"Favor" members took a group photo with the keynote speaker Hu Liping
Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall
Cartography/Yuan Guoming
Follow the footsteps of Teacher Hu Liping (left).
As we all know, there are countless cultural relics in Beijing that have been preserved and accumulated for a long time. In order to help friends living in or coming to Beijing to understand the profound connotation of this "cultural center" more realistically, more deeply and more systematically, this newspaper launched the "Beiqing Edition" Beijing cultural route. In the form of field search, we will lead readers to measure this ancient and new city with their feet, to read, taste, feel and touch its texture. We expect that such a line will be intertwined one by one, and a cultural map of Beijing that has both temperature and sense of the times will be presented.
Speaking of where autumn is the most beautiful, among many cities in China, Beijing's autumn has always been praised, but where is the best place to enjoy autumn in Beijing? Folk have the saying that "Beijing autumn colors are seven points in Xiangshan". Adjacent to Xiangshan, the Beijing Botanical Garden is located in the core area of the "Three Mountains and Five Gardens", which naturally becomes an excellent place to enjoy autumn. In addition to the beautiful natural scenery, there are also many historical and cultural sites here. On October 13, more than a dozen members of the "Favor" group followed The Beijing Scholar of Literature and History Hu Liping into the Beijing Botanical Garden to explore the mysteries.
Hu Liping has devoted decades to the study of the history and geography of Beijing and has an in-depth understanding of the western part of Beijing. His house is just a wall away from the botanical garden, and he jokingly says, "This is my back garden, sometimes I can come two or three times a day." Living at the foot of Xiangshan Mountain, he is full of happiness: "Here there is a peach blossom festival in spring, and the largest tulip exhibition in Beijing; cherry ditch is a summer resort in summer; there is a red leaf festival in autumn; in winter, you can watch one of the 'Eight Views of Yanjing' 'Xishan Qingxue', and the fragrant mountain after the snow, wrapped in silver, is particularly charming." ”
On the way to the search, pass through the bamboo forest, eucommia forest, magnolia garden, plum garden, Metasequoia forest, cherry ditch... Hu Liping pointed out the best viewing period for each plant; the stone canals, watchtowers, stone carvings and other monuments along the line were accompanied by stories in Huliping's mouth. After the half-day search, some members posted in the circle of friends: "Listening to the teacher's guide while walking, it is really a happy mood and full of harvest!" Thanks to 'Favor' for creating this opportunity to see the human and natural landscape. ”
"Don't underestimate this thing, it has a history of more than 200 years"
According to Hu Liping, on the north and south sides of Xiangshan Road, there is a botanical garden. The Beijing Botanical Garden on the north side, which belongs to the Beijing Municipal Park Management Center, is a park open to the public, commonly known as "North Plant"; the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the south side is commonly known as "South Plant", which is mainly based on plant research, and some areas are open to the public. Hu Liping led everyone from the southeast gate of "North Plantation" and walked along the Outer Ring Road, where most of the attractions in the park were distributed along this route.
When the walk is short, a lake appears in front of you. Hu Liping said that the lake of the botanical garden has three floors, which is the first floor, and together with the next two floors, it creates a view of the "Three Pools Reflecting the West Mountain". "When I was a child, this was a river beach for flooding, but it was later transformed into three lakes, and when the wind and waves were calm, the lake could really shine on the west mountain."
Fragrant Hills is located in the eastern foothills of the Konishiyama Mountains known for its autumn foliage. Every autumn, the leaves of the mountains are as red as fire, and it is known as "the strongest autumn color in Beijing". Hu Liping introduced that the main tree species of fragrant red leaves are yellow oak and five-pointed maple and triangular maple, but before the Qianlong year of the Qing Dynasty, the discolored tree species here were five-pointed maple, maple tree, apricot tree and pear tree, and the cultivation of yellow oak began in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. "Red leaves are a common autumn wind in the birthplace of the Manchus, mainly in the area of today's Heilongjiang and Changbai Mountains in Jilin Province, but also in parts of Liaoning. After the Qianlong Emperor built the Jingyi Garden in Xiangshan and set up the Xiangshan Jianrui Camp, a large number of Eight Banners soldiers and their families lived in the Xiangshan area, and planted red leaf plants in Xiangshan, which was quite reminiscent of the ancestors and did not forget the homeland. The Qianlong Emperor used the red leaves as a symbol, so that the soldiers of the Eight Banners looked at the red leaves and thought about the difficulties of their predecessors in starting a business. In the following 200 years, the number of yellow oak trees in Xiangshan has been planted more and more, reaching 100,000 trees, which has become a famous landscape in the golden autumn season of western Beijing.
