Nowadays, when we hear the words "Leifeng Pagoda", we usually think of the poignant love story in the Legend of the White Snake. Of course, we all know that the Leifeng Pagoda in reality has nothing to do with the Legend of the White Snake. So who built this ancient pagoda that has lasted for thousands of years? Why was it built? What is the final fate?
During the archaeological excavation of Leifeng Pagoda in 2000, there was an incomplete stone tablet. Although there were only 162 words left, it recorded in detail many important information about the construction of Leifeng Pagoda. The real builder of Leifeng Pagoda It was Qian Chu, the king of Wuyue Kingdom more than a thousand years ago.
You may not be particularly familiar with the Wuyue Kingdom. The Wuyue Kingdom appeared during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. The founder of the country was Qian Liu, the military envoy of Zhenhai. He established his capital in Hangzhou, with the basic national policy of protecting the environment and the people. Hangzhou was in There was prosperity under his administration. Qian Liu, who believed in Buddhism, built temples, worshiped Buddha and chanted sutras. There were many temples in Wuyue Kingdom, with green smoke and endless Sanskrit music. Therefore, Hangzhou was given the reputation of "Southeast Buddhist Country". Under the influence of Buddhist thought, Qian Liu formulated the principle of governing the country by respecting the Central Plains and never proclaiming himself emperor. His grandson Qian Chu also used this as the foundation of the country after he succeeded to the throne. This principle made the people of Zhejiang and Zhejiang free of charge. Suffering from war. After Zhao Kuangyin established the Northern Song Dynasty in 960 AD, Qian Chu immediately sent envoys to Kaifeng to pay tribute and express his support for the Song Dynasty. Although Zhao Kuangyin treated Qian Chu courteously, Qian Chu was still uneasy about how the Song Dynasty would view his regime. In addition, in the next ten years, the Northern Song Dynasty successively destroyed Jingxiang, Houshu, Southern Han and other countries. Faced with the unstoppable trend of unification, Qian Chu Chu felt deeply unable to control the fate of the country, so he could only build pagodas to pray for peace and prosperity for the country and the people.
The construction of the pagoda began on Leifeng Mountain in 972 AD. In Qian Chu's conception, the Leifeng Pagoda was modeled on the Liuhe Pagoda of the Tang Dynasty. It far exceeded the former in scale and height, and was different from ordinary pagodas. The difference is that there is an outer corridor at the bottom of the tower, and stone tablets engraved with Buddhist scriptures are placed in the outer corridor for believers to admire and read. In 975 AD, Qian Chu received Zhao Kuangyin's invitation and went north to Kaifeng, and the construction of Leifeng Pagoda was forced to stop. Going north to Kaifeng is undoubtedly a disaster for a country with a small political power. The neighboring country of the Southern Tang Dynasty was destroyed because of its refusal to enter the dynasty, but Qian Chu had no choice. Unexpectedly, Qian Chu received a grand courtesy and was allowed to return to Hangzhou. Before leaving, Zhao Kuangyin gave Qian Chu a secret box and ordered him to open it after leaving Kaifeng. This box is full of memorials from ministers asking Zhao Kuangyin to leave Qian Chu in Kaifeng. It can be seen that Qian Chu's loyalty to the Song Dynasty for many years has gained Zhao Kuangyin's openness. However, Zhao Kuangyin gave the ministers' memorial to Qian Chu, and the implication of this was to let Qian Chu stay in Kaifeng. Qian Chu took the initiative to hand over power and return the land to the Song Dynasty. This was the reality that Qian Chu didn't want to face the most.
After returning from Kaifeng, the construction project of Leifeng Pagoda was resumed. Qian Chu personally supervised and accelerated the construction progress of Leifeng Pagoda. When Leifeng Pagoda was built to the fourth floor, great changes occurred in the court of the Northern Song Dynasty. ——Zhao Kuangyin died suddenly, and his younger brother Zhao Guangyi succeeded to the throne. Qian Chu knew very well that Zhao Guangyi would never allow the Wu Yue regime to exist like Zhao Kuangyin. When Qian Chu was in a dilemma, he saw a West Lake landscape painting in his grandfather Qian Liu's study. There was such a poem on the painting: " The old site of Yacheng expanded the fence and left the green waves of the West Lake. It is said that if a country has a hundred years of wishes, it will last for thousands of years. "Qian Liu was planning to expand the Wuyue Palace in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. The Feng Shui master said that if it were built in Fengshui. Expansion on the mountain can only protect the foundation for a hundred years. If the West Lake is filled in and expanded on top of the West Lake, the foundation can be guaranteed for a thousand years. In the end, Qian Liu did not follow the master's advice and built the palace on the former site of Fenghuang Mountain, thus saving West Lake from the bad luck of being filled up. Qian Liu's open-mindedness gave Qian Chu an edict that in a dynasty with a history of less than a thousand years, only the people are the foundation of the country.
When Qian Chu was designing the Leifeng Pagoda, in order to express his respect for the Buddha, he did everything he could to build a thousand-foot, thirteen-story tower that reaches the sky. However, during the construction process, he gradually realized that devotion to the Buddha does not lie in how high the pagoda is. The real way to cultivate Buddhism is to prevent the people of the country from the disaster of war and preserve this last piece of paradise. This realization finally made Qian Chu decide to change the construction plan of Leifeng Pagoda. Leifeng Pagoda was only built to the fifth floor. It was terminated after the installation of tower brakes. In 978 AD, the Leifeng Pagoda took six years to be completed.
Qian Chu’s edict and understanding of Buddhism made Qian Chu finally choose to accept the land and return to the Song Dynasty. So far, all the separatist regimes in the south since the Five Dynasties have ended, and for the first time in Chinese history, a powerful separatist kingdom has been realized. peaceful reunification with the central government.
In 988 AD, the tenth year of his return to the Song Dynasty, Zhao Guangyi gave Qian Chu wine to celebrate his sixtieth birthday. Qian Chu died that night and was buried in Beimang Mountain, Luoyang. During the war in the late Northern Song Dynasty, the wooden structure of the Leifeng Pagoda was burned down by a fire. It was not rebuilt until Hangzhou, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, was burned down again by Japanese pirates during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, leaving only the tower body. The poignant love story of the Legend of the White Snake in the late Ming Dynasty was widely circulated. In order to rescue the White Snake who was trapped under the tower, people began to extract bricks from the Leifeng Pagoda. As the phenomenon of stealing bricks from the tower became more and more intense, the Leifeng Pagoda collapsed in 1924 after standing for a thousand years. It was rebuilt again in the year.