Luo Road and Meridian Road from west to east.
In general, these Shu roads are distributed along the river valley and run in a north-south direction. Professor Li Wei, who has studied the Qinling Mountains for many years, found that the distribution trend of the Shu Road is actually almost orthogonal to the direction of the Qinling Mountains.
The Qinling Mountains, which stretch for more than 1,600 kilometers, stretch from the Dieshan Mountains in Gansu in the west, pass through the central part of Shaanxi, and reach the Funiu Mountains in Henan in the east.
On both sides of the mountain range, there are huge differences in landform and climate. Due to long-term precipitation, geological weathering, and erosion of flowing water, the Qinling Mountains have formed a series of north-south deep-cut river valleys. These deep-cut river valleys in the north-south direction provide convenient geographical and geomorphological conditions for connecting Guanzhong and Hanzhong and Sichuan.
Therefore, by following the river and piercing holes in the stone wall, you can cross the Qinling Mountains by building a plank road. Of course, there are exceptions to the direction of the Shu Road, when encountering some places, such as the deep and steep river valley, it will go around the gentle place of the river, and there may be a situation of deviation from the north-south direction.
Different natural scenery on both sides of the Qinling Mountains Photo by Liu Yanjun.
Walking in the river valley saves time and cost compared to climbing mountains. You must know that in ancient times, if ordinary people wanted to cross the Qinling Mountains, a necessary skill was "playing straw shoes". A pair of straw sandals is not enough to support even walking from Xi'an to Hanzhong, and walking along the plank road in the river valley is obviously much shorter.
However, the roads that run between the river valleys are also extremely steep. Along the Shu Road, there are large and small peaks, steep slopes, dangerous shoals and canyons. Many sections of the road require climbing or crossing mountain peaks, and the roads are rough and dangerous.
Because Shu Road is located in the mountains and valleys, the climate is varied, and disasters such as rainfall, mudslides, and mountain floods often occur, and the temperature in winter is extremely low, and the road is covered with ice and snow all year round, making it difficult to pass.
Because most of the Shu Road is located between river valleys, it often encounters natural disasters such as rock collapses, mudslides, and dangerous rocks on the mountains, so the ancients also tried to prevent and control them. Professor Li Wei introduced that the ancients' measures to prevent and control disasters were through detours and reinforcements. This also explains why Shu Road will be diverted in some sections.
Why Qinling?Geological processes form "Shu Road Difficult".
Since the Qinling Mountains are a big moat of "Shu Road Difficulty", how did it form?
The Qinling Mountains were not called Qinling Mountains at the earliest, but were called "Nanshan", "Zhongnan" and "Zhongnan". In the "Book of Songs", it has been mentioned many times that "Xinbi Nanshan, Weiyudianzhi" ("Xiaoya, Xinnanshan"), how can there be anything in the south?There is a plum" ("Qin Feng Zhongnan"), such as the longevity of Nanshan, no collapse without collapse" ("Xiao Ya Tianbao");Shangshu Yugong" is written with "Zhongnan, the object, as for the bird and mouse".
From the geographical point of view, the Qinling Mountains are located in the south of the capital of the Western Zhou Dynasty and the Qin State, "in the middle of the sky, the south of the capital, so it is called Zhongnan, also known as the end of the south." ”
Natural scenery in the depths of the Qinling Mountains Photo by Liu Yanjun.
The earliest written record of the word "Qinling" may come from the "Liangdu Fu" of Bangu in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and Bangu replaced "Nanshan" and "Zhongnanshan" with "Qinling" for the first time. Among them, there is the phrase "Qinling, Beifu" in "Western Capital Fu", and "Qinling Nine Mountains, Jingwei River" in "Eastern Capital Fu".
The formation of the Qinling Mountains is actually a long geological process. Professor Li Wei explained that the formation of the Qinling Mountains has experienced a long geological evolution history of hundreds of millions of years. The Qinling Mountains have undergone a multi-stage orogeny, including the reduction of the oceanic crust in the Paleozoic, the land-land collision and the land-land collision orogeny in the early Mesozoic, and then experienced a strong intracontinental extrusion orogeny since the Mesozoic, and finally a strong uplift occurred in the Cenozoic, forming the Qinling Mountains that stretch for thousands of kilometers from east to west.
