In the autumn of 2019, when I was serving my mother in my hometown of Dahe Town, I had to idle, and once I was fishing on the edge of the Yuanshan River behind yan weidun, and suddenly found that a woman's washing clothes jumped on the stone jump with six big characters: "Jiang Jiaqiao Turning Back Gate". This is a stone inscription plaque, the sentence reading order is written from left to right, from the traditional style and the pen edge round and full, it is a rare antiquity.
Here, on both sides of a river, there are no bridges and no gates, and there is no village nearby with the surname Jiang. Where is the backgate? Where is Jiangjiaqiao? To understand this, it is necessary to take a look at the hydrological geography around Grand River Street.
(Wu Oxcart Settlement)
Sitting at the head of the Yanwei Dam, looking west, there is a small hillside in front of it, and this hillside and this land are called Yifeng County. It is the former site of Yifeng County more than 1,600 years ago. Shi Zai: "In the fourth year of Tang Wude (621 AD), Huangmei County was changed to Southern Jin Prefecture, which was divided into Yifeng, Changji, Tangyang, and Xincai Counties. "Although the reign of Yifeng County was short," Wude said in the eighth year (625 AD), the former Jin Prefecture and the four counties were renamed Huangmei County. "In just over four years, in the long history of more than 1,600 years, four years can only be counted as a blink of an eye." Now the old site has long been desolate and deep, there are no bricks and tiles to be found, and there is no mark to prove that it is the old city of the county. But the people who live around Dahepu have not forgotten its former existence, and also call this small hillside "Yifeng County" (local population mistake: Yiminai County). ”
The former site of Yifeng County is by the Yuanshan River, and the current Yifeng Village is following its historical name. Adjacent to Yifeng Village is Dahe Village. Yan Wei is the second group of Dahe Village.
The current Dahe Village is a group of the former Dahe District Comprehensive Farm Garden Industry Team, Agricultural Team, Noodle Mill, Incubation Workshop, etc. Yan Wei was once a small team in Yifeng Village (formerly known as the Patriotic Brigade). After the reform and opening up in 1990, Dahe Street set up a street office, and Yan Wei was merged into Dahe Village during this time period.
Sitting at the head of the Yanwei Dam, looking east, is the fishing mouth on the side of the Guangwen Chong Mountain Range. To the south is turtle mountain, river mountain... Turtle Mountain, along the river down the mountain is the Big River Street. Down The Great River Street is a plain of rivers.
(Twin Peaks Mountain)
Dahe Street was originally named Dahepu, and the origin of the street name should be taken from the Kaotian River that crosses the middle of the street. The old street of Dahe Street occupies the advantage of both banks of a river, and a five-hole stone bridge is connected in the middle, bounded by the river, and the street market is divided into upper streets and lower streets. There is also a river on the street: The Yuanshan River. A ditch: Yuan Jian Ditch. There is an ancient song: "Two rivers and a ditch, the rich in this place will be lost, and if they are not lost, they will have their descendants." ”
The two rivers referred to in the song, namely the present-day Kaotian River and the Yuanshan River, a ditch, refers to the Yuan Jian Ditch behind the mouth of the Great Temple on Dahe Street.
The old Kaotian River originates from the Huangling Cave of KhaoTian Mountain, passes through the Sidu River, the Liudu River, the Dayang Temple, Wuxiang Village, to the river along the (Leaf) Mountain, between the Turtle Mountain (later changed to the west side of the Turtle Mountain), and along the big river...
The Yuanshan River originated from Yuanshan Chong in Huangmei County and Yangtianguo in Guangji County (present-day Wuxue City) where the water of the two mountains and streams flowed at the foot of Yuanshan Mountain, and then flowed through Longwaist Mountain in Guangji County into Yetang Village, Dahe Town, Huangmei County, where the Kaotian River and yuanshan River merged at Wuniuche, and the lower section of the river was formerly known as the Two Rivers Estuary. The two estuaries pass under wuyue bridge, Huliu bridge, Guiba, and Huwan into Taipo Lake.
A ditch, originating from the Dog's Foot Bay on the eastern slope of the Twin Peaks (Mountain), Wuhui Gate, Guangwen Chong and some of the mountain streams of the eastern mountain system of Yanwa, Xudun, and Wang'an converge, sandwiched between the Kaotian River and the Yuanshan River, and the Jing Stream flows ten miles into the Yuanshan River at Yanwei.
The western slope of the Twin Peaks Peak in Dahe Town is the location of the Sizu Temple, Kaotian Mountain, Menkan Mountain, as well as Huangmei County, Guangji County adjacent to Yuan Mountain, Yangtianguo Xichong, the mountain terrain is transgressive, the terrain is wrong, the ditches are longitudinal, and the ten thousand streams return to the east to form two rivers and a ditch on the streets of the Big River, with each other's veins and mutual processes.
The Hanging Wall Waterfall under the Flower Bridge of Sizu Temple is formed by the confluence of twin peaks of mountain springs and streams, and down the stone steps of the ancient road is a stream of water, which is used for irrigating the farmland in the mountains around Tianmen, and flows into the Yuanshan River at The Yujialou. There is a stone bridge called Xinqiao on the top of Yuanjiangou. Hengshan Road to Tianmen Yulou connects Dahe Town Wangtang Dun there is an old bridge across the creek. Wangtang Village under the old bridge has a mouth of 100 acres of ponds. Due to the complexity of the water system, for irrigation and flood control needs, the river dam was built at the new bridgehead with a Luban weir. At the head of the weir, there used to be an earthen house and a pergola made of straw. That's where the Weir people live. Watching the weir people put a table in the pergola, there was a yellow clay teapot on the table for passers-by to sit and quench their thirst when they were thirsty, and also put some yellow smoke to sell to passers-by, and there were often passers-by and people doing farm work in the pergola sitting together to smoke yellow smoke and talk about the ancient days.
