Shanxi Travel Guide
The ancient city of Pingyao is almost as old as the legends before the recorded history of Chinese nationality. According to the Records of Pingyao County, in the period of remote antiquity, Pingyao had been recorded as Tao-Tang, the manor of Yao who was the king of a union tribe in period of Fathers' Society of Chinese nationality. This is why Pingyao was called the Ancient Tao before the Dynasties of Qin and Han.
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| Pingyao China |
We could calculate accordingly that the history of Pingyao has been lasting for 4,000 years. In period of Spring & Autumn, the Ancient Tao belongs to the Jin Kingdom, and to the Zhao Kingdom later. The county system replaced the manor system when the First Emperor of Qin unified the whole county. The Ancient Tao was set as the county location and changed name to Ping Tao. In early Dynasty of Northern Wei, The Ping Tao was renamed as Pingyao, to avoid the pronunciation Tao, because the Emperor then was named as Tuo Ba Tao. From the Qin Dynasty to now, then the name has been changeable somehow, but the county level of Pingyao has never changed. So, we could conclude that Pingyao as a county level city has been long in existence for about 2,200 years. History of the city wall of Pingyao is even longer. According to the historical records, in the Dynasty of West Zhou, the King of Xuan dispatched his general Mr.Yin Jie Fu fighting against invaders of other nationalities. Mr. Yin stationed his troops in the Ancient Tao, and constructed the defense walls, then which have been about 2,800 years old. In early Ming Dynasty, started by the year of 1370, for the military purpose the government enlarged and reconstructed the city wall to the present size. In later period of 500 years of Ming & Qing, the wall had been reconstructed and repaired for 26 times with basic style and size remained without changes.
By now, the magnificent general like wall has been standing there for 600 years through the war flames and natural corrosions. The river flow onwards and the mountain still stands three, but we can not help time by time recalling the sad past. Glints and flash of the striking up swords and spears, and flames and explosions of war all have become historical things. Military function of the strong and high city wall have been little useful. Now days, however, the old wall carrying historical scars all over the body is days and nights giving presentations to the later generations about the changing dynasties and the events occurred in the past thousand years. The ruined site, ancient county and old wall of Pingyao by all means are a mini-photo and a witness of the long standing history of China. This is true that one can never help thinking of the historical and glorious past of Pinyao in front of the great and grey colored city wall.