Since the late Cenozoic, especially since the Quaternary, the Qinling Mountains have formed a majestic east-west extension due to the rapid uplift of the Qinling Mountains. In short, the Qinling Mountains are the result of geological tectonic evolution over the past 400 million to 500 million years, and finally formed a huge east-west mountain range in the Cenozoic.
From the perspective of time period, the formation of the Qinling Mountains has experienced a long geological evolution history from the Paleozoic to the Cenozoic. From the perspective of topographic changes, it has mainly experienced multiple topographic evolution stages, such as the early folding of mountains, the later leveling of quasi-plains, mountain stream basins, and the current mountains. Professor Li Wei concluded.
The Qinling Mountains have undergone a long period of geological changes from the initial folded mountain uplift belt to the formation of ancient quasi-plains and many coal-bearing basins.
In the early Tertiary of the Cenozoic, due to the gentle tectonic movement, the mountains were gradually eroded into quasi-plains, and many small basins were scattered. By the Middle Pleistocene, the uplift of the Qinling Mountains was dominated by regional intermittent uplift, and the existing geomorphological pattern of the Qinling Mountains was gradually formed.
Why Shu Dao?The pioneering spirit is more than a thousand years.
About 60 million years ago, the collision between the Indian plate and the Asian continent caused the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to continue to uplift and expand eastward, profoundly affecting the topography of Chinese mainland since the Cenozoic, and forming a number of mountain ranges in the southwestern periphery of the Sichuan Basin. "The Sichuan Basin is enveloped by mountains and mountains.
These unique geological formations have resulted in the Chengdu Plain, which has a mild climate and abundant products, but it also makes Shu land surrounded by mountains and valleys.
The Shu Road, which condenses the wisdom and courage of the ancients, breaks through the natural barriers formed by the mountains and plateaus, and continues to extend outward, from the past to the present.
Aerial photography of Taibai Mountain, the main peak of the Qinling Mountains, taken by Wu Yong.
In modern times, the construction of highways and railways between Sichuan and Shaanxi is mostly along the original Shu Road line. Professor Li Wei said that the Baohan Highway, which was built in 1935, arrived at Hanzhong through Baoji, Fengxian and Liuba, with the northern section along the old road and the southern section along the Baochuan Road. The highway from Chengdu to Hanzhong was completed and opened to traffic in 1937, and this line was basically built along the Jinniu Road.
It is also a coincidence that the section of National Highway 108 from Chengdu to Hanzhong was built along the Jinniu Road, the section from Hanzhong to Xi'an was basically the same as the Fuluo Road, and the National Highway 210 was along the Yangba Road-Meridian Road, and went directly out of the mountain along the Fenghe River. The southern section of the Hanzhong-Tianshui section of National Highway 316 is built along the Bao Slope Road.
On New Year's Day in 1958, the opening ceremony of the 669-kilometer-long Baocheng Railway was held at Chengdu Railway Station, and the "Shu Road Difficulty" has since become history. This steel dragon that starts in Baoji, Shaanxi Province in the north, crosses the Qinling Mountains and Daba Mountain in the south, and reaches Chengdu, Sichuan, the land of abundance, connects Sichuan to the national iron network.
In December 2017, the Xicheng high-speed railway passed through the Qinling Tunnel, connecting the Guanzhong Plain with the Chengdu Plain in less than four hours.
Thousands of miles change the road, Shu Road is difficult, and it is no longer difficult to go to the sky.
Today, looking at the western territory of China, between the green waters and green mountains, the roads are closely connected. On the bank of the ancient Shu Road, the "Super Shu Road" such as the Xicheng High-speed Railway and the Beijing-Kunming Expressway reshape time and space, leading to the sea and Sichuan.
Road builders in the new era use new technologies and new methods to build a three-dimensional transportation network that goes from heaven to earth and connects rivers and seas. Today, there are more than 40 large passages out of Sichuan;The total mileage of highways opened to traffic exceeds 400,000 kilometers, ranking first in the country;Highways and buses are "connected to every village";Chengdu has two international airports and has opened more than 140 international ......
The mountains and rivers cannot stop the pioneering and exploratory spirit of the predecessors, making it possible to cross the mountains and rivers, cross the past and the present, and connect the present and the future.