At 105 Toulaohe Road, Yuecheng District, Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province, a nearly 3000 square meter archaeological excavation pit is covered by protected greenhouses and nestled among tall and lush water spruce forests. Recently, at the archaeological excavation site of Jizhong Site, the mysterious veil of the foundation of a large building in the state of Yue, which had been dormant for about 2500 years, was unveiled. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the "Yuejueshu" recorded: "Goujian is a small city, and Shanyin is also a city. In 490 BC, King Goujian of Yue returned from Wu and established the ancient capital of Yue, Shanyin Xiaocheng (now the ancient city of Shaoxing). The 2500 year history of Shaoxing city is derived from this, but there has been a lack of physical evidence. In September 2023, large timber was discovered during the construction of the Jishan Middle School renovation and expansion project. In the middle of July this year, the National Cutural Heritage Administration officially released the important archaeological achievement of Jizhong Site - the first large-scale building site of the State of Yue in the Warring States Period was confirmed in Shaoxing Ancient City. The carbon 14 dating shows that the relevant remains are about 2500 years old. For a time, the history of King Goujian of Yue building a city and capital on this land was confirmed, and people's attention shifted to 2500 years ago. Entering the site, different strata are distributed in the foundation pit, and the unearthed wooden buildings have various shapes, covered with damp felt cloth, as well as 18 ancient wells discovered so far. On that day, dozens of archaeological workers either carried out surface cleaning or carried out moisture preservation operations on wooden relics. The foundation sites of large buildings from the Warring States and Han dynasties within the Jizhong site. Photo by Xiang Jing: "The existing accumulations involve the Warring States, Han Dynasty, Six Dynasties, Sui and Tang Dynasties. Five or six meters below the ground are the architectural relics of the State of Yue." Li Longbin, director of the Shaoxing Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said in an interview that large-scale building foundations from the Warring States and Han Dynasties have been discovered, and more than 40 important relics such as building foundations, water wells, and ash pits have been cleared. Objects such as black pottery beans, printed hard pottery, and primitive porcelain have been unearthed. On the north side of the archaeological foundation pit, four groups of raft shaped floor tie-beam lie in the soil layer, with many logs intertwined vertically and horizontally and naturally combined. Li Longbin explained that the raft shaped floor tie-beam was the core component of the foundation of ancient large-scale buildings. "The raft shaped floor tie-beam unearthed in the period of the State of Yue did not use tenon and mortise structures, but cleverly used the toughness of wood itself and the fluidity of water to dissolve pressure and achieve balance. Like a boat like a raft, it reflected the wisdom of craftsmen in the State of Yue.". A large number of wooden structure relics, including the raft shaped floor tie-beam, surfaced - the site was the first time to find a wood structure well in the country of Yue, whose cross section was oval, and pieces of original porcelain in the country of Yue were found in the filling of the well; For the first time, two high-level official buildings were discovered in the Shaoxing area, and wooden spikes with words such as "Kuaiji", "Shanyin", and "Rulvling" were unearthed. Both Yue architecture and Han architecture adopt a combination of underground wooden foundations and above ground platform foundations, reflecting the organic combination of traditional dry railing architecture in the wetland environment of Yue and the platform based architectural civilization in the Central Plains. This is a significant discovery in ancient Chinese architectural archaeology Li Longbin said. On the northeast side of the wooden water well in Yue country, the remains of a horse with a length of 1.9 meters are eye-catching. On site observation shows that the filling in the horse pit is gray black silt, and the horse is oriented in a north-south direction, with a curved upper body and bent limbs, and a clear skeletal structure. The carbon-14 dating of horse bone collagen showed that it was approximately 2480 years old, belonging to the period of Yue Kingdom. According to experts in animal archaeology, this horse is a male horse. However, at that time, boats were the main mode of transportation in the south, and horses were rarely seen. The remains of a public horse from the Yue Dynasty excavated at the Jizhong site. Why is there a horse in this geographical location? What was the predecessor of this large building site? What is the layout of the capital city of Yue? Many unsolved mysteries remain to be solved. During an interview, Luo Peng, Deputy Director of the Shaoxing Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, stated that it can be seen from the unearthed Yue Dynasty and Han Jin Dynasty pottery that both in terms of quantity and type, the site was originally a high-level building, providing important clues for exploring the architectural form and space of the capital city of Yue. Currently, over a thousand important cultural relics from various periods have been unearthed, and archaeological excavations are still ongoing. New cultural relics are introduced every day, and it is possible to refresh the original understanding every day Luo Peng said. A scenic spot near Toulaohe Bridge in Yuecheng District. The Xiangjing Photography Jizhong Site is located in the northwest corner of Jishan Middle School, north of the Toulao River and south of Youwengshan. Stepping out of the archaeological site and walking south for about a hundred meters, you will arrive at the Toulao River, which is said to be the place where King Goujian of Yue served as a teacher. In the Song Dynasty, this became the location of the Shaoxing Prefecture Academy. Until 1932, patriotic and democratic activist Shao Lizi personally inscribed the four characters "Sleeping on the firewood and tasting the gall" as the school motto... Today, on this land, the long forgotten history has emerged. As archaeological excavations and research continue to advance, the civilization code of an ancient city in the East will also be further deciphered. (New Society)