Speaking of Linqing in Shandong Province along the canal, the most impressive thing is the alleys with historical charm. In the Ming Dynasty, there were 81 streets and alleys in the ancient city of Linqing, many of which have continued to this day after hundreds of years or even thousands of years of wind and rain, and have become a local characteristic culture.
On December 28, Liaocheng Evening News reporter Yu Xingui recorded her past with lenses and beautiful writing through a visit to a alley called "Pipa" in Linqing.
Pipa Lane: A "River" Flowing With Music
"The big strings are noisy like a torrential rain, and the small strings are cut like whispers." Noisy cuts and miscellaneous bullets, large beads and small beads fall on the jade plate. Perhaps, Bai Juyi's "Pipa Line" has long painted a sad background for the pipa.
When a pipa sounded, this alley must have encountered a rainy night, and the shops that followed each other shut the rain out of the door, but the lights of wanjia took in the rain, and they were sleepy. The cobblestone road is slippery and bumpy, and the top umbrella, or goose yellow, or pink, floats by, and the scene must have painted this alley with a little romance.
This alley, 190 meters long, is like a string, from south to north, and every time it is plucked, it inadvertently stirs up the waves of music. Fortunately, this alley has a literary and artistic name: Pipa Alley.
The romantic name of the old alley
Liu Yingshun, the initiator of the "Linqing Hutong Tour", has a good idea of the history of this hutong: "Pipa Lane was formed in the middle of the Ming Dynasty and has been around for more than 500 years. This is an old Ming Dynasty alley, which is also the only alley in Linqing named after an instrument. ”
Pipa Lane is an alley for making musical instruments, as evidenced by official announcements, and the "Linqing Zhou Zhi" of the fourteenth year of the Qianlong Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty records: "In the past, there were people who made pipa strings gathered here. ”
Liu Yingshun introduced the ancient residence of the Wang family
This alley meets Dasi Street to the south, and to the north with Gongguan Street, Hoop Bucket Street, and Yumi Street. But all the alleys named after musical instruments have a slightly romantic flavor.
Behind the romance is the economic prosperity, and the prosperity of Linqing originated from the excavation of the Huitong River in the Yuan Dynasty, which is an opportunity given by history to Linqing. During the Ming Dynasty, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di moved the capital to Beijing, once again injecting development vitality into Linqing. The canal is lined with sails and the streets and alleys are full of merchants. At that time, Linqing was "rich in Jiaqi County, prosperous and pressed two capitals".
"In Qingzhou, people rely on the opportunity to eat, and the time is to put wine and song, day and night." From the middle of the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the Qing Dynasty, Huishang and Jin merchants created unprecedented commercial miracles in Linqing. Even the dignitaries and dignitaries of the capital also came to live in the Qing Dynasty after retiring. "The wind of entertainment and luxury is quite grand, the song and dance music is very beautiful" "The household column is pearls, the family Chen song and dance, the food and feast music, the extremely pleasing to the ear". For a time, in Linqing City, the song and dance rose to peace, and the grand scenery of "thirty-two flower willow lanes and seventy-two orchestra buildings" left a beautiful historical moment for Linqing.
The birth of Pipa Lane coincided with the time, "Pipa Lane has a variety of musical instrument workshops, they both make musical instruments, but also sell musical instruments", walking in Pipa Lane, Liu Yingshun said, "During the Republic of China, Pipa Lane only two or three shops were left to make and repair musical instruments", in the following years, Pipa Lane seems to have been far away from the paradise of music.
After the decline of Pipa Lane, the merchants who made musical instruments moved to Ōji Street or Huitong Street and continued to sell musical instruments for a living. "The shops on Huitong Street are not large, and the shelves are filled with musical instruments such as erhu, jinghu, pipa, sheng, flute, drum, gong and so on." Liu Yingshun said that after coming out of Pipa Lane, there are still people making and selling musical instruments, and shops are scattered on various streets, but these musical instrument shops are slowly disappearing into the traffic. Pipa Lane once witnessed the noisy Linqing of sheng songs, waiting for the prosperity brought by Caoyun to dissipate, and the past style disappeared, like an autumn leaf falling into the yellow mud, quietly.
The glory of the old brand
The west of the middle road of Pipa Lane was once a long-established shop of the Wang family. So far, only 87-year-old Zhao Zhenying lives here.
Zhao Zhenying's home is a courtyard house, although there were some renovations in the 1980s, but it basically maintained its original appearance. Enter the ridged green brick gatehouse and be greeted by a mottled shadowback wall.
Zhao Zhenying lives in the south house of the courtyard, three ridged mountain-style buildings, green bricks and gray tiles, telling the past of this wealthy family.
Zhao Zhenying, 87, has been living in the courtyard
"This courtyard was handed down from my ancestors, and all three of my sons lived in the building. I have been living here since my wife (Wang Zhenwu) died. Zhao Zhenying said that it turned out that the roadside next to Pipa Lane was her family's grocery store, and it was still a long-established brand.
"This is the 'Old West Pawnshop' of the Qiao family in Shanxi, which was quite large at that time!" Liu Yingshun pointed to a high-gate compound and said. This compound is opposite the wang family's long-established shops, and still retains three main rooms and box rooms and other Qing Dynasty Jin dynasty buildings.
The "Shanxi Qiao Family" mentioned by Liu Yingshun is Qiao Zhiyong, the owner of the Qiao Family Compound in Pingyao, Shanxi.
It is said that Shanxi Xiucai Qiao Zhiyong is idyllic and loves to read, because of changes in his family, he interrupted his ideal of Keju Dengshi. Since then, he has become the fourth head of the Qiao family. "People abandon me to take, sell small profits, maintain credibility, and do not make hypocrisy" is the secret of Qiao Zhiyong's Confucian business. In the hands of Qiao Zhiyong, the qiao family's career has been greatly expanded compared with the time when he was a grandfather, and many stores have spread all over the country, forming a huge network, infiltrating all walks of life, and the business scope is very extensive.
At that time, Linqing, which had the reputation of "Little Tianjin", would inevitably enter Qiao Zhiyong's vision. During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Qiao Zhiyong opened the "Zhitai Pawnshop" in Linqing. Liu Yingshun said that "Old West Pawnshop" is the Name of the Linqing people for the "Zhitai Pawnshop" of the Qiao family in Shanxi. Later, with the participation of Xu Jia and Hejia in Linqing, the name of the pawnshop was changed to "Renhe Tai Pawnshop". The majority shareholder of "Renhetai Pawnshop" is the Qiao family, but the pawnshop treasurer is served by the Hejia family.
Liu Yingshun has studied the Qiao family pawnshop, he said, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, "Renhetai Pawnshop" became the largest pawnshop in Linqing, and its house occupied half of the street of Pipa Lane, as well as half of the street of Yumi Street, and the courtyard of three into three spans. After the Japanese invaded Linqing, the pawnshop's warehouse was converted into a turret. After the founding of New China, the pawnshop became an office space such as the Weidong Police Station, the Linqing Public Security Bureau, the Linqing Metrology Institute, and the Linqing Revolutionary Martyrs' Shrine.
"Because Pipa Lane is a bustling street, the Linqing Office of The Bank of Ji'nan used to print coins here since September 1945." Liu Yingshun stood in front of an old house in the decadence and said.
The Ji'nan Bank was a red bank established by the Communist Party of China during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Anti-Japanese Base Area. Ji'nan Bank has only existed for a short period of 9 years in the long river of history, but it has created indelible and brilliant performance.
"My grandfather, Lü Faxu, used to work in the Linqing office of Ji'nan Bank." Lu Yuhua, 67, said. At that time, the Linqing Office of Ji'nan Bank had two courtyards in the east and west, the east courtyard resembled an office, and the four large houses in the west courtyard were printing houses.
"At that time, the Ji'nan coins were printed on good quality white paper, so the common people called this coin 'white ticket', in addition, there were Rusi coins printed by the Rusi Bank on darker paper, called 'black notes', and the two kinds of banknotes were common in our liberated area." Liu Yingshun said.
The clouds of history leave a casual impression on the blue sky, but the clouds always leave memories in the depths of the blue. An alley with beating notes, exhausted with all its strength, failed to retain a lively scene of sheng, and finally fell silent.