Tahubao City

Tahubao City

Tahubao City is a national key cultural relics protection unit.

Tahubao City is a national key cultural relics protection unit, located on the plains of the southern bank of the Nenjiang River, north of Beishangtaizi Village in Balang Township, in the northern part of Qian Gorlos Mongolian Autonomous County, Songyuan City, Jilin Province. It lies near the Baicheng area, east of Chagan Lake, 50 kilometers south of the county seat and 10 kilometers northwest of Da’an County. It is the site of an ancient city from the Liao Dynasty.

Introduction to the Site

In the eighth year of the Chongxi reign of the Liao Dynasty (1039 AD), a prefectural city was established here. The city is square-shaped, with a perimeter of 5,181 meters, built from earth and standing 6 meters high. It has four gates, of which only the west gate is relatively well-preserved. This was the “traveling palace” of the Liao emperors and a stopover for spring hunting. In its heyday, in addition to housing Liao troops, it was also a Buddhist sacred site and a trade hub. Many cultural relics from the Tang to the Liao Dynasties have been unearthed here.

Architectural Features

Tahubao, a Liao and Jin Dynasty site, is located on the plains of the southern bank of the Nenjiang River, north of Beishangtaizi Village in Balang Township, Qian Gorlos Mongolian Autonomous County. Ten kilometers to the northwest is Da’an City, and one kilometer to the west of the city lies the Changchun–Baicheng Railway, with the Changbai Highway passing through the city. “Tahubao” means “bighead carp” in Mongolian, named after the surrounding lakes that were once abundant in this fish.

The city is square-shaped, facing due south, with a perimeter of 5,213 meters. The east wall is 1,314 meters, the west wall 1,298 meters, the north wall 1,323 meters, and the south wall 1,278 meters long. The city walls are 5 to 6.5 meters high, with a base width of 20 to 25 meters and a top width of 1.5 to 2 meters. Each of the four walls features 16 battlements. At each of the four corners, there is the remains of a watchtower, circular in shape, slightly inset into the city and protruding outward at the corners. The base diameter is [missing value] meters, the top diameter 28 meters, and they rise 1.5 meters above the walls. From the watchtower sites, one could monitor both sides of the adjacent walls, working in coordination with the battlements. There are four city gates, each located in the middle of the four walls.

Tahubao City Ruins

Both the south and north gates have been damaged, the east gate is partially ruined, but the west gate is relatively well-preserved. Outside each gate is a semi-circular barbican with a radius of about 30 meters, and the barbican gate is situated on the side. The south and north gates are 25.2 meters wide, with the barbican gate slightly offset to the east. The west gate is 12.3 meters wide, the east gate 18.5 meters, with their barbican gates both offset to the south. The city walls were built from rammed earth, with clear layers visible. About 10 meters outside the wall base, there are two moats, with an 8-meter-wide earthen ridge between them, standing 4 to 5 meters above the moat beds. The inner moat is 13.5 meters wide, the outer 11.5 meters, and both are about 3.6 meters deep. At the barbicans, the moats bend outward following their shape. Outside the watchtowers, beyond the two moats, there is an additional short moat with a wider embankment, extending to the first battlements on either side of the watchtowers and connecting with the second moat. Outside the east gate, there is an east-west channel, 750 meters long and 80 meters wide, which was the original waterway that diverted water from the Nenjiang River into the moat. The interior of the city has been turned into farmland, with eight distinct raised platforms about 0.5 meters above the ground surface, scattered with bricks and tiles, indicating the locations of buildings.

The building site at the northwest corner is 33 meters long from east to west and 32 meters wide from north to south, standing about 2.5 meters above the ground, covered with debris of tiles and bricks. There are remnants of two earthen walls, and on the surface of the ruins can be seen parts of architectural ornaments such as beast-mask roof tiles, green-glazed tubular tiles, and raven-tail decorations. In the southeastern corner of the city, there used to be a high platform surrounded by an earthen wall, now leveled, with scattered fragments of bricks, tiles, pottery, and porcelain.

Excavation of the Site

In the southwestern corner of the city, there were once four sites, now leveled. Within the city, within about 100 meters on either side of the highway and stretching 700 meters from north to south, there is a thick layer of ash, with a concentrated distribution of pottery shards and architectural ornaments. Black-and-white Go pieces, Northern Song copper coins, and iron and copper caltrops have been unearthed here. Approximately 700 meters from the south wall and 700 meters from the west wall, there is an earthen mound where the eastern, southern, and northern sides are slightly higher, with a concentrated distribution of artifacts. On the high platform to the east, a large amount of iron slag and scorched earth were found, indicating the site of an iron smelting workshop. The cultural strata in the city reach a depth of 5 meters, including ashes, fish bones, and animal bones. Many sites related to the city have also been discovered in the surrounding area. Fifty meters northeast of the city wall, there is an oval earthen platform. The base of this platform is 38 meters long from east to west and 30 meters wide from north to south, standing 5 meters high, built from brick and lime-mortared joints, making it very solid. The surface of the platform is inlaid with decorative bricks featuring patterns such as peonies and lotuses. Beneath the platform, a bronze wind chime was unearthed — a square column with curling cloud corners on all four sides, exquisitely crafted. The platform has been damaged and now only the earthen mound remains. Artifacts indicate that this platform was likely the base of a pagoda from the Liao Dynasty. To the east and north of the city, residential and building sites have been found, while to the south, west, and north, multiple small urn burial tombs have been discovered. In 1975, a brick-chambered tomb was found to the south of the city. The tomb chamber is square with a vaulted ceiling, its inner walls coated with white plaster and painted with murals. Burial objects included bronze mirrors and several pieces of pottery and porcelain. The city yielded a wealth of artifacts, including large quantities of bricks, tiles, and pottery shards. The architectural components are finely crafted and elegantly shaped. Porcelain from famous kilns across the Central Plains has been found here, including a number of intact pieces. These include soy-sauce glazed fish-patterned bowls, Ding kiln white-glazed lotus plates, lotus bowls, twin-fish bowls, white-glazed melon-ribbed columns, white-glazed small-mouth bottles, chicken-leg jars, black-glazed double-handled ewers, soy-sauce glazed three-spout and three-handled ewers, and green-glazed long-necked bottles. Bronze mirrors are the most frequently found bronze items, including double-dragon mirrors, child-playing-with-flowers mirrors, twin-fish mirrors, Zhao-ming mirrors, auspicious-beast mirrors, zodiac mirrors, and vermilion sparrow mirrors. The double-dragon mirror has the inscription “Changtai County Supervision” on its rim. There are three twin-fish mirrors, two of which have inscriptions on the rim — one reading “Xinzhou Sihu Office” and the other “Zhaozhou Sihu Office.” The mirror with the most inscriptions found in the city is the auspicious-beast mirror, with 28 characters and the rim inscription “Changchun County xx.” The Huzhou mirror is thin with refined engravings and a unique shape, with the inscription in regular script “Huzhou’s genuine Shi Shiba Lang, smelted bronze incomparable mirror.” Bronze figurines, bronze Buddha statues, bronze cauldrons, and bronze coins have also been frequently excavated. Since the late Qing Dynasty, when the site was cultivated, numerous bronze coins have been found, ranging from just a few to over a thousand jin. Most are from the Northern Song Dynasty, with the rest from the Tang, Southern Song, Liao, and Jin Dynasties. Among the production tools unearthed in the city are mainly iron plowshares, plow mirrors, plow tips, blades, axes, adzes, and stone mills, as well as iron arrowheads and other weapons.

In 1961, the People's Committee of Jilin Province designated this site as a Jilin Provincial Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units