The old house in the village
There is a large stone river in Beijing, which flows through Fangshan District and is renamed Liuli River after entering Zhuozhou City. On the north bank of the Dashi River, there is a military training ground during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, when The Youzhou Festival made Liu Rengongtun soldiers daanshan, often practicing soldiers and horses here, and a village formed here was named "Changcao Village", which means frequent training. Later, someone changed a homophone and gradually became a convention, so it had the current name "Changcao Village". And that wide training ground, half of it evolved into a village, and half became a crop field on the edge of the village. The current Changcao Village belongs to Fozizhuang Township in Fangshan District, surrounded by mountains, and the 108 National Highway passes through the village.
The alley leading to the training ground in the south of the village
The cottages are old and new
We walked along a narrow alley from the north of the village to the south of the village, looking for an open crop field, that is, the southern half of Liu Rengong's training ground. The cottages along the way are old and new, and the old houses with bluestone roofs are mostly abandoned, and the front of the houses is full of dry grass and old furniture with missing arms and legs. In front of an old house with mutilated doors and windows, a dirty wild cat jumped out of the house, alertly confronted us for a while, turned and jumped on the wall next to it, and then jumped from the wall to the roof. At this time, there was a pigeon walking on the other side of the roof. When the pigeon saw the wild cat, it stopped and stretched its head little by little, as if to measure the danger factor. And the wild cat, covered by a few dead grasses, carefully crawled on the bluestone slab, like a lion on the Serengeti steppe clinging to its prey. When the wildcat tried to get close to the pigeon, the pigeon flew away.
The roof of the new house, with iron plates replacing bluestone slabs, and painted walls, look like a simple work shed. Subconsciously, exposed masonry walls, slate or thatched roofs mean settling down. Maybe poor, but rooted. And this kind of simple shed seems to be ready to pull out the village at any time. The area around the Dashi River is not a high-incidence area for earthquakes, so this kind of shed-like building is not used to resist earthquakes. So why did you build your house into a temporary dormitory? Maybe the iron roof is strong, maybe the iron roof is built quickly, but the beauty is gone.
On another side street, I saw a more interesting courtyard. The courtyard wall of this courtyard is made of large and small stones, about a meter high, which is dilapidated, while the gatehouse embedded in the courtyard wall is more than two meters high, bright and dazzling, especially the two dark red metal doors, which exude a luxurious luster and rich atmosphere. Because the contrast between the courtyard door and the courtyard wall is too great, I can't help but think of an idiom - standing out from the crowd. In that case, it was as if the task of guarding the courtyard had fallen on the high gatehouse, and the low courtyard wall was useless, and it did not require any martial arts to easily climb over.
Standing by the courtyard wall, you can see everything in the courtyard. Several bungalows facing north and south have dark white tiles on the walls, and the cotton curtains hanging on the doors and the spring joints on both sides of the curtains have faded. In front of the house, there was a bare flat area of loess soil, like crops or vegetables that had been harvested, but not harvested thoroughly, and there were still stalks left, and occasionally some dead leaves that were rotting. Between the house and the flat ground is a knee-high brick wall with a mound of cloth, a few ears of dried corn and a few rotten persimmons, and inside and outside the wall you can see aluminum pots, pot lids, pickle jars, plastic buckets, old clothes, bench legs, rusty iron rods, painted wooden planks and other miscellaneous items.
There are five big characters on the lintel of the courtyard door - Home and Wanshixing. "Home and" or not I don't know, because people have gone to the house empty. As for "Everything", I think it may be a blank check for the owner of this yard. Maybe it's an abandoned courtyard that has long been uninhabited, so it seems messy. So, why is there a grand gatehouse? Because the façade matters. If this is the case, the owner of the courtyard is a person who wants face, and even if the courtyard is abandoned, the courtyard door must be closed with dignity.
