Ji'an, a county-level city in northeast China's Jilin Province, has revised its urban development plan so that ruins of the ancient Koguryo Kingdom inside the city can be well protected.
Xu Caishan, mayor of Ji'an, said that the present-day downtown area of his city, where Guonei City of the Koguryo Kingdom was located, would move eastward, and the modern architecture would be relocated and completely disappear in 50 years from now.
Capital cities and tombs of the ancient Koguryo Kingdom of China were on Thursday inscribed on the World Heritage List by the 28th Session of the World Heritage Committee, which is being held in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province.
The ruins, which are scattered in Ji'an City of northeast China's Jilin Province and Huanren Manchu Autonomous County of the neighboring Liaoning Province, include the remains of three cities and 40 tombs, Wunu Mountain City, Guonei City and Wandu Mountain City, with 14 tombs of imperial families and 26 of nobles. All belonged to the Koguryo culture, named after the dynasty that ruled over parts of northern China and the northern half of the Korean Peninsula from 277 BC to 668 AD.
Mayor Xu said that they would also drop the plan to build an industrial park near the Taiwang mausoleum of Koguryo Kingdom, and instead build the industrial park in a new location faraway from the mausoleum.
"We hope by doing so, modern civilization won't erode our precious historical relics," said the mayor.
The distribution of the Koguryo ruins overlaps with the land used for production and daily life of one third of the city's population. As local people increased their awareness of cultural relics protection, they willingly relocated elsewhere.
In March 2003, civil servants with 43 departments of Ji'an City Government moved out of the city government building, which was built on the ruins of Guonei City of Koguryo Kingdom, to work in 20 separate places.
The original location of the city government building has now been turned into a Koguryo Kingdom Ruins Park, where archaeological workers discovered a large site of palace ruins.
In the meantime, 1,150 households and 51 governmental institutions, factories, schools and shops, involving 4,145 people, have moved out of the first-phase zone designated for environmental reconstruction, covering an area of 108,900 sq m, and resettled down elsewhere so that the ancient city wall of the Guonei City will no long be threatened by increased human activities.
Jiang Yuhua, a 53-year-old farmer from Maxian Township of Ji'an City, said he never knew that the stone heap -- Qianqiu Tomb, one of the tombs for nobles during the Koguryo Kingdom -- some 100 meters away from his home was anything of significance until one day in early 2003, local cultural officials dropped in and told him the stone heap was a relic of over 1,000 years and he should be relocated so that the tomb could get proper protection.
"Having got to know what I face everyday is something significant in human history, I agree to get relocated," said Jiang. "I think it is worthwhile sacrificing a little for the benefit of children of future generations."
The local government has subsidized local residents relocated according to a standard of 960 yuan (about US$116) per sq m, and has financed the construction of two new villages and two buildings for relocated residents.
In addition to promulgating a regulation on protection of capital cities and tombs of the ancient Koguryo Kingdom in Ji'an, the city government has added nine people to the three-member detachment for security of cultural relics and authorized it to hire another 69 guards to patrol the 700,000-sq-m zone designated for protection.
Manchu Autonomous County of Huanren in Liaoning Province, where Wunu Mountain City, or the ancient Koguryo regime's early capital was situated, has not only published a set of rules on the site, but also enlarged the protected area from 2.15 sq km to 34 sq km, making detailed provisions on cultural relics, natural landscape and biological environment inside the area.
According to Sun Xudong, head of the Huanren County Government, they have dismantled a 75-meter-high TV relay station, a 200-meter-long cableway and two factories inside the protected area, where some 66 hectares of arable land have been reverted to green and 500 modern graves relocated elsewhere.
The department of publicity with Huanren County Government has financed compilation of materials about the Koguryo ruins to be used as textbooks among primary and middle school students.
Local TV station of Huangren County has also organized a county-wide contest on knowledge of Koguryo so that more people can participate in the cause of cultural relic protection.
Sun Baocheng, aged 69, an urban resident of Ji'an City, is upbeat about the inclusion of the Koguryo ruins on the World Heritage List.
The old man, who used to play a lot around the Taiwang mausoleum when he was young, regretted what he did.
"When I was a child, I liked to compete with others in climbing onto the top of the mausoleum, unaware that we were actually damaging the precious cultural relic," said the old man, adding that his greatest wish was to become a volunteer advocate for cultural relic protection.
(Xinhua News Agency July 4, 2004)
