Yanggong Causeway

Yanggong Causeway

Yanggong Causeway

Located to the west of West Lake, during the Ming Dynasty there was a long causeway that connected the north and south, called Yangdi, also referred to as Yanggong Causeway. It is understood that after the Southern Song Dynasty, the government not only neglected the maintenance of West Lake but also allowed powerful families to encroach on the lake and turn it into farmland. This trend continued until the mid-Ming Dynasty, when West Lake was in critical danger of vanishing. In 1503, Yang Mengying became the prefect of Hangzhou. Going against public opinion, he began dredging West Lake on February 2, 1508, a project that took 152 days. At that time, 3,481 mu of farmland were reclaimed, and part of the excavated silt was used to reinforce Su Causeway, while the majority was used to construct a new causeway opposite Su Causeway. This new embankment started from the western side of Qixia Ridge, looped around Dingjia Mountain, and extended all the way to Nanshan. As a result, West Lake regained its landscape from the Tang and Song Dynasties, and north-south transportation was greatly improved. To honor him, people named this embankment “Yanggong Causeway.” During the Qing Dynasty, due to the silting up of the Inner Lake and the expansion of residential areas and mulberry fields to the west of Yanggong Causeway, few visitors came through, making the area quite desolate. In the second year of the Yongzheng reign (1724), Yanggong Causeway was eventually abandoned due to continuous silting of the Inner Lake and the growing agricultural land. The causeway stretched 3,328 meters from the Hupao Road intersection in the south to the Beishan Road intersection in the north, with a width of about 12 meters. It was built in the third year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty (1508) by Yang Mengying, then the prefect of Hangzhou, who dredged West Lake and used the silt to construct this long embankment along the western foothills of the lake. Later generations, in honor of his achievements in restoring West Lake, called it Yanggong Causeway. The causeway also features six bridges, commonly referred to as the “Inner Six Bridges,” which from north to south are: Huánbì (Jade Circle), Liújīn (Flowing Gold), Wòlóng (Reclining Dragon), Yǐnxiù (Hidden Beauty), Jǐngxíng (Admiring Virtue), and Jùnyuán (Dredging Source). These are echo the six bridges on the western Su Causeway, collectively known as the “Twelve Bridges of West Lake.” After the Qing Dynasty, as the Inner Lake gradually silted up and more mulberry fields expanded, Yanggong Causeway was abandoned. In 1947, Xishan Road was built on the original site of Yanggong Causeway. In December 2002, the “Westward Expansion of West Lake” project commenced, and Yanggong Causeway was completed in ten months. The remaining silt was mainly piled up along the western foothills of the lake to form a long embankment. Six bridges were constructed on this embankment: the first bridge, close to Jingkong Temple where clear spring water flows, was called “Huánbì” (Jade Circle); the second, as the source of Golden Sand Beach waters, was named “Liújīn” (Flowing Gold); the third, near the deep and mysterious Longtan Pool where auspicious light sometimes danced on the water, was titled “Wòlóng” (Reclining Dragon); the fourth was “Yǐnxiù” (Hidden Beauty); the fifth, built near the “Three Sages Shrine,” took its name from the line in the Book of Songs: “Look up to the high mountains, follow the virtuous path,” symbolizing reverence for virtue, and was called “Jǐngxíng” (Admiring Virtue); the sixth, as the source of water from both Hupao and Pearl Springs — “long flowing and full of blessings,” as the poem goes, “long flowing brings good fortune,” and thus required dredging — was named “Jùnyuán” (Dredging Source). These six bridges are known as the Inner Six Bridges, together with the Outer Six Bridges forming the “Twelve Bridges of West Lake.” Locals said, “From then on, West Lake returned to its former glory of the Tang and Song Dynasties.” Scholars and poets were overjoyed, composing poems and paintings in celebration. A West Lake bamboo-branch song praised: “At noon by the Twelve Bridges, wine shops and flower-lined shores glow. In carriages fragrant with scent, ladies lean o’er tombs by the show.” However, Yang Mengying made many powerful and wealthy families his enemies because of the dredging project and was transferred away the following year. Soon after, he resigned from office and returned to his hometown in Fuling. Over the next few centuries, Yanggong Causeway underwent many changes. By the Yongzheng reign of the Qing Dynasty, the western part of the lake had gradually begun to silt up again, and by the Qianlong era, the lake surface to the west of Yanggong Causeway had vanished. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, the then Nationalist Government conscripted Japanese troops who had surrendered in Hangzhou to build a road on the site of Yanggong Causeway, naming it Triumph Road. In 1950, the Hangzhou Municipal People's Government renovated the road again and renamed it Xishan Road.