As we wandered around the village, we saw a few more similar situations. I thought that perhaps the sturdy gatehouse was just a symbol, because it left a mark of military attributes. More than a thousand years ago, in the North Da'an Mountain, not far from the north, Liu Rengong built a castle that was very strong, and he trained soldiers and horses here, and the strength of the soldiers and horses was another kind of fortification.
Fangliang United County Government Ruins The pictures in this edition are all photographed by Yue Qiang
Chaos Demon King Liu Rengong
Liu Rengong, as the emissary of Youzhou Jiedushi, was the highest military and political governor in the Beijing area at that time. When jiedushi was first established in the Tang Dynasty, it was originally a military attaché position, responsible for controlling the local military, preventing and defending against foreign invasions, and did not involve local government affairs. When the imperial court appointed an envoy to jiedushi, it was given the jingjie, which was a kind of full-power seal letter at that time, with which the full authority could dispatch soldiers and horses, so it was called a jiedushi envoy. However, in the chaotic era of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Jiedu made Yue Li dai yu, gather military and political power in one, and became a local warlord, or in other words, simply became the emperor of the earth. Under such a grand power, if there is a flaw in private morality, it is bound to degenerate into an extravagant and lascivious person, such as Liu Rengong.
The absurd Liu Rengong built a lot of civil engineering in Da'an Mountain, the palace was magnificent, and the harem beauty was like a cloud. At the same time, he sought the elixir in order to live forever. According to the "New History of the Five Dynasties", Liu Rengong was "proud of his wealth." Tsukumiya DaanShan, poor and extravagant, choose Swallow beauty to fill it. And with the Taoist alchemy, I hope not to die. Let the Yan people use the soil as money, collect copper coins, hide it in LuanShan, and kill their work to extinguish their mouths, and posterity will not know where it is. Because of the huge cost of money, Liu Rengong forced the people to hand over copper coins and hide them in the mountains.
Liu Rengong let loose the skeleton, but there was one thing that was never ambiguous, that is, to train soldiers and horses. From 907 to 960 AD, in just 53 years, there were successive dynastic changes in Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Five Dynasties, each short-lived dynasty came and went in a pool of blood, coupled with the division of local governments, large and small wars occurred almost every day. Liu Rengong is well versed in this way, so the open area surrounded by mountains in Changcao Village often has his soldiers and horses practicing on a large scale.
To Liu Rengong, some people say that he is bold, and some people are treacherous. In addition, he is also good at flickering. When he recruited troops in Youyan (in present-day Hebei and Beijing), he quickly recruited 200,000 people, and they were self-supplied. The soldiers were as young as 15 and as old as 70. Everyone says that Liu Rengong is "fine", and this word has both praise and depreciation, indicating that Liu Rengong has a flexible mind and knows how to win people's hearts. How Liu Rengong drew bread for those soldiers, how big a piece of cake he drew, I don't know, but I know that his purpose was achieved.
Liu Rengong is not only good at flickering, but also good at seeing the wind and making the rudder. When Hedong Jiedu made Li Keyong hegemonic in Taiyuan, he attached himself to Li Keyong. Li Ke rewarded him with land and mansions, and made him a general of the town shouyang, treating him very generously, laying the foundation for his future rise. However, Liu Rengong soon turned against Li Keyong and turned to Li Keyong's sworn enemy, Zhu Wen( 朱溫). So capricious, private morality is really unbearable.
