Shanghai Travel - The city planning of Zhongjing City of Liao imitated that of Bianjing

¡¡The city planning of Zhongjing City of Liao imitated that of Bianjing City of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127),Shanghai Travel, with three rings of cities, namely the outer city, the inner city and the imperial palace. Taking a rectangular shape, the outer city was 4,200 meters long from east to west, and 3,500 meters wide from south to north. A gate was open in the center of the south wall, with a small defensive town built outside the gate that had a turret in each of the four corners. From the south gate of the outer city, the Zhuxia Gate, to the south gate of the inner city, the Yangde Gate, the whole distance was about 1,400 meters, with a 64-meter-wide street lying in the center. On both sides of the street, two drains covered with wooden boards led to the stone culverts cut at the foot of the city wall on both sides of the Zhuxia Gate. A saddle-shaped mount protruded in the center of the street, about 500 meters to the Zhuxia Gate. It is believed that this mount is the remnant of a building. Along both sides of the central street were symmetrically distributed streets, of which 6 stretching from south to north and 10 from east to west, all about 4-15 meters wide. These streets cut the city into lanes where lived the Han people. ¡¡¡¡ ¡¡¡¡,China Pictures;To the north of the outer city were sites of temples, posthouses and official bureaus. On the hillside in the northwest of the city scattered a number of temple sites. A multi-eave brick pagoda was built in the northeast corner of the south city, near the south wall of the inner city. Legend has it that it was a dagoba built in the Gansheng Temple, now known as Daming Temple, inside the Zhongjing City during the reign years of Emperor Zhongzong of Liao. Built on a 6-meter-high base, the octangular pagoda was 74 meters high with 13 floors. Seen from outside of the first layer, the front four sides of the pagoda were carved with figures of Buddha, Bodhisattva, Hercules and Flying Apsaras while the back four sides were divided into double layers, with the upper layer carved with the name of this pagoda and the lower layer with the name of the Bodhisattva. It was built with a simple and vigorous style that made it a masterpiece among architectures of the Liao Dynasty. To its southwest was another pagoda of 24 meters high, which known as Small Pagoda. Also an octagonal pagoda with 13 floors, it was believed to be built during the late Liao Dynasty or Jin Dynasty.