Beijing, an ancient capital with a history of 870 years as the capital, is where the area with the densest ancient relics in China is located.

But at the same time, she is also a paradise for 41,865 ancient trees.

When we walk on the street, we often see green or red signs hanging on the trees. They are equivalent to the identity cards of these ancient trees, representing that they have already gone through a hundred years (green sign, second-class ancient tree) or even more than 300 years (red sign, first-class ancient tree).

One hundred years is long enough for a person's life. And three hundred years is almost the time span from the establishment to the demise of a feudal dynasty.

But for trees, this is far from the limit of their growth.

Ancient trees, with their long lives as the background annotation, interpret the long history of this ancient capital. They are "living cultural relics".

For the signboards of second-class ancient trees and first-class ancient trees, you can try scanning the QR code!

Every autumn, the leaves of ancient trees turn yellow in succession, dyeing the ancient capital Beijing with the most gorgeous colors of the year as they have done for hundreds of years.

And this year's unusually warm early autumn has made many ancient trees still not have time to change into their "autumn clothes" until now.

This weekend has become the last window period for enjoying autumn leaves.

Autumn scenery of the Summer Palace.

The ancient capital aura of Beijing often makes people's eyes focus on the ancient buildings with red walls and yellow tiles themselves, ignoring the many ancient trees that coexist with them.

In fact, Beijing is also a hidden "province rich in ancient trees".

Moreover, what is even more commendable is that, unlike Shaanxi and Yunnan, which rank high, most of Beijing's ancient trees are not hidden in the inaccessible deep mountains. Instead, they are "great hermits in the city" and are dotted around houses, closely related to our lives.

The "King of Wild Jujubes" surrounded by residential buildings.

Like the "King of Wild Jujubes" among them.

In the past, it was the highest point that the surrounding residents looked up to every day.

Now that bungalows have become high-rise buildings, we can only catch a glimpse of its grandeur in the crevices between buildings.

But this community is still named after this tree: Huashi Zaoyuan.

The ancient cypress "Nine Arm-spans and Eighteen Branches" located in Miyun, Beijing, is also the oldest ancient tree in Beijing.

It has a history of about 3,500 years and has continued from the Shang Dynasty to the present.

When this tree was 500 years old, it was about the time when King Zhou of Shang in "Investiture of the Gods" led the warriors of the Shang Dynasty to "flatten Jizhou".

The ancient cypress "Nine Arm-spans and Eighteen Branches" that requires nine people to encircle has grown from the Shang Dynasty 3,500 years ago to the present.

Ancient trees are often closely related to temple buildings, and this tree is no exception: it stands in the ruins of the Guandi Temple.

However, Guan Yu lived in the Three Kingdoms period, nearly 1,700 years later than this tree. So it is obvious that this temple was built for this tree. Even Lord Guan Shengdi has to benefit from its glory.

But when it comes to the most famous ancient tree in Beijing, it has to be the famous "crooked-necked old tree" at the foot of Jingshan Mountain.

I believe friends who have watched "Kangxi Dynasty" must already have a vivid image!

It is said that Emperor Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youjian, hanged himself on this locust tree, and the Ming Dynasty perished.

Although the authenticity of this event has always been in doubt, and there are also accounts of pine trees and even indescribable places on the top of the mountain in records of the same period (after all, as the old saying goes, "One cannot hang oneself on one tree"), but this does not prevent people from linking this tree to major events that have influenced Chinese history for hundreds of years.

Crooked-necked old tree.

Even, the tree we see now is already the "third generation of the crooked-necked tree": After the original old tree died in 1970, the park authorities quickly replanted a small Sophora japonica at the original location.

But everyone who has seen it said that this tree is really too small to bear the weight of an adult hanging himself, let alone its profound historical significance behind it.

So under the "urgent calls" of the masses, finally in 1997, an old locust tree with a history of 150 years was transplanted from near Jianguomen, and this is what we see now.

Although it has been replaced for the third time, the neck of this tree is also quite crooked now.

In 2018, the Beijing landscaping department selected the "Top Ten Most Beautiful Tree Kings".

The "tree kings" were selected respectively from the ten tree species that can best represent Beijing, such as Platycladus orientalis, Sophora japonica, and Ginkgo biloba.

They are the outstanding ones with the largest tree age among each category. They are not only witnesses of profound history but also carry the deep feelings of residents.

Distribution of Beijing's "Top Ten Most Beautiful Tree Kings".

