Site of the Shangjing Longquanfu Capital of the Bohai Kingdom

Site of the Shangjing Longquanfu Capital of the Bohai Kingdom

The site of the Shangjing Longquanfu Capital of the Bohai Kingdom is a national AAAA-level tourist attraction and a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level.

The site of the Shangjing Longquanfu Capital of the Bohai Kingdom is located in Dongjingcheng, Ning'an County, Heilongjiang Province. The Bohai Kingdom was a local regime established during China’s Tang Dynasty in the northeastern region, primarily formed by the Sumo Mohe people of the Sushen ethnic group. It had five capitals throughout its history, with Shangjing Longquanfu serving as its primary capital.

The ancient city is surrounded by mountains on all sides and bordered by the Mudan River on three. In the late Tianbao era of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, King Wen Daeheungmu relocated the capital here from the Old Capital, but it was moved again to Dongjing Longyuanfu in the early Zhenyuan period. In the tenth year of Zhenyuan (794), King Seong Daeheungmu moved the capital back to Shangjing, which remained the capital until the Bohai Kingdom was destroyed by Liao Taizu Yelü Abaoji in the first year of Tianxian (926). The Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (later affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) conducted large-scale surveys and excavations at the site between 1963 and 1964, further clarifying the layout and structure of the capital city.

The layout and scale of Shangjing were entirely modeled after the Tang capital Chang’an, consisting of an inner city, outer city, and palace city. The entire city has a rectangular plan, with the outer city spanning a perimeter of 17.5 kilometers. The city walls, built from stone blocks, are about 2.4 meters thick, and there is a moat outside the walls. There are ten city gates in total—three on the north and south sides each, and two on the east and west sides each, arranged symmetrically. Inside the city, there are five east-west streets and three north-south streets, all laid out in straight lines. These streets intersect to divide the city into many neat rectangular blocks, each containing wards enclosed by stone walls, most of which have streets on only two sides.

The inner city is situated in the center of the northern part of the outer city, with a perimeter of approximately 2.5 kilometers. Its walls are built of stone and stand about 3 meters high, though now partially ruined.

The palace city is located in the center of the inner city, with a rectangular layout measuring about 1,390 meters from north to south and 1,050 meters from east to west. It is surrounded by stone walls, with one gate on each of the four sides. The palace complex is located in the center of the palace city, where the foundations of five tiered palaces remain, aligned along the central axis from north to south. The first two palaces served ceremonial and court assembly functions and were the largest in scale. Their foundations are built of stone and decorated with carved stone dragon heads. The floors are paved with square bricks featuring lotus patterns, and the column bases are topped with green-glazed pottery “column pedestals.” The roofs were covered with gray tiles mixed with green-glazed ones, and the ridges were adorned with green-glazed ridge ornaments and animal head decorations. The three smaller rear palaces likely functioned as residential quarters and included heating facilities such as heated bed platforms and chimneys.

To the east of the palace city lies the site of the imperial garden, with a pond covering nearly 20,000 square meters to its south. On the north side, there were originally two pavilions facing each other from east to west, with their original column base stones still preserved. Artificial rockeries and the remains of pavilions and halls can be found on both the eastern and western sides of the pond.

The ruins of the Shangjing Longquanfu Capital of the Bohai Kingdom serve as important physical evidence for the study of Bohai history, as well as the urban and architectural history of the Tang Dynasty. In March 1961, the site was designated by the State Council as one of the first batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level.

Further Reading:

· First Batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level