"There's a stone trough over here, so you can get up close and take a picture." Hu Liping pointed to a stone-built ditch on the ground, reminding the cameraman. "Don't underestimate this thing, it has a history of 2670 years, commonly known as stone troughs, also called stone canals, this scene also has a more elegant name, called 'river wall smoke willow'." According to Hu Liping, the stone canal was built during the Qianlong period to replenish the water source of the capital, from the "source of water" of Cherry Valley to The Yuquan Mountain. The water flows from Yuquan Mountain, through the Long River and the Pond of Water, into the Inner City Water System. "The water of the Jinshui Bridge in front of Tiananmen Square was first passed from Cherry Valley. Of course, it has two sources, and there is also a stone canal in Xiangshan Park, and the water comes from the Biyun Temple Zhuo Xi Spring. The two stone canals converged at the location of the current Xiangquan Roundabout, and then went east to The Yuquan Mountain. ”
Hu Liping told everyone that the original stone canal has a lower trough upper cover structure, and the sink has a layer of cover plate above to keep it clean and smooth. "The stone canal was originally 10 miles long, but now only a few hundred meters have been preserved, and most of the stone slabs covered on it have disappeared. Some of the most original stone canals can also be found in Cherry Ditch. ”
"Because there is no conclusion, so this place is called Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall, not Cao Xueqin's former residence"
Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall is currently the country's largest exhibition place for red studies, and it is also a punch card for many red science fans, where there are various cultural displays related to "Dream of the Red Chamber", including books and cultural and creative products. Every autumn, the Cao Xueqin Cultural Festival is held here, which has just been completed this year.
The location of the memorial hall was originally Xiangshan Zhengbaiqi Village. In 1971, when the residents of no. 39 courtyard of Zhengbaiqi Village were cleaning their rooms, they accidentally broke the western wall and found that there were handwriting inside the wall skin. This inscription wall poem is suspected to be a couplet given to Cao Xueqin by a friend. Zhang Boju, a famous calligraphy and painting expert, believes that the poems were written in the Qianlong era, and the date of their payment was when Cao Xueqin lived in the Xishan area, which caused a heated discussion on the relationship between No. 39 Courtyard and Cao Xueqin.
In the 1980s, the Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall was built on the basis of the hospital. "The house we are looking at now is not the old house at that time, but the whole house that was rebuilt later." In Hu Liping's view, to confirm a person's former residence, there must be substantial evidence that he lived here, and can not be concluded based on only a poem or some legends, "It is because there is no conclusion, so this place is called Cao Xueqin Memorial Hall, not Cao Xueqin's former residence." ”
Hu Liping, who loves "Dream of the Red Chamber", began to collect legends related to Cao Xueqin in the Xiangshan area 40 years ago, "For example, in the early years, there was a stone called Daishi in Cherry Valley, which was particularly black, to what extent was it black? Women can use it to draw eyebrows, and later Cao Xueqin wrote into the "Dream of the Red Chamber", 'There are stone names in the West', and it is rumored that the name 'Daiyu' was deduced from this. ”
"What is that turret-like building?" A member asked. I saw a three-story flat-roofed building on an open field. A quadrangular building with four faces of the same dimensions, the lower width and the upper narrowness. Except for the side with the door, the other three sides have three layers and nine window holes. According to Hu Liping, it is called the Watchtower, which is a kind of training facility for the Jianrui Camp in the Qing Dynasty. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, the Jinchuan Tusi rebellion in Sichuan, the Qing court sent troops to quell the rebellion. The other side used the tower to defend, resulting in the Qing army being unable to attack for a long time. The Qianlong Emperor ordered migrant workers to be transferred from Jinchuan to build watchtowers in Beijing to train "Flying Tiger Cloud Ladder Soldiers". After the end of the war, the Yunti soldiers were placed in Xiangshan, known as the "Jianrui Yunti Battalion", referred to as the "Jianrui Battalion". According to records, there were once 68 watchtowers in the Xiangshan area, but now only five or six remain, three of which are intact and two are located on the north lake of the Botanical Garden. The three-story tower we see was rebuilt in the 1990s.