If we visually display the distribution of ancient trees in Beijing's districts on the map, we can clearly see that Haidian District is far ahead with more than 15,000 trees, completely overwhelming other places in terms of quantity.

In the Qing Dynasty, this was the location of the "Three Hills and Five Gardens" such as the Old Summer Palace and the Summer Palace.

These imperial gardens were the preferred places for the emperors of the Qing Dynasty to leave the court and find "a sense of relaxation".

Among them is also the current number one popular destination for enjoying autumn in Beijing: Fragrant Hills.

Autumn scenery of ancient trees in Fragrant Hills.

How popular is Fragrant Hills? The parking lot is already overcrowded at 7:30 in the morning on weekends.

Even when the leaves just started to turn red more than half a month ago, countless "old masters" went there.

Often there are more people surrounding a tree than the red leaves.

As early as the Liao and Jin dynasties, Fragrant Hills was famous for the red leaves of Cotinus coggygria all over the mountain in autumn.

Later, through construction and restoration in successive dynasties, under the dual blessings of nature and human efforts, today's Fragrant Hills are covered with ancient trees. The number of more than 5,800 accounts for about 14% of the total number of ancient trees in Beijing.

The red leaves that arrive on schedule every year have been red in Fragrant Hills for thousands of years.

The red leaves of Fragrant Hills have been red for thousands of years.

Outside of Fragrant Hills, another area with the most concentrated distribution of ancient trees in Beijing is around the central axis.

This 7.8-kilometer axis has continued since the Yuan Dynasty about 750 years ago.

We are often impressed by the profound historical and cultural connotations it contains.

But from the perspective of satellite images, from Jingshan Mountain to the Forbidden City, and then to the Temple of Heaven at the southern end, this line is shaded by the green ocean on both sides.

6,602 ancient trees with an average age of 260 years, combined with dense ancient buildings, have watched over the four seasons of the ancient capital for hundreds or even thousands of years.

Distribution of the number of ancient trees in each district of Beijing. Haidian District is far ahead.

Among the urban areas of Beijing, ginkgo trees are undoubtedly the "beauty representatives" of ancient trees in autumn.

It appeared in the Carboniferous period 345 million years ago.

It has experienced countless extinctions and glaciers in geological periods. From an era older than dinosaurs, it has finally survived to this day.

All the "relatives" of ginkgo trees have become extinct in the long process of time changes.

Now, for ginkgo trees, the kinship between it and all the trees we can see today is almost as far as the distance from us humans to fish.

The Diamond Throne Pagoda under the shade of ginkgo trees in Wuta Temple.

After Buddhism was introduced to China, Western monks who saw ginkgo trees for the first time were moved by its sacred and solemn appearance and regarded ginkgo as a "sacred tree" on a par with the Bodhi tree.

Therefore, when building Buddhist temples, two ginkgo trees are often symmetrically planted on both sides of the main hall to set off the grandeur of the temple and the profundity of Buddhist Dharma.

When the saplings planted by the founding masters gradually grow into towering trees with "ancient and colorful towering ginkgo trees", the atmosphere of "the ten-directional forest monastery" spontaneously arises.

Thousand-year-old ginkgo tree in Hongluo Temple.

As Beijing, the ancient capital, is full of Buddhist temples, there will naturally be no shortage of matching ginkgo trees.

Even though the temples themselves have been repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt in the changes of dynasties, the ginkgo trees in them are rarely affected.

In ancient temples in deep mountains such as Tanzhe Temple, Hongluo Temple, and Dajue Temple around Beijing, there are many "living fossils" that are thousands of years old.

Ginkgo trees in the water.

Today, ginkgo trees are widely planted as street trees on both sides of roads in Beijing.

Although they have not become ancient trees through the baptism of time, the autumn scenery is also stunning enough and becomes an excellent place for people to go for city walks.

Such as Wudaoying Hutong, the Temple of Heaven, the Temple of Earth, and the Olympic Forest Park... These autumn-limited golden colors always have one that can directly touch the depths of your soul.

"Ginkgo Avenue" in Baijiatuan, Haidian District, Beijing.

The establishment of Beijing City is closely related to a big tree. When Kublai Khan built Dadu of the Yuan Dynasty, the chief designer Liu Bingzhong determined the orientation of Beijing's central axis based on a big tree outside Lizhengmen (approximately at the current location of the Qianmen Arrow Tower).

Thus, this big tree is also called "General Lone Tree".

This is not a wild historical anecdote of "adaptation is random fabrication", but it is truly recorded in "Xijinzhi" written by Xiong Mengxiang, a famous scholar of the Yuan Dynasty in the same period.

