Located north of Zhengzhou and south of the Yellow River, Huayuankou is a poetic name derived from a beautiful legend.
Legend has it that during the Ming Jiajing period, the official Shangshu Xu praised the old man and built a large garden of 540 acres here, there were many strange flowers and trees, and after years of blooming, men and women from near and far rushed to visit, because of the frequent boat crossings, this became a ferry port on the bank of the Yellow River, and later due to the flooding of the Yellow River, the gushing yellow water engulfed the big garden, but the ferry port was left behind and people called it the garden mouth.
In the Ming Dynasty, the Yellow River flowed in multiple streams along the garden mouth, and theoretically, a garden built on the beach of the Yellow River was not suddenly swept away by the flood. Whether the garden mouth is related to the Ming Jiajing period official Shangshu Xuzan, but there is a lack of detailed historical records.
On May 19, 1947, in the 71st issue of the Weekly Bulletin of the Aftermath and Relief Branch of the National Government of Henan Province, there was a gossip about the Garden Mouth, which may be an earlier written record of the history of the Garden Mouth that can be queried.
The article said, "Huayuankou is located 40 miles northwest of Zheng County, bordering Zhongmu to the east and Guangwu to the west. Located on the south bank of the Yellow River, it is facing off from the Mountain. In the Song Dynasty, gates were built here to control water, and the river workers built a camp and gradually became a village, named Guijiazhuang. In the Ming Dynasty, there was a heavenly official Xu Mou, who built a garden here, with a radius of five acres and more than 40 acres, planted flowers and trees in all seasons, and bloomed year after year, and men and women near and far rushed to visit. Boat crossings are frequent, and the name of the garden mouth is known to the world. At the original site of the existing Garden Mouth, there are still relics available. 50 years ago, there was still a big tree. The trunk is circumferential and four acres wide. ”
The Zhenhe Iron Rhinoceros on the General Dam at the Mouth of the Yellow River is said to be related to yu Qian, a patriotic general of the Ming Dynasty
I tried to find more connection between XuZan and The Garden Mouth, but never did. However, Xu Zan is indeed human. According to the "History of Ming", in the twenty-third year of Jiajing, the official Shangshu Xuzan and Wenyuange University scholar, Libu Shangshu Zhang Bi and Dongge University scholar, joined the cabinet and participated in the aircraft maintenance with Yan Song. Yan Song was the first assistant for a long time, and the cabinet officials Shangshu Xu Zan, the Rebbe Shangshu Zhang Bi, and so on immediately played Chen Yansong's handling of affairs. In the spring of the twenty-fourth year of Jiajing, after Zhang Bi's death, Xu Zan resigned his official and returned to his hometown.
Thinking that he had offended the chancellor Yan Song's praise, his life in Kyoto would not be better, so he chose to hide. After crossing the Yellow River in the south, perhaps the sound of the Yellow River made it difficult for him to give up, so he built a garden here and idly arranged the twenty-six volumes of the Songgao Collection that he had written; perhaps to tell Yan Song that he was now completely indisputable with the world, and no longer had the idea of going to the official arena to fight, in order to forget each other. I don't know if XuZan will spend his old age here, whether he has encountered any dangers, all this is not important, what is important is that a garden has become the greatest achievement of his life, so that people today vaguely remember the name Xuzan.
Xu Zan did not go to the Garden Mouth after his retirement, and the history is not recorded and cannot be verified. According to the Ming Dynasty Shangshu Genealogy, the Ming Dynasty official Shangshu Xuzan was a native of Liang Village, Lingbao City, Henan. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, he was an official and a scholar of Wenyuange University, and authored the twenty-six volumes of the Songgao Collection. His eight brothers, six of them, The Father Xu Jin was originally the Official's Shangshu, Xu Zhen, Xu Zan, and Xu Ren successively served as the Shangshu of each department, and the brothers Liu Dengke, the father and son of the Four Shangshu, were also one of the famous noble families in the Ming Dynasty.
Later, due to the flooding of the Yellow River, the gushing yellow water engulfed the large garden along with Guijiazhuang and the dry river. Since then, it has become a ferry port on the bank of the Yellow River, and people have called it Huayuankou.
Where was the garden mouth of the Ming Dynasty? Local old people will tell you that in the river beach on the west side of the Yellow River Bridge in Zhengzhou, there are villagers surnamed Xu in Dongyuedi Village in Huayuankou Township, who are said to be descendants of Xu Zan.
Zhengzhou Yellow River Highway Bridge
Hundreds of years later, the legendary Xujia Garden has long been flooded, and the ancient ferry port disappeared forever after the completion of the Zhengzhou Yellow River Highway Bridge in the 1980s.
The garden mouth, which was devoid of gardens and ferries, remained forever.
In June 1938, in order to prevent the Japanese army from committing crimes in the west, the Kuomintang government slaughtered the Yellow River here, killing 890,000 people and displacing 12.5 million people, causing the great catastrophe in the East that was deeply disastrous in history, thus shocking the world at The Garden Mouth.