A photo, a piece of history.
About the series of old photos taken by Zhang Bolin's delegation in the late Qing Dynasty when he visited China for inspection, the History Mirror Museum has published several issues. From these old photos, we see that China of that era, whether it is good or bad, truly reflects the life status of the people at that time.
This issue of the Historical Mirror Museum will continue to take you to see the late Qing Dynasty China under the lens of Zhang Bolin.
The inspection team left Taiyuan on the morning of May 18, 1909 and headed for Shijiazhuang. This was the scenery on the road.
You can see that the houses are all built on the mountainside.
This is a small town in Shanxi photographed by the inspection team. There are small houses lined up one after another. You can see that there are three wires on the picture.
These are two members of the inspection team, one is Li San and the other is surnamed Chang. They were sitting on the ground chatting.
This is the suburbs of Shanxi. You can see that there is only one house in the photo, with some small trees next to it, and there is no people. When the delegation went to Zhangjiakou , they saw some Buddhist stele pagodas along the way, so they took this photo. In the distance are continuous mountains.
This is when Xuanhuacheng , you can see that there is also a simple shed built here, and another tea stall. Several people were walking towards the photographer, and there were children, and there seemed to be more trees here.
This is at a station in Beijing. You can see several police officers standing by the platform, and there are many passengers getting on and off the bus.
This is a tour of the Temple of Heaven. Here, they encountered this group of workers building tents, which was said to be because the emperor was coming to the Temple of Heaven.
We all know that the Temple of Heaven was a place for emperors to worship the emperor and pray for a bumper harvest in the next year in the Ming and Qing dynasties. It has two altars of Circular Mound and Jujube Valley. The Circular Mound is located in the southern half of the Temple of Heaven, facing north and south. It was built in the ninth year of Jiajing (1530).
Circular Mound Altar is a place for holding a ceremony for the winter solstice sacrifice. The main buildings include Circular Mound, Imperial Void and the accompanying hall, the God Chef, the Sanku and slaughtering and pavilion . The annexes include service desk , looking at lamps, etc.
1900, after the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance, established a headquarters in the Temple of Heaven Zhai Palace , and also put cannons on the Circular Mound. Many cultural relics were stolen, many buildings were destroyed, and they could no longer see their original appearance. Therefore, the buildings at that time can be seen from some old photos, which is very valuable for the archaeological work.
This is a photo taken by the inspection team. You can see a city gate entrance in the distance and a bridge in the middle.
They walked to the bridge and took a photo. The person sitting on the bridge was Li San from the inspection team, who was responsible for the translation work.
Reference materials:
Cultural Relics Bureau of the Ministry of Culture. Chinese Dictionary of Places (Second Edition): Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, 2012.
