I have long heard that Shaobo Ancient Town and lobster are very distinctive. So last Saturday, three or five friends invited each other and drove to Shaobo Ancient Town.
Shao Bogu was known as Gan Tang and Shao Bodai (邵伯埭), named after the famous politician and military figure Xie An who built a tai fu in the tenth year of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (385 AD). After the Tang and Song dynasties, it became increasingly prosperous and was a well-known prosperous merchant on the Beijing-Hangzhou Canal Line. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, there was a Shaobo Inspection Department; during the Republic of China, Shaobo City was established, with jurisdiction over 15 Zhuang and 5 towns. Shaobo, one of the thousand historical and cultural towns in the country, has a history of more than 1600 years, and was included in the fourth batch of China's historical and cultural towns list in 2008.
Entering the town area, the first thing that catches your eye is the archway carved with the ancient town of Shaobo, dignified, antique, standing quietly there. We stopped and walked, only to see shops on both sides, full of modern commercial atmosphere, which is obviously Shaobo's new street. Not far to continue west, I saw two mighty stone lions at the entrance of Shaobo Primary School, and the lion's head was facing ahead. According to some people, the school was built on the site of the ancient Fahua Temple, which is more than 1,400 years old. The two stone lions were some years old, and the heart-wrenching thing was that the Japanese invaded China and forcibly occupied Shao Bo, and the evil bullet broke the leg of the lioness and snatched the cub under the crotch of the lioness. It is rare for a school to be built on a site with such a deep history and culture.
Soon after Shaobo Primary School went west and then turned south, it was shaobo old street. On both sides of the old street, there are more than 20 ancient houses of the Ming and Qing dynasties, such as the four Shangshu Dong Gong hometowns of the Qing Dynasty, the Xu Family Building, the Wang Family Building, and the Four Corners Tower. There are famous historical and cultural sites such as the Xie Gong Ancestral Hall commemorating Xie An, Yunchuan Pavilion, Inspection Division, Dawang Temple, Gantang Temple, Royal Horse Head, Wanshou Palace and so on. More than 700 years of gantang trees, more than 300 years of history of the town water iron cattle, and the sixth battle memorial in the seven battles and seven victories of the Soviet Union.
It's an old street with little to no development. Unable to withstand years of wind and rain, the walls were mottled, the door panels were broken, and a few red lanterns by the eaves swayed in the wind. The old street, which is no more than 3 meters wide, is paved with more than 9,000 pieces of blue stripe stone, and the originally smooth pavement has now been engraved with the traces of age. There are very few indigenous residents, many old houses are vacant, and occasionally you can see one or two small dogs, walking on the street, and do not shout when they see tourists. The facades of the shops on both sides still retain the appearance of the past, and the doors are naturally closed without business. With the development of the times, future generations have mostly relocated, and the old street has disappeared from the fireworks of the past, only tourists coming and going.
Thinking back to that year, the three-mile-long old street was full of traffic and merchants gathered. When the prosperity is over, everything is calm. Strolling through the old streets, there is a feeling of traveling through time and space. Can't help but feel that Shaohua is easy to pass away, and looking back, everything is gone, only the years have left a permanent memory on the old street.
Pass through the alleys of the middle street, and go up several steps paved with green stripes of stone to reach the ancient embankment and the ancient pier. The junction of the old street and the canal is the "big horse head" in the center of the town, and these 3 words are said to be inscribed by the Qianlong Emperor. The merchant ships and dignitaries who came and went were long gone, leaving only the stone steps of the ancient pier to extend to the ancient canal. The river flows slowly, repeating yesterday's story day after day.
After crossing the Rolling Dam, passing through Lotus Pond Moonlight and Iron Bull Bay Park, and soon after turning back to the north, we came to the famous Douye Garden. Entering the park, you can only see the cornices and angles, simple and elegant, that is, the Douye Pavilion. Douye Pavilion was built in the second year of Song Xining (1069). The reason why it was named Douye Pavilion is because the ancients divided the stars in the sky into four elephants and twenty-eight houses corresponding to the nine states on the ground, Yangzhou divided the wilderness into dou, and ShaoBo was the place where the douxing and the bull star were divided, so it was called douye. Douye Pavilion, along with the Drunken Pavilion in Chuzhou, Anhui, the Canglang Pavilion in Suzhou, the Fanghe Pavilion in Xuzhou, and the Xiyu Pavilion in Baoji, Shaanxi, is known as the Five Famous Pavilions of the Northern Song Dynasty. The seven great literary heroes of the Northern Song Dynasty, Such as Sun Jue, Su Shi, Su Rui, Huang Tingjian, and Qin Guan, once fought with the poetry Douye Pavilion and became a good story in the thousand-year literary world. The town water iron cow lay quietly, watching the merchant ships coming and going in the canal, praying for the safety of one side.
For thousands of years, many emperors and generals and literati have stopped at Shaobo Ancient Town, leaving many beautiful stories. Shaobo Ancient Town, prosperous because of the water, prosperous because of the river. It is closely nestled in the ancient Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and the water of the canal is endless, nourishing the beautiful life of the Shaobo people for generations.
There are many Shaobo cuisines, "Shaobo lobster" is a major feature, the most common in the name of the restaurant is the word lobster. Since you have come to Shaobo, lobster is a must-taste. At the Gantang Lobster Restaurant, after tasting the delicious lobster, we left.
Such a small town, with its well-preserved ancient buildings and delicious lobsters, is a great place for urbanites to relax or go out with their families.
I think we will come back again.