"There are 'dead' and 'alive' in the watchtowers. What is dead? Man can't go up; the tower is alive, and there's a door from there that goes up the stairs to the top. During training, there are people guarding on the top and attacking people at the bottom. And the 'dead' watchtower, people can't climb it. Hu Liping gave a further explanation to everyone.
There is an ancient well near the watchtower, and the sign next to it shows that this is the only preserved ancient well site in the Xiangshan area. Unlike common wells, there are no rudders on the well that can be shaken. According to Hu Liping, this well uses another method of drawing water. There are brick stacks on both sides of the wellhead, which are used to fix two wooden beams parallel to the top and bottom, and between the two beams is a "day" shaped wooden component, and the midpoint of the small piece of wood in the middle of the component is facing the center of the wellhead, which can be seen in the concave formed by perennial wear. "The well is about 20 meters deep, and there's still water. Judging from the old photos at that time, this side is full of houses, and this well is right in the village. You see the wooden beam above, and the brick stacks on both sides, it's very vicissitudes, right? To touch it is to touch history. Hu Liping sighed.
Liang Qichao was buried in the botanical garden, and the teacher took the students to revisit "Young China Says"
The cemetery of Liang Qichao, a reformer and thinker of the late Qing Dynasty, is located in the botanical garden, designed by Liang Qichao's eldest son, the famous architect Liang Sicheng. The entire cemetery is separated from the surrounding area by a low wall, and the garden is full of pines and cypresses, which is quiet and quiet. Hu Liping told everyone that this is actually a family tomb, in addition to Liang Qichao and his wife, their children are also buried, as well as Liang Qichao's brother and his family. Many years ago, the cemetery was donated to the state by the descendants of the Liang family and was managed by the Beijing Botanical Garden, but every year the Liang family of the Qingming Dynasty would come to pay homage to the shrine.
On the northern platform of the cemetery is the joint tomb of Liang Qichao and his wife, and the tombstone has no inscription, nor does it have any text indicating the life deeds of the tomb owner, which is Liang Qichao's last wish.
To the southwest of the main tomb, there are three small tombs where Liang Qichao's three children are buried. Among them, the youngest son, Liang Sili, is one of the founders of China Aerospace, and his tomb is engraved with a pattern of auspicious clouds on the top of his tomb, and a rocket soaring into the sky is carved on the altar. The second daughter, Liang Sizhuang, is a famous Librarian in China, and her stele is designed as a row of thick spines. The third son, Liang Sizhong, who died in 1932, is also buried here. He liked the military, after graduating from Tsinghua University, he went to the United States to study at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and after returning to China, he participated in the Songhu War of Resistance and performed well, but unfortunately he died of an illness shortly after drinking dirty water on the side of the road in battle, at the age of 25.
There is an octagonal pavilion on the west side of the cemetery, also designed by Liang Sicheng, originally conceived as a statue of Liang Qichao in the pavilion, but later abandoned due to financial problems.
Hu Liping said that Liang Qichao's famous article "Young China Says" was once included in student textbooks, so some teachers brought students here to relive "Young China Says" while recalling Mr. Liang Qichao.
