I told a story, when Emperor Jin Yuan, who was in the southeast of An'an, asked his son, who was later Emperor Jin Ming: Riyuan or Chang'anyuan? Emperor Ming, who was sitting on his lap, replied cleverly: "The sun is far away, because some people come from Chang'an, but I have never heard of anyone coming from the side of the sun." Emperor Jin Yuan was very surprised when he heard this.At the banquet the next day, he asked the same question again in front of his ministers. Unexpectedly, this time the child told him: the day is approaching. The father asked in surprise: "Why is your answer different from yesterday?"

Emperor Ming said with a smile: "Look up to see the sun, but not Chang'an." This is a story I heard as a child.A story that did not happen in Chang'an made me hear about Chang'an for the first time.Since then, I have associated Chang'an with the sun in the sky. "Looking at Chang'an in the east, it is just at the beginning of the sun."In my impression, no matter whether the sun is near to Chang'an or the sun is far away to Chang'an, Chang'an has always been in the same context as the scorching sun, not the bright moon.Bright sunshine can turn all fiction into reality.Under the sunshine of Chang'an, abstract things such as imagination, ideals and beliefs are suddenly transformed into a view of "smoke and mist in the distance between the two towers, and chaotic carriages and horses on the five roads", poets and knights who go out laughing with their faces up to the sky. for real existence.That's why when we mention prosperity, openness, and all the beautiful and grand scenes and moments, we will naturally think of the city of Chang'an and Cen Shen's "Recalling Chang'an Song": "Where is Chang'an, only Under the horse’s hooves.” With the mountains and rivers on the shelf, the clouds and mist behind the pen, the horse’s hoof without “de”, my scrolls and imagination, take me to where I want to go——

It goes straight to Ziwu Valley in the front, rests on Longshouyuan in the back, faces Chanba on the left, and reaches Fengshui on the right. It is 18 miles from east to west and 115 steps from north to south, and 15 miles from north to south. Xiao He, the prime minister of the Western Han Dynasty, took Jiutiao Street as the latitude and longitude, and laid out the magnificent Han Chang'an on the north side of Longshouyuan.The south of the city is like Nandou, and the north of the city is like Beidou. It is called "Doucheng" in the world.Hundreds of years later, the Han Chang'an, which is as brilliant as stars, only left behind "the afterglow of the west wind, the mausoleum of the Han family".But the imagination of imitating celestial bodies is still there.Master Yu Wenkai chose the south of Longshouyuan to build a city belonging to the sky.He looks at the stars and the sun, predicts the eclipse and the earth, and also refers to the magnificent Luoyang and the southern city of Yedu to maximize his imagination.In March of the following year, when spring was warm and flowers were blooming, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty moved into New Chang'an (called Daxing City at that time) with his subjects.

The capital city built in nine months has given us a history of four hundred years of vicissitudes, and there are still more than a thousand years to use our imagination to perform an immortal legend.But no matter what, you can't say that you can interpret the legend of Chang'an to the fullest.You can never even read it. Emperor Sui Yang, the son of Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, couldn't understand Chang'an.He didn't know how important Chang'an was to him and his dynasty. On the left is Xiaoshan Mountain, the danger of Hangu Pass, and on the right is Guanlong, the solidity of Bashu. Guanzhong, where Chang'an is located, has been a land of four fortresses since ancient times, known as the solidity of Jintang.At that time, there was a saying that "the one who wins Guanzhong wins the world".Chang'an is important, not just its mountains and rivers inside and outside, and the golden city thousands of miles away.Yu Wentai of the Western Wei Dynasty imitated the eight-part system of Tuoba Xianbei, and set up eight pillar kingdoms, twelve generals, twenty-four Kaifu and hundreds of foreign palaces from top to bottom.All the elite soldiers in the world belong to the military government.When the farming is busy, the government soldiers farm in the wild; Returning to the court", the soldiers and generals enjoyed their respective peaceful times - this is the origin of the two hundred years of military system.There are more than 600 military mansions in the world, and the Guannei Road where Chang'an is located accounts for more than one-third; together with the adjacent Hedong and other roads, Chang'an controls two-thirds of the military mansions in the world.This kind of pattern of "raising the people in the pass to face the four directions" made the emperor of Chang'an place more emphasis on control than light, and have a bird's-eye view of the world.No matter how powerful the world is, it cannot compete with Chang'an.