However, Liu Rengong had no shortage of military talent, and his most prominent achievement was to dig tunnels to attack the city. In 885, Liu Rengong accompanied his army to attack Yizhou. The walls of Yizhou, which served as the gateway to Hebei, were strong and heavily guarded. In the case of a long time of unable to attack, the army was scattered, and the commander was helpless, Liu Rengong had a clever plan, he led a team to dig the tunnel into the city of Yizhou, so that the inside and outside should be combined, and the city was destroyed in one fell swoop. Because of his proficiency in tunnel warfare, Liu Rengong earned the nickname "Liu Gutou". For the record of this nickname, see the "New Five Dynasties History , Miscellaneous Biographies I . Liu Shouguang": "Liu Shouguang, a native of Shenzhou Leshou. His father, Ren Gong, was able to besiege the city for the Dao, and the military trumpet was 'Liu Gutou'. ”
Compared with Liu Rengong, Liu Shouguang, who has a bad track record, is even worse. He committed adultery with his mother-in-law, imprisoned his father, and killed his brother and nephew, far more evil than his father. Moreover, once it gained power, it quickly expanded, thinking that occupying two thousand miles of Yan land could be called emperor. Sun He, a subordinate minister, tried his best to dissuade him from becoming emperor, but he was brutally killed. In August of the first year of Qianhua (911 AD), Liu Shouguang proclaimed himself Emperor of Great Yan and changed his name to Yuan Yingtian. Unexpectedly, the following year, Li Cunxun sent troops to fight, and Liu Shouguang and his father Liu Rengong were eventually captured. Li Cunxun sacrificed the blood of Liu Rengong to the former king Li Keyong, and then beheaded Liu Rengong, and the indispensable Liu Shouguang was also beheaded.
As the saying goes, the upper beam is not right and the lower beam is crooked. As far as self-discipline and godson are concerned, Liu Rengong is undoubtedly a complete loser. But militarily, he was talented. In addition to tunnel warfare, it is very military to open up the wide area on the banks of the Dashi River as a training ground. Backed by majestic mountains and with clear river water at the bottom, the site is open and flat, making it a good place to train soldiers and horses.
Fangliang United County Government Site Memorial Hall
The training ground became a field of crops
Liu Rengong's military training ground was in a clearing surrounded by water in the south mountain of the village, that is, at the end of the narrow alley. The clearing was originally oval in shape and much larger than it is now. Later, some people built houses in the north and settled down, and some people continued to follow suit, gradually forming a village house. Now, a newly built asphalt road separates the cottage from the clearing, and the clearing becomes a semicircle. Even so, the area is still hundreds of acres. "You can't be too small, or you can't run a horse." A villager said to me. Yes, Liu Rengong trained not only infantry, but also cavalry, and strong soldiers and strong horses were the strength of his hegemonic side.
Today, it is a silent cropland with corn and sweet potatoes. The harvested cornfield still has large stalks about a foot high, and the cut or cut leaves a sharp upward knife edge, like an upright spear. The wide crop fields are surrounded by mountains on three sides and are lined with cottages and streets to the north. At the bottom of the mountain is the river, and the sound of rushing water can be heard from afar. "What's the name of this mountain?" I asked an old man who was fertilizing the field. He held the shovel handle in one hand, pointed in a different direction with the other, and said solemnly: "The east side is called Dongshan, the south is called Nanshan, and the west is called Xishan." I asked again, "What about the river under the mountain?" He said, "The east is called the East River, the south is called the South River, and the west is called the West River." "Well, there may not be such a name on the map. But the old man said that our ancestors have called it this way for generations, and we have never called it by another name. As for the source and destination of the river, he said, the water flows down from the mountain and finally into the Dashi River. When I was wandering around the village, I talked to other villagers about the mountains and rivers next to the training ground, and their words were the same as the old man's.
In addition to the training ground, Changcao Village also has a point of interest. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Song Shilun and Deng Hua detachments established the first county-level anti-Japanese democratic regime in southwest Beijing, the Anti-Japanese Democratic Government of Fangliang United County. However, the Fangliang United County Government Ruins Memorial Hall was locked, and the second courtyard of the Fangliang United County Government Ruins became a courtyard for a family to live in. Coming out of the family courtyard, I thought that the anti-Japanese armed forces of that year may have also trained soldiers and horses in the open space south of the village.
Source Beijing Evening News
Author Yue Qiang
Process Editor Wu Yue