Chapter 42 Section 2 Shangdu and Dadu in Yuan Dynasty

The political center of Mongolia in the early days was Helin, which was located on the right bank of the upper reaches of the Orkhon River in the southwest of Ulaanbaatar in the People’s Republic of Mongolia.The Lightning River is the upper source of the Luan River, which may be a corrupted wording of the Shangdu River.This was built by Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan Dynasty, before he became emperor, and later the emperor was located here.It is called Kaiping Mansion, plus the capital.Kublai Khan changed the Mongolian Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, adopted Han law, and established the year name. Later, he moved the ruling center to the central capital built in the Jin Dynasty.This city is located on the southwest side of today’s Beijing Old City Circle. It was built with a lot of manpower and material resources in the Jin Dynasty. Some of the equipment and items were moved from Kaifeng, the capital of Song Dynasty, and the Tanyuan of Zhending Mansion (now Zhengding, Hebei). More than half a century later, it was destroyed by Mongolian cavalry, and the central capital was changed to Yanjing.This time when Kublai Khan moved here, although it was called Zhongdu again, it was not worthy of the name, so he decided to abandon the old city and build a new city in the northeast of the old city, named Dadu.The center of Dadu is the Jin Dynasty Ligong (Daning Palace) in the northeast of the old city. Because it is far away from the city, it has not suffered major damage.Kublai Khan also lived here after he moved to the south; the new city is also divided into three circles, the palace city, the imperial city, and the outer city, following the old system of the central capital, but the scale is much larger than that of the old capital.

The graphic design of Yuan Dadu can be said to be the closest to an ideal design scheme in ancient my country. Except for two gates in the north, three gates are opened in the east, south and west. The inner center is the palace city, and the outer part is the imperial city. , and then outside is the big city.The emperor's ancestral temple is called Taimiao, which is in the north of the south gate (Qihua gate) on the east side; the place where the gods of earth and valleys are worshipped is Sheji altar, which is northeast of the south gate (Pingze gate) on the west side.Most of the important government offices are in the south of the imperial city.The front of the central part is the imperial court, and the rear is the market, especially near the Bell and Drum Tower, where the trading of goods is very lively.According to the "Analysis of Jin Zhi", there are all kinds of noodle markets, rice markets, goose duck markets, pearl markets, sala (treasures, gold, silver) markets, ironware markets, and even markets for poor men and people.It can be seen that this kind of urban layout is also in line with the design requirements of the ancient so-called former dynasty, later city, Zuozu, and Youshe.Most of the Mongolian language is called "Khan Bali", which means "City of Great Khan".

In the Yuan Dynasty, the management of Dadu and Shangdu cities inherited the system of the Jin Dynasty, and set up a police patrol courtyard.This is an independent city administrative system that "leads (city) civil affairs and supply and demand".The old city of Dadu, that is, the old city of Zhongdu, is still divided into 62 squares. The new city of Dadu was first divided into 50 squares, and then increased to 76 squares. The new and old cities are divided into 138 squares.Due to the large size of the city, the number of police patrol houses was increased from two to three.After the mid-term, two additional branches in charge of the four corners of the metropolis were added.Each police patrol house is equipped with Dalu Huachi (the chief officer who was specially appointed by Mongolians or Semu people in the Yuan Dynasty to hold the real power of an administrative unit), police patrol envoys, deputy envoys and other officials, responsible for various administrative affairs.There is only one police patrol courtyard in Shanghai, and its administrative functions are the same as those of the police patrol courtyards in Dadu.By the way, there are 100 record divisions set up in the governor's mansions and some important cities along the road.The administrative functions of the Recording Division and the Police Patrol are exactly the same, but the administrative rank is one level lower than that of the Police Patrol.The Yuan Dynasty implemented special administrative management for 102 cities, which was the first time in the history of urban development in China or in the history of urban development in the world, and deserves attention.