These two mountains, to be exact, are two huge rock pillars. They are arranged in turn from south to north, and look like twin brothers standing side by side. The peak is as steep as a knife, with a rich top and a sharp bottom, which looks like a pagoda, giving people an illusion of top-heaviness.
(Shuangtashan)
Visitors who come here often have inexplicable fears when looking up at these two peaks, fearing that the peaks with strange structures will suddenly collapse and bury themselves here.
These two mountains are extremely steep and stand tall, forming a strange and steep appearance. It's a shame that even the best climber can't climb it. It is determined that the north peak is about 35 meters high, with a diameter of 15 meters and a circumference of 74 meters. Nanfeng is 30 meters high, 8 meters in diameter and 34 meters in circumference.
What is even more peculiar is that there are two ancient pagodas on the two peaks. However, due to the age, both ancient pagodas have become ruins. Beifeng Pagoda is about 2 meters high and conical. Nanfeng Ancient Pagoda faces south and is relatively complete, with a height of about 5.2 meters and a width of about 2.5 meters. You can clearly see the tower gate about 2.2 meters high below.
Both towers are made of blue bricks, and there are squares in the four corners of the tower, and wind chimes are hung on the corners.
(Ancient Pagoda on the Twin Towers)
This peculiar ancient pagoda built on the top of Qifeng Mountain is the only one in China. It turns out that no one can climb such a mountain. Why are there ancient pagodas on it? What kind of tower is it? Who built it?
There is such a record in the Jehol Record of the Qing Dynasty:? Shuangta Mountain is located 8 miles north of Luanping County and 8 miles northeast of Tunxing Palace in Karahe River. It has two peaks, big and small, and the height exceeds 100 feet. For example, slope protection is not as good as each other. One peak and three holes, bright inside and outside. ?
Records of Chengde Prefecture:? The top of the Twin Towers is an acre wide, and there is an ancient temple at the top of the East Tower. I don't know who built it. It's tilted. There is a small monument beside it, engraved with the word Wang Cui. ?
Looking through the historical materials, I can't find the historical records of the Twin Towers, and I can't find who the builders are.
However, after many field trips, cultural relics workers discovered the secrets of the Twin Towers from some clues.
1966, the curator of the Summer Resort Museum collected a residual stone Buddha statue from Shuangta Mountain. Ji Xiaolan's Notes on Yuewei Caotang recorded the origin of this Buddha statue in detail.
One night in the forty-seventh year of Qianlong, it was raining cats and dogs, lightning and thunder. A stone Buddha fell from the twin towers and was collected by the abbot of Guandi Temple not far from here and enshrined in the temple.
Later, during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression period, the Guandi Temple was destroyed and the Shuangtashan Power Station was built on the original site. The stone Buddha that fell from the mountain was collected by monks and enshrined in another small temple.
(portrait of qidan people)
At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, this small temple was also destroyed in the vigorous movement of breaking the capitalism. 1966, the curator of the museum found the smashed Buddha statue in a small ditch next to the small temple. It is obvious from the characteristics of the Buddha statue that it is a relic of the early Liao Dynasty. It is inferred that these two ancient pagodas were built in Liao Dynasty.
1976 during the Tangshan earthquake, several blue bricks fell from the summit.
Some of these blue bricks are rectangular, 50 cm long and 25 cm wide. Some are squares with a side length of 35 cm. By contrast, these blue bricks have six to seven rough grooves on the back, which are typical Liao Dynasty bricks, thus confirming that the ancient pagodas on Shuangfeng were really built in the early Liao Dynasty.
Then, why did the Khitans waste money and money to build a stupa on a high mountain? Some experts speculate that this is a tomb tower built by Liao people.
As we all know, the Khitan people have mountains and mountains. They regard the mountain as a sacred mountain and believe that people should return to it after death. Some of their tombs and ancestral temples were built on the so-called sacred mountains, which are different from those in the south? Hanging coffins? Have something in common.
Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the funeral customs of the Khitans were very strange. Don't they bury people as often as the Han people bury the dead? Put it on a mountain tree and burn it three years later? This is the famous Khitan? Tree burial? .
When the Khitans see such a majestic, steep and towering mountain peak, they will certainly be in awe, so it is not surprising that the tomb tower will be built on it.
(portrait of Qianlong)
So, can you find evidence of the Khitan tombs in the Twin Towers?
It is said that the famous emperor Qianlong in history has been there. According to the Notes of Yuewei Caotang, in the fifty-five years of Qianlong, the emperor Qianlong was stationed in Chengde Mountain Villa, and he heard that there was Ganoderma lucidum on Shuangta Mountain. So he ordered the manager of Jehol to build a wooden ladder and climb the Shuangta Mountain. He found a small house on another mountain peak. How many incense burners? There is an old book on the table and a pair of straw sandals beside the incense burner. On another peak? Planting two beds of leeks is like a garden, not a person? .
As can be seen from the above records, Emperor Qianlong did not find the so-called Ganoderma lucidum on the mountain, nor did he find any clues about the tombs of the Khitans in the ancient pagoda.
So, how did the Khitans accomplish such a magnificent project?
Some people say that the Shuangtashan area was originally the sea of Wang Yang, and Shuangtashan is an island on the sea. People climbed to the island by boat and built the Twin Towers. But this can obviously only be a legend, because the history of blue bricks is only a few thousand years, and Chengde area is the time of the sea, and I am afraid it can be traced back to hundreds of millions of years ago.
Others say that Shuangta Mountain used to be a stone wall. After the tomb tower was restored, most of the stone walls collapsed due to strong earthquakes, leaving only two huge solitary stone pillars. However, if the stone wall collapsed due to changes such as earthquakes, the twin towers on the stone pillars would have long since ceased to exist.
The most likely explanation is that when the Khitans built the Twin Towers, they took two stone pillars as fulcrums, set up wooden ladders between the stone pillars and spiraled up to the summit, and transported all the materials from the wooden ladders.
However, such a huge project is by no means something that ordinary people can do. So it is speculated that the Khitan royal family should be buried on the Twin Towers.