But Emperor Sui Yang still abandoned Chang'an. At the foot of Mang Mountain, Yu Wenkai built another eastern capital, Luoyang.But Emperor Sui Yang did not stop.Maybe, he still wants to go east, go further.The subjugated emperor exuding the temperament of a poet spreads his golden sails, and wanders eastward and southward along the Grand Canal dug by exhausting all the power of the world, until he reaches Yangzhou, which is full of Qionghua, and walks into the weeping poplars, twilight crows, rotten weeds, etc. The scenery of fireflies never came back. "Yuxi is not destined to return to the corner of the sun, but Jinfan should reach the end of the world." Emperor Sui Yang threw away his father's world and his father's Chang'an, but he himself became an illusory shadow in the bronze mirror.

Just like the beautiful young man in the Greek mythology facing the water and shining flowers, Emperor Sui Yang under the Qionghua caressed his thinning face, pityed himself, and said to himself: "A good head, who should cut it?" Narcissus was obsessively in love with his own reflection in the water, unable to control himself, and finally jumped into the blue waves.The narcissistic soul sprouts in the ripples, and a cluster of narcissus blooms.The ending of Emperor Sui Yang was not so beautiful.When he was lingering under the Yushu Qionghua in the south, the Guanzhong soldiers beside him were looking forward to the northwest, thinking hard about Qinyue Hanguan thousands of miles away.As Su Tong said, "The South is a corrupt and charming existence."The soldiers in Guanzhong feel that the plum rain in the south of the Yangtze River exudes the smell of mildew in the soul, just like the yellow leaves falling in late autumn, slowly rotting in the wet pond mud.The twisting silk pipe could not hide the leisurely sound of Qiang pipe and Hu Jia in the camp, bringing the hearts of travelers back to Chang'an...

On a desolate night, Emperor Sui Yang saw menacing soldiers breaking through the door and heading straight into the hall.They want to kill the person who doesn't go home, and they want to go back to Chang'an.At that moment, the question in front of the mirror finally had an answer. The three-foot white stick settled the sinful debts of the romantic emperor.But his soul still lingers in the willow branches on the banks of Leitang, and he is unwilling to return to Chang'an anyway.Sui Yang Emperor was very appreciative of the short-lived prosperity of the world: high and low, suffering and happiness, reincarnation changes, what is there to be sad about!But why is he infatuated with this whirling Yangzhou?The only thing that can compare to Chang'an is Yangzhou, which has a variety of customs.However, Yangzhou's magnificence and loveliness are definitely of a different type. It is the misty singing outside the bamboo, the red medicine under the moon, the ethereal beauty of the twenty-four bridges, or two-thirds of the bright moon in the world. There is a great sense of emptiness in the infinite light and shadow.In the end, this kind of emptiness was attributed to the romantic twists and turns of "Life is only for Yangzhou and death".

Chang'an is more real and real than Yangzhou.It is a gorgeous landscape composed of gorgeous images such as white peony and golden step.The plot here is a turbulent plot, the characters are those of Yue Zhiyuan, the details are magnificent details, and the theme is the theme of the whole world.Therefore, after inspecting all civilizations, Toynbee said that if he was allowed to live again, he would abandon London and go to Chang'an. After the endless catastrophe, Chang'an's civil and structural structures have been destroyed, turned into ruins, and even reduced to ashes. There are not even decent ruins left, and there is no trace left.But it still activates our numb imagination, allowing us to imagine the existence of everything in the blank space of nothing.The life course of Chang'an is survival in fighting, heavy maintenance, and finally ending extravagantly.It has a reality that cannot be replaced by pure imagination.

You see that "thousands of houses are facing the Weishui River, and the flowers and willows of Wuling are growing in Qinchuan", the spring of Chang'an has come.At that time, the trees were willows from the Sui Dynasty, and the flowers were peaches and plums from the Tang Dynasty.I love these spring greenery.They replace the vicissitudes of the dynasty's rise and fall with the seasons of flowers blooming and leaves falling, expressing the endless poetry hidden in history.Walking on Chang'an Avenue, there was a faint singing voice in my ears: