How to play the "Qushui Liushang" in "Lantingxu"? The scene is reproduced in the Forbidden City!

The Ningshou Palace Garden, located in the Treasure House of the Palace Museum, was built in the 41st year of Emperor Qianlong's reign (1776) and was a place for Emperor Qianlong to visit after returning to power. In the Xishang Pavilion of the Ningshou Palace Garden, there is a winding stone-carved water trough, called the Liubei Channel, which was built by Emperor Qianlong in imitation of the "Qushui Liushang" in Wang Xizhi's "Preface to the Lanting Collection". Among them, Xi, also known as Xiuxi, refers to a sacrificial activity held by the waterside in the ancients in spring and autumn, mainly to wash away dirt and eliminate bad luck; Shang is a wine cup with a boat-shaped body and ears on both sides. The wine cup of "Qushui Liushang" is generally made of wood and has a support at the bottom, so it is as stable as a boat on the water. The emperor and his ministers sat around the canal, and whoever the wine cup floated to had to write a poem or drink a glass of wine as a penalty.

The "Qushui Liushang" activity in the Xishang Pavilion originated from the ancient Chinese waterside sacrifice. This sacrificial activity appeared as early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, and then gradually developed into a poetry and wine entertainment participated by literati and scholars. The most representative of these was the Xishang activity held by Wang Xizhi, then the Internal History of Kuaiji, at the Lanting Pavilion in Kuaiji (now southwest of Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province) on the third day of the third month in the ninth year of Yonghe (353). Wang Xizhi and his friends Xie An, Sun Chuo and 41 others gathered at the Lanting Pavilion to drink and compose poems, and compiled the poems into a collection called "Lanting Collection". Wang Xizhi specially wrote a preface for the collection of poems, called "Lanting Collection Preface". He believed that in the mountains and ridges, beside the lush forests and bamboos, although there was no stringed and bamboo music, everyone recited poems by the water, expressed their feelings in the natural gardens, and enjoyed it. The Emperor Qianlong ordered people to build a flowing cup channel in the Xishang Pavilion, which also expressed this kind of garden elegance.

The ground area where Liubei Channel is located is about 4.5 meters long and 3.7 meters wide, and is paved with stone slabs. Its shape features are: with the stone slab in the middle as the axis of symmetry, there are 4 curved water troughs on the north and south sides; the water inlet and outlet are located in the middle of the outermost water troughs on the south and north sides respectively. The water trough is 27 meters long and in the shape of "nine bends", with different bending arcs of different sizes at different positions. In this way, when a wine glass drifts in the water, it is easy to be temporarily "stopped" by the "nine bends" of the channel wall. The cross-section of the water trough is a convex arc with a wide top and a narrow bottom: the upper width is about 0.21 meters, the lower width is about 0.05 meters, and the depth is about 0.18 meters. This cross-section design corresponds to the boat-shaped wine glass, which is convenient for the wine glass to drift on the water. Looking at Liubei Channel from a distance, its shape is like a long winding dragon, and also like a traditional Chinese character "wind". According to on-site investigation, the construction method of the Liubei Channel is to first lay a number of stones flat on the ground, then draw the outline of the trough on it, and then chisel and grind each stone slab separately to carve out different parts of the Liubei Channel, and then assemble them on-site, and finally use waterproof mortar to grout the joints of the assembled stones.

The water supply method and landscape design of the "Qushui Liushang" in the Xishang Pavilion contain rich ancient wisdom.

From the perspective of water supply, the water used in "Qushui Liushang" is cleverly drawn. There is a rockery on the south side of the Xishang Pavilion, and further south is the water room. There are two jars in the water room, each with an upper diameter of 1.4 meters, a lower diameter of 0.8 meters, and a height of 1 meter, which can store 2.7 tons of water. The bottom opening of the jar is connected to a water pipe, which passes through the bottom of the rockery and reaches the Liubei Channel. Water enters from the bottom of the railing on the south side of the Liubei Channel. The diameter of the bottom water outlet is about 0.1 meters. The trickle flows slowly along the "wind"-shaped Liubei Channel, which is full of poetic and picturesque beauty.

It should be noted that the water source of the water tank is located in the well south of the water room. When holding the "Qushui Liushang" entertainment, water needs to be taken from the well and poured into the tank to ensure a continuous water flow. The flow of water is mainly generated by water pressure. The more water in the tank, the greater its gravity, the greater the water pressure generated, and the faster the water flows. When the water in the tank is about to reach the bottom, the water flow slows down and gradually stops, producing the same effect as a temporary stop due to "hitting the wall". According to preliminary calculations, it takes about 6 minutes for a tank of water to flow through the canal. This time can meet the needs of a "program" of drinking and writing poetry.

From the perspective of landscape design, "Qushui Liushang" embodies the exquisite gardening skills of ancient my country. Here, "qu" has two uses: one is to show the winding and varied artistic form of waterscape, and the other is to make the wine cup drift for a certain time and distance, which is conducive to creating a better atmosphere for activities; "water", as the source of life, makes people close and produces a pleasant feeling, and the water body with rich forms not only forms a "one hard and one soft" landscape echo with the rockery, but also provides an important carrier for the activities of the monarch and his ministers by the water; the "flowing" water gives vitality to the Xishang Pavilion area, creates the artistic conception of mountain streams, and also provides an elegant way for the monarch and his ministers to recite poems and compose couplets; "shang" embodies the public attributes of humanistic activities, which coincides with the leisure attributes of ancient Chinese gardens. In addition, the rockery on the south side of the Liubei Channel is stacked according to local conditions, flexibly divides the garden space, cleverly embellishes the scenery around the Xishang Pavilion, adds mountain and wild interest in the artificial environment, and cleverly blocks the water room. The white marble railings on both sides of Liubei Canal are carved with bamboo patterns, echoing Wang Xizhi's "lush forests and lush bamboos" and reflecting the ancient people's elegant taste and garden-building wisdom.

In summary, the "Qushui Liushang" in the Forbidden City is a representative of the exquisite landscape in ancient Chinese gardens. It not only contains a strong humanistic artistic conception, but also embodies the outstanding wisdom of ancient craftsmen.