Referring to the cemetery, Hu Liping said that there are many ancient tombs in the Xiangshan area in history: "You see that there are many place names with the word 'Fu' in the Xiangshan area, what are the Four Wangfu, the Daogongfu, the Niangniangfu... What's going on? This house is different from the one in the city. The houses in the city are basically the houses of the Qing Dynasty, belonging to the Yang Mansion, living in the living, and our Xiangshan area's mansions, which are the haunted mansions, are all tombs of the princes of the Ming Dynasty, and some of the princes who did not become adults, died at the age of two or three or younger, and were basically buried in Xiangshan. Of course, now only the place names are left, and the terrain buildings are all gone. ”
According to Hu Liping, the botanical garden also contains many modern and contemporary celebrities, including gao Renshan, a martyr of the Republic of China, Zhang Shaozeng, premier of the Republic of China, Sun Chuanfang, a warlord, Wang Xitong, the "King of Foreign Ashes", and Mao Heting, a scholar. "Out of the botanical garden west gate for almost 10 minutes, there is a pear garden tomb, buried nearly 20 famous Peking opera artists, sheng dan jing ugly, drum master and organist all have, so I wrote an article, the name is "A play at the foot of Xiangshan Mountain", the green mountains are green screens, and the earth is the stage. Mr. Mei Lanfang's cemetery is there, meipai enthusiasts come to visit a lot, Ma Lianliang's tomb is also there, more than a hundred meters away. ”
Cherry Ditch hides a ditch of historical allusions, step by step scene is quite legendary
The plum garden located near the cherry ditch mouth is planted with more than 20 varieties of cold-resistant plum blossoms, there is a mountain stone in the garden, the four words "Yongping Plum Garden" on the front are inscribed by Mr. Lian Zhan, honorary chairman of the Kuomintang, when he visited in 2005, and the back side records the heroes of the construction of the plum garden. Among them, the botanist Chen Junyu began to study the northward migration of southern plums in the 1950s, and after more than half a century, it took more than half a century for plum blossoms to survive in the cold north, and Chen Junyu was also known as "plum blossom academician". Hu Liping told everyone that the best viewing period for plum garden is at the end of March. In addition, the plums of the Botanical Garden are also very famous. In front of the Reclining Buddha Hall of the Reclining Buddha Temple, there is a lamei, which is said to be an ancient tree of the Liao Dynasty. Its flowering period is earlier, in previous years, it bloomed in December in the early years, and it was not late in February, and it was called "the first branch of Jinghua".
Along the way, shallow currents began to appear in the low-lying areas on both sides of the road, from silence to the sound of water, and even small waterfalls and small reservoirs. Hu Liping told everyone that we had entered cherry ditch. He introduced that during the Republic of China period, Cherry Valley had a lot of water, which was a famous place in Beijing to escape the summer and cool. At that time, the water flowed all year round, and then it was cut off due to drought, and this year the rain has recovered. But this is not a spring, but seeps down from the mountain, called "seepage landscape", it is estimated to flow for two or three months.
Cherry Ditch, this name is liked when you hear it, as the name suggests, you must have planted cherries, right? Hu Liping confirmed this, there are indeed cherries in the cherry ditch, but it is not the same thing as the big cherries we usually eat. Beijingers call it "hair cherry", the fruit is particularly small, there is a layer of small hair on it, sour and sweet, "If you want to try, come at the end of May, don't have a taste!" ”
The pentagram maple leaves on the side of the road began to turn yellow, with a little autumn feeling, but there were still some days before the red color was obvious. Hu Liping said that the most beautiful time for the autumn leaves of Xiangshan was fifty or sixty years ago, "We look at the photos on the Internet - full of red leaves on the slopes of the mountains, that should not be the current Fragrant Mountain." ”
Hu Liping led everyone along the wooden boardwalk in the Metasequoia forest. As a relict species, Metasequoia was once considered extinct, so it is called a "living fossil", Hu Liping told everyone that the Metasequoia of Cherry Valley was introduced from Shennongjia in Western Hunan in the 1970s, and has now formed the largest Metasequoia forest north of the Yellow River. "This is just a head, the more you go in, the thicker the Metasequoia, the diameter can reach thirty or forty centimeters, the height is thirty or forty meters, walking under the tree, it is really a bit into the feeling of entering the primeval forest." As a semi-deciduous plant, the leaves of metasequoia will fall off in part in winter, and those left on the tree will turn yellow, and it will not be until May of the following year that the leaves begin to grow and slowly turn green.
Turning a corner, Hu Liping pointed to a kind of weed on the slope to remind everyone: "Don't touch the back of the leaf, your hands will swell immediately, as if you were stung by a scorpion, we call it 'scorpion grass' locally, if you don't believe it, you can try." The members looked at the jagged blade at the edges, and although they wanted to see if it was that powerful, they didn't dare to get started.