This tree was therefore loved and respected from the bottom of the hearts of old Beijingers.

After that, on every festival, people would spontaneously hold lively temple fairs under this tree and wrap the tree trunk with various colored lanterns.

But perhaps everyone's enthusiasm and this kind of "incense" were really too strong.

This big tree couldn't bear the disturbance and soon withered and died.

In ancient times when the city skyline was not occupied by high-rise buildings like it is today, towering big trees naturally became a landmark "totem" and became a cultural symbol in people's word-of-mouth.

It is said that when the treacherous official Yan Song of the Ming Dynasty sacrificed to the Confucius Temple on behalf of the emperor, his official hat was knocked off by the branch of the "tree that touches the traitor".

The ancients especially liked cypress trees when building altar and temple sacrificial buildings. They even gave it the exclusive title of "ceremonial tree" and became an indispensable standard bound to the building itself.

In the Imperial Ancestral Temple, the Confucius Temple, the Temple of Past Dynasties' Emperors, and even the Ming Tombs in Changping that have survived to this day, there are always towering ancient cypresses.

The most typical one is the Temple of Heaven. Just recently, it has become closely related to everyone's daily life because it became the logo of "Beijing Health Kit".

It is where the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties sacrificed to heaven and prayed for a year of good weather, national prosperity and people's peace.

The overall area of the Temple of Heaven reaches 2.73 million square meters, about four times that of the Forbidden City. It is the largest building unit in terms of area in the entire city of Beijing.

In order to create a solemn and secluded atmosphere, the Temple of Heaven only arranges five building complexes within such a large area and leaves a large amount of "blank" area to be filled by cypress trees.

The "Nine-Dragon Cypress" in the Temple of Heaven Park. The knotted bark vaguely has the shape of a dragon.

In ancient times, Beijing City didn't have so many high-rise buildings.

Standing on the Circular Mound Altar and looking around, one could only see the blue sky above and the forest of pines and cypresses underfoot. It was as if being held up between heaven and earth by this green ocean.

This is the "harmony between heaven and man" that the ancients diligently pursued.

And in the market streets outside the temples, ancient trees have become a carrier for the preservation of folk stories.

In middle school Chinese textbooks, there is a poem by Wen Tianxiang: My heart is like a magnetic needle stone. I will not rest until it points south.

It is said that when Wen Tianxiang was imprisoned, the trees he planted with his own hands were also inspired by this integrity and pointed south at a 45-degree angle like being attracted by a magnet.

This jujube tree that is more than 700 years old is now in Wen Tianxiang's Memorial Temple in Fuxue Hutong.

The "tree that points south" in Wen Tianxiang's Memorial Temple.

In Tuancheng at the south gate of Beihai Park, it is said that two ancient trees provided a shady place for Emperor Qianlong who came here to "slack off". They also guarded by the emperor like generals.

Emperor Qianlong was therefore extremely pleased and conferred on them the titles of General in White Robe and Marquis Who Provides Shade.

See, even the emperor is no exception. He has the same "bad taste" as us common people.

General in White Robe in Tuancheng of Beihai.

Similar legends and stories related to ancient trees in Beijing are simply too numerous to enumerate.

If you find an old man enjoying the cool under the shade of a tree at the entrance of a hutong in summer and chat with him, you can probably hear different ones that can last all afternoon.

In order to protect these ancient trees that live in people's memories, Beijing has also made great efforts.

Because the provincial highway Songcao Road encroached on the living space of the ancient "Nine Arm-spans and Eighteen Branches" cypress tree.

In 2020, a section of about 195 meters long on this road was simply moved 19.4 meters to the east at a huge cost.

Keen-eyed friends can often see various "hanging objects" on the trees.

There are silkworm pupae pasted on the trees. Inside live the Trichogramma chilonis.

They are all "civil servants" of the gardening bureau who prevent the fall webworm.

There are also "IV bottles" that administer nutrient solution to ginkgo trees to help them survive the severe winter in Beijing...

Various "hanging objects" on ancient trees.

As the saying goes, "The predecessors plant trees and the descendants enjoy the shade."

With their long lives, ancient trees shelter people living nearby and even the entire city from wind and rain.

In addition to bringing us the beauty of autumn, the famous and ancient trees in Beijing are not only the guardians of the city's ecology, but also record the evolution and changes of history and carry the nostalgia of the broad masses of people.

They are the most stable anchor points of this city.

Many ancient trees in Beijing grow in front of and behind the houses in hutongs.