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Story 156: Tianjin City is also called Abacus City

Tianjin City is also called Abacus City

Author: Anonymous

Tianjin City is also called Abacus City. The city wall is long from east to west and short from north to south, just like a big abacus.

How did Tianjin’s Abacus City come about?

Legend has it that after Liu Bowen of the Ming Dynasty built the capital city of Beijing with nine inside and seven outside, he saw that Beijing was surrounded by mountains on three sides, but the south side was flat, as if the camp gate was wide open; he also saw that Tianjin was located at the lower end of nine rivers, a strategic point of water and land, a place for the distribution of salt and grain, which was just right to guard the capital gate, so he decided to build a city here as well.

Liu Bowen led a group of people to inspect Tianjin for many days and was very satisfied with the geographical location. However, when it came to building the city, there were two things that made him feel awkward. The first was that the treasury was empty and he could not afford the money. The second was whether the city wall should be built south or north of the Sancha River estuary. He was undecided for a while.

That night, the drums had already struck three o’clock. Liu Bowen was worried and couldn’t fall asleep, so he put on his clothes and went out, walking alone. At this time, it was late at night, the sky was quiet, the moon was bright, and the stars were shining. He walked to the south of the Sancha River estuary, and suddenly saw a giant standing tall not far in front of him, sitting on the ground with his back to him. The man was also two or three feet tall, with a golden helmet on his head and golden armor on his body, shining.

It turned out to be a golden armor god! Liu Bowen was shocked after seeing it, and wanted to turn around and retreat, but then he thought: This god must have a purpose to sit here in the middle of the night, I have to find out. So he walked lightly, walked around the golden armor god, and looked carefully.

I saw that the golden armor god held the golden drum in his left hand and the abacus in his right hand, sitting there calmly and without saying a word. While Liu Bowen was surprised, the golden armor god suddenly turned into a wisp of light smoke and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

The next day, Liu Bowen immediately ordered people to dig at the place where the Golden Armor God was meditating. While digging, the shovel hit something hard, and there was a bang. Liu Bowen told everyone to be careful not to damage the digging objects. After a while, a two-foot square gold brick was dug at each of the four corners of the east, west, south and north. Now there was money to build the city, and Liu Bowen was overjoyed.

He ordered a three-story drum tower to be built at the place where the Golden Armor God was meditating, with four gates named “Gongbei”, “Dingnan”, “Zhendong” and “Anxi”. Then, with the drum tower as the center, a rectangular city wall was built around it in the shape of the abacus held by the Golden Armor God. The city was 504 feet long from east to west and 324 feet long from north to south. The total length of the city was 9 li and 18 steps, just like a huge abacus.

With the drum tower as the center, four streets were opened, with one end of the street reaching the drum tower and the other reaching the city gate. This was the later Tianjin City.