A stone bridge appeared in front of him. Hu Liping introduced that this stone bridge was originally an old object in the Duanwang Mansion in the capital, and the Duanwang Mansion was the palace of Mianxin, the younger brother of the Qing Daoguang Emperor. In the 1950s, the relevant units used the Duanwangfu courtyard to move the Duanwangfu Stone Bridge intact to Cherry Ditch, thus becoming a scene of Cherry Valley. In the early years, when there was still a spring flowing in Cherry Valley, it showed the landscape of "small bridge flowing water". The bridge was once known as the "Red Star Bridge", and it is rumored that in 1973, when filming the location of the movie "Shining Red Star", he borrowed the scene here and wrote the three words "Red Star Bridge" on the bridge, which is rumored to be inscribed by Guo Moruo. It was worn out a few years ago. Hu Liping instructed everyone to pay attention to the location of the bridge arch, "When you get closer, you can see that there are traces of friction there, if you came five or six years ago, you can still see that it says 'Red Star Bridge'." Later, some tourists reflected that an ancient bridge took such a name, and it was not a class, so they grinded these three words away. ”
Hu Liping told everyone that cherry ditch also has another name, called "retreat valley". During the Shunzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, the retired official Sun Chengze lived here in seclusion, and because he called himself "Retired Weng", he called Cherry Valley "Retreat Valley". Later, it was owned by Zhou Zhaoxiang, a government official of the Late Qing Dynasty and a beiyang government official, so the people called this place "Zhou Family Garden".
Hu Liping led everyone to a stone wall, and asked everyone to identify the two words painted in red on the wall. The second word is "valley", according to his previous account, the first word should be "retreat", but the stroke is somewhat different from the word "retreat": the left one goes, and the right side goes up and down. Hu Liping told everyone that this "retreat" word is not found in all dictionaries, this is the text of the Six Dynasties, which has been abolished. To the left of the word "retreat valley", there are several small green characters of "Liang Qichao's supplementary question". Liang Qichao and Zhou Zhaoxiang are good friends, and he wrote these two words when he came here to play. After the failure of the "Penghu Reform Law", Liang Qichao fled to Japan and returned to China more than ten years later, by which time the Qing Dynasty had collapsed. "You see the word, sunset on the west mountain, there is a meaning in it. This is a relatively famous landscape in Cherry Valley, although it is small, but there is a story and a history. Hu Liping said eloquently.
Walking to the "source of water", Cherry Gully has come to an end. It used to be a spring, but although there is water flowing, it is not a spring that comes out of the spring, but flows down from the mountain. Next to the "source of water", there are two more wonders. One is the huge "Yuan Gem", which is named because of its resemblance to a Yuanbao. In folklore, it is the prototype of the stubborn stone under the Qingfeng Peak of the Great Desolate Mountain in "Dream of the Red Chamber".
On the hillside on the south side of the Yuan Gem, there stands a huge stone more than ten meters high and four meters wide. A side cypress grows in a stone crevice at the top of the boulder, and because of the common name of the folk pine cypress, this landscape is called "stone pine". "This tree is hundreds of years old, and it grows very slowly, which is also a miracle of Cherry Valley." Hu Liping, who likes to collect the legend of "Dream of the Red Chamber", told everyone that it is said that Cao Xueqin was inspired by this scene and wrote the love story of Bao Dai's "Mushi Qianmeng".
Hu Liping led the group to continue the search for two nearby red sites: "Defending North China" and "Recovering Lost Land" stone carvings. On December 9, 1935, Peiping broke out in the "12.9" student anti-Japanese salvation movement that shocked China and foreign countries. The following year, the Chinese National Liberation Vanguard and the Beiping Students' Federation held summer camps in Cherry Valley and other places, and two of the campers carved the words "Defend North China" on a stone.
The stone inscription of "Recovering the Lost Land" located on the mountain wall has been blurred and illegible. A sculpture work, "Dialogue with History", skillfully uses the original stone carvings, adds statues of two young people in front of the mountain wall, restores the scene of the two holding hammers and shovels to carve words on the stone, and vividly reproduces the patriotic enthusiasm of young students in the Anti-Japanese National Salvation Movement.
This edition is also photographed by Chen Feng, a reporter of this newspaper