In my memory, there have been many floods in the great rivers that have washed away the dams. A year before the Cultural Revolution, I was registered as part of the Dahe Comprehensive Farm, herding cattle in the agricultural team. In the summer of 1966, the flood was flooded, and with the support of the flood of the Kaotian River, I saw with my own eyes that the river dam near the mouth of the Two Rivers of Yuanshan River flooded the embankment, collapsed in many places, and there was always a danger of destroying the embankment.
Before the Yong'an Reservoir was built, these channels near the Great Rivers were often flooded and heavily waterlogged. Every year, when the flood came, the Yuanshan River was supported by the flood of the Kaotian River, the water level rose, and a Jiangjia Bridge turned back to the gate, blocking the water during the flood and diverting irrigation during the drought, and guarded the drought and flood harvest of several thousand mu of fields in the upper reaches of the River, Yifeng County and the villages farther upstream.
Judging from the existing stone inscription plaque, the Jiangjiaqiao back gate has really existed in history. As an ancient water conservancy facility, the bridge is built by the Jiang family, and the gate must have been built by the Surname of Jiang!
What kind of family was the Jiang family, able to build canals and dams here, build bridges and weirs? Owning this idyllic...
At noon that day, Li Huo dog, a villager on the opposite bank of Li Yihudun, came to the river to wash vegetables, and we talked across the river; he was eighty-five years old, witnessed some things in the period of the Republic of China government before liberation, and also participated in the post-liberation land reform movement and built some large-scale water conservancy construction such as the Kaotian Reservoir. He said that before 1960, there was a stone bridge across the river called Meiqiao in Yanwei, because there were several families surnamed Mei who lived at the head of the bridge, and there were turning back gates at the head of the bridge. I asked him what was going on with the Jiang family? He said, "I don't know when there was a person with the surname Jiang here?" Even if there is a daoguang year (meaning very ancient)! "In ancient times, there may have been people surnamed Jiang in this place, was it relocated, or was it broken?" It is no longer possible to verify. But the stone carvings are still there, and the big characters of "JiangJiaqiao Turning Back Gate" explain everything.
(Kaotian River under Turtle Mountain)
Huangmei has always been a place of contention between military families. After experiencing the change of dynasties, the rise and fall of culture, and the frequent wars for more than 1,500 years, as far back as the last year of the Qin Dynasty, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang rebelled against Qin, and Yingbu led the prisoners to revolt against Qin, and built the Eastern Tuocheng and Xituocheng in the Huangmeiwa Stone Mountain, which was the base of the Yingbu anti-Qin resistance in that year. At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Wang Xianzhi and Huang Chao led the peasant revolt, and the Huangmei peasants participated in the rebellion at that time, and the history records that "HuangChao raised troops in Jiangnan, and the people of Yongxing (that is, Huangmei) died as thieves." "Wang Xianzhi defeated Huang Mei and was captured at Gujiao Shiling, killing more than 50,000 people and passing on the head of Chang'an."
After that, xu shouhui of the Yuan Dynasty, Chen Wenluo of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Ruguo and other peasant rebels led by them all successively turned to Huangmei and used this as a base. Later, in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the "long hair" said in the elderly population, had fought with the Qing army in this vicinity, and heard the old man say that the s killed by both sides were all over the field, and the blood stained the hundred acres of ponds red. During the Guangxu dynasty, Huangmei Dongxiang took place at the Tianbao Jiegan Rebellion and declared himself emperor at Duoyun Mountain. Duoyun Mountain is only more than ten miles away from Yifeng, and it also hits here... In the turbulent years, the long history has gone far, how many people "ran away" to become refugees in the wandering countryside in those years? How many villages have been slaughtered and their roots cut off?
In the existing regional geographical map, there are dozens of villages of large and small sizes, and in my image, there is no Jiang surname, and in the ten miles of Yifeng Village and Dahe Village, I have never heard of a Jiang family house farm from the elderly population. There was originally a stone bridge here, which was called Meiqiao at that time, because there were several families surnamed Mei at the head of the bridge, and later the farmland transformation was also incorporated into Yanwei.
Old man Li Huo dog recalled: Before 1960, the back gate and the plaque above were still there, and later after the Kaotian Reservoir was repaired, the river was diverted, the ditch was rectified, and the Jiangjia Bridge back gate was abandoned. The stones on the gates, people removed some of them to build a cesspool, and some of them stayed by the river to build a stone jump to wash clothes, for decades, the past, people under the age of sixty have not seen it, only people over the age of seventy or eighty remember. JiangJiaqiao turned back gate, thanks to this stone carving... Only six big characters, how profound it contains history, a hundred years, five hundred years, or even a thousand years, isn't it, 1,600 years ago Yifeng County still exists in people's word of mouth, a place name, a ceramic fragment, often let historians find a little-known history, Jiangjiaqiao back gate, this stone carving witnessed how many earth-shattering crying ghost god story, although it will not speak, but it is a witness to the ancestors living in Yifeng County to conquer natural disasters flood prevention and drainage, and strive to ensure a bumper harvest...
Author: Zheng Weiguo, Member of Hubei Provincial Writers Association Former Director of Huangmei County Cultural Center