The excavators of the ruins of Yuhui Village once described the scene of The Great Yu Zhishui meeting the princes of the world at the foot of Tushan Mountain 4,000 years ago:
Looking far away, the Jing and Tu Er Mountains stand majestically in the distance, the Huai River flows, and the flood is monstrous. Beside them, a roaring bonfire was burning on the high platform built along the coast, and by the campfire, the clans of Xia Hou and Tu Shan were ready to sacrifice pigs and cattle, and the smell of rice and millet was emitted from the Ding and Koshiki, and the wine syrup spilled out of the mane and pot. Everything was ready, and in the midst of everyone's attention, the distinguished guest Dayu who had come from afar appeared. He walked in a broad stride, calmly ascended the rammed square platform, and the grand ceremony of the alliance sacrifice officially began. The flags of the princes standing in the middle of the high platform fluttered in the wind, and on both sides of the flagpole, the princes who came to the alliance held jade veils in their hands and responded to the call issued by Dayu. The ceremony lasts day and night for several days. Dayu and the princes from all sides planned a strategy for controlling water, and a great undertaking was about to begin.
The great Yu who governs the water
Yuhui Village, a small village located in the southern foothills of Tushan Mountain, on the banks of the Huai River, belongs to Qinji Town, Yuhui District, Bengbu City, Anhui Province. In this now ordinary Jianghuai village, for many years there have been legends of "Yuhui princes" and "Yu marrying Tushan". And "The Seven Years of Zuo Chuan And Lamentation"
"The princes of Yuhe are in Tushan, and the rulers of the jade are all nations, and they have been annexed to this day, and their survivors are countless and innumerable."
"The Chronicle of the Present Bamboo Book"
"(Emperor Yu Xia Hou clan) five years, patrolling, will be the princes of Tushan."
Documentary accounts of Yu and Tushan
Location of Yuhui Village Ruins
Yuhui Tushan should be a landmark political practice in Chinese history. To know that "when Yu is the time, the world is full of nations", these countries are equivalent to the prefecture-level cities now, and whether it is the Yellow River, the Huai River or the Yangtze River, which flood, if you want to govern, it is definitely not a matter of one city and one county, and at that time it was not just a matter of which tribe. The so-called concentration of forces to do great things, in the face of natural disasters, we need heroic figures to lead the world to overcome difficulties.
Excavation plan of the site
At this time, Dayu Zhishui needed the support of the "landlord" Tu Shan clan who lived around Tu Shan, and Dayu married the daughter of Tu Shan, so Tu Shan played an important role in the process of controlling the water. Just as the Huai River floods every summer, the Anhui region in the middle reaches is the region that sacrifices the most and contributes the most. Therefore, the locals are also convinced of the fact that "Yuhui Tushan" is not in doubt. Nowadays, every year on the 28th day of the third month of the lunar calendar, a large-scale temple festival is held at the YuWang Palace at the top of Tu Mountain.
Bengbu Yuwang Temple Fair
The fact that the princes of Yuhui conspired to control the water under TuShan was also the first time that the kingdoms under the heavens completed a major event under the leadership of a leader, and this event was also regarded as the direct cause of the formation of the Xia Dynasty. So do the archaeological discoveries at the yuhui village site support this legend?
Section of the north city wall
The ruins of Yuhui Village were discovered quite late, and the 1985 National Census of Cultural Relics confirmed that the site belonged to the Longshan cultural period. After that, until 200, the ruins of Yuhui Village were excavated under the impetus of the "Chinese Civilization Exploration Project" by Mr. Wang Jihuai of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. During five excavations from 2007 to 2011, a large ceremonial building with an area of nearly 2,000 square meters was found at the site of Yuhui Village, which included a very elaborate rammed earth man-made pile of platforms covered by gray, yellow and white soils, especially the loess and white soil above were quite pure and delicate. Pillar holes, ridges, grooves, burnt altars, square earthen platforms and long rows of pillar pits were found from south to north on this pedestal. For these relics were restored to what kind of scenes of that year, a lot of them have to rely on imagination, it is recommended to look at the CCTV archaeology open class, Wang Jihuai teacher restored quite vividly.
Pottery in different regional styles in Yuhui Village
The leader of the team, Wang Jihuai, is known as Wang Dayu
In recent years, with the promotion of the project of "Archaeological Chinese Xia Culture Research", Zhang Dong, the leader of the post-80s team, excavated and studied this site under the concept of settlement archaeology. He found that the ruins of Yuhui Village in the Longshan cultural period were a 2 million square meter city site, and the sacrificial platform base found that year was actually built on the east city wall. It shows that before the ceremony was held, the ruins of Yuhui Village were a central site in the Huai River Valley. Artifacts excavated from this site have also found four surrounding areas (Central Plains, Haidai, Jianghan and Taihu Lake), and the scope of this cultural collection is also the core area of later China.
Team leader Zhang Dong explained the structure of the city wall for the experts
During the Longshan era, the site of Yuhui Village and large ceremonial buildings fully demonstrated that the prehistoric culture of the Huai River Basin had developed to a fairly high level. "Yuhui princes and Tu Shan, the ruler of the jade and the world", Yu because he married the daughter of tu Shan clan, not to harm the public, so he was able to gather the strength of everyone to control the water successfully, is the Huai River Basin prehistoric culture into the entire Chinese civilization of the process of pluralism and integration of the key node. However, as the excavation leaders themselves admitted, the legend of Yu in the Huai River Basin should be a historical memory of the events that the prehistoric culture reacted to here, but it is still prudent whether the details of history are as vivid as the legends depict.
Sacrificial ruins
But in any case, the archaeology of Yuhui Village adds historical and cultural identity to Bengbu, a city pulled up by trains in the Huai River Basin. Over the years, archaeological work has not only awakened the core city site of the study of prehistoric civilization in the Huai River Basin, but also combined with the JiaHu site in the upper reaches of the Huai River in the early huai river, the ruins of Wei Chi Temple in the middle reaches, the shuangdun sites, and the downstream sites such as Shunshan Ji, Longqiuzhuang, and Tenghualuo, together with the prehistoric civilizations of the Huai River that can be compared with the traditional four regions.
The ruins overlook