Nine kilometres south of the tomb at Guodian lie the ruins of Ying, capital of the ancient state of Chu for four centuries; in 1993, workers opened a nearby Warring States burial and found bamboo slips bearing the oldest known copy of the Daoist classic by Laozi.
郭店古墓以南九公里,便是楚国故都郢城的遗址,楚国曾在此建都长达四个世纪之久;一九九三年,工人们在附近发掘出一座战国墓葬,出土的竹简中,竟藏有迄今所知最早的道家经典《老子》抄本。
The tomb held 804 bamboo slips in total, some 730 of them inscribed with over 13,000 characters of Chu script; alongside the Tao Te Ching fragments were versions of Confucian texts thought lost for two thousand years, some never seen before in any form. Scholars have since identified the tomb’s occupant as a royal tutor, teacher to the prince who would become King Qingxiang of Chu.
墓中共出土竹简八百零四枚,其中约七百三十枚刻有楚国文字,总计逾一万三千字;除《老子》残篇外,竹简中还发现了多部失传两千年的儒家典籍,部分内容此前从未有人见过。学者们后来确认,墓主生前曾是一位王室教师,教导的正是后来的楚顷襄王。
Jingmen itself sits in central Hubei, its name meaning gateway to Jingzhou, one of the nine ancient provinces of China; the city administers four districts, two counties and one county-level city, and recorded a permanent population of just over 2.55 million at the end of 2024.
荆门本身位于湖北中部,其名意为”荆州之门”,荆州乃中国古代九州之一;该市下辖四区、两县及一个县级市,截至二零二四年底,常住人口约为二百五十五万零七百人。
A Reservoir Older than the Jellyfish It Shelters
一座比其栖居的水母还要古老的水库
According to the city’s own 2024 economic communiqué, Jingmen’s GDP passed ¥246 billion that year, with per capita output rising 6.6 percent to ¥96,445, among the higher figures in the province. Guides for the city, somewhat improbably, also describe it as home to the largest special-purpose aircraft design and flight-test base in China, alongside a role as the largest natural gas distribution hub in central China.
据该市自身发布的二零二四年经济统计公报显示,当年荆门市地区生产总值突破二千四百六十亿元,人均GDP增长百分之六点六,达九万六千四百四十五元,在全省名列前茅。相关资料还颇为出人意料地称,荆门是中国最大的特种飞机设计与试飞基地所在地,同时也是华中地区最大的天然气集散中心。
None of that industry is visible from Zhanghe Reservoir, built between 1958 and 1966 some 18 kilometres east of the city and now a national wetland park. The reservoir is one of the few known habitats of the peach blossom jellyfish, a translucent freshwater species so sensitive to pollution that its presence is treated locally as a rough measure of water quality.
漳河水库距市区约十八公里,始建于一九五八年,一九六六年建成,如今已是国家湿地公园;这些工业气息在库区丝毫不见踪影。这里也是桃花水母为数不多的已知栖息地之一,这种半透明的淡水物种对污染极为敏感,当地人甚至将其存在视作衡量水质的一项参考。
Trip.com listings for the reservoir’s scenic area describe sailing among its scattered islands as feeling like moving through a landscape painting, and mark it as a designated 4A tourist site alongside a national wetland park classification. Locals more often mention it for a simpler reason, as one of the coolest spots in Jingmen during a Hubei summer that regularly pushes past 35 degrees Celsius.
携程网上关于漳河风景区的介绍称,泛舟于星罗棋布的岛屿之间,宛如置身山水画卷之中,该景区同时被评为国家4A级旅游景区与国家湿地公园。而当地人提起它时,理由往往更朴素——在湖北夏季气温动辄突破三十五摄氏度之时,这里是荆门少有的清凉去处之一。
The Emperor Who Never Ruled from His Own Tomb
一位从未在自己陵墓中执政的皇帝
Roughly 60 kilometres away, on Chunde Hill near Zhongxiang, stands Xianling Mausoleum, the joint tomb of Emperor Jiajing’s father and mother; it took 40 years to build, from 1519 to 1559, and covers 183 hectares behind 3,600 metres of outer walls. Neither of its occupants ever ruled as emperor themselves.
约六十公里外的钟祥市纯德山上,矗立着明显陵,是嘉靖皇帝生父与生母的合葬陵寝;陵墓历时四十年建成,自一五一九年始建,至一五五九年竣工,占地一百八十三公顷,外围城墙绵延三千六百米。而这两位墓主,生前都未曾真正登基为帝。
Jiajing became emperor in 1521 without his own father ever having held the throne, and later insisted on posthumously elevating both parents to imperial rank, a decision that reshaped Ming court politics and produced a mausoleum unlike any other from the dynasty, built as two enclosed compounds within a single tomb park. UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List in 2000, and one Trip.com visitor, comparing it with the crowded Ming Tombs near Beijing, called it grander than anywhere else, minus the tour groups.
嘉靖于一五二一年登基,而他的生父生前从未称帝;嘉靖后来坚持追封双亲帝后尊号,这一决定重塑了明朝宫廷政治格局,也造就了明代绝无仅有的陵寝布局——一座陵园之内竟有”一陵两冢”。二零零零年,该陵墓被联合国教科文组织列入世界遗产名录;一位携程网游客将其与北京人满为患的明十三陵相比较,称这里论气势毫不逊色,却少了拥挤的旅行团。
Mochou Village sits on the approach road to the tomb, a folk-culture site built around performances and local snacks that most visitors pass through before or after seeing the mausoleum itself, and Mochou Lake Wetland Park lies just to its south.
通往陵墓的道路旁便是莫愁村,这处民俗文化景点以表演和地方小吃为特色,多数游客都会在参观陵墓前后顺道一游,而莫愁湖湿地公园就位于其南侧。
Back at Guodian, the tomb that gave up the Laozi has long since been resealed, its contents transferred to the Jingmen Museum for study and display; the ruins of Ying remain nine kilometres away, largely unexcavated, holding whatever else the Chu kings left behind.
而在郭店,那座出土《老子》抄本的古墓早已重新封存,竹简则被移交至荆门市博物馆保存与展出;九公里外的郢城遗址至今大部分仍未发掘,楚国先王留下的其他遗存,依旧静静埋藏在地下。
Jingmen West station sits on the Wuhan-Yichang high-speed line, putting Wuhan roughly two hours away, while a separate line opened in December 2024 cuts the journey south to Jingzhou to just 28 minutes; the city has no commercial airport of its own, so travellers flying in typically land at Wuhan Tianhe and continue by rail or road.
荆门西站位于汉宜高铁线上,前往武汉车程约两小时;二零二四年十二月,一条新线路开通,将南下荆州的车程缩短至仅二十八分钟。荆门本身并无民用机场,乘飞机前来的旅客通常在武汉天河机场降落,再转乘高铁或公路前往荆门。
