Hengkou "gold digger" cultural reminiscences
Liu Ming
"At a very young age, I loved the legendary stories of explorers, treasure hunters and adventurers, curious, brave and fearless. Time passes, and unfortunately, wild ideas fade with age, such as the legendary profession of the "gold digger" I saw as a child, which is also dying..."
What remains in the memory is a true, living, tangible story that they are always searching for, exploring, and digging. Just like my city, this Ancient Town of Hengkou established in the Song Dynasty, condenses the precipitation of the years and the industrious wisdom of the working people, and multiplies and flourishes from generation to generation.
Looking back at the history of Hengkou, if you leave the topic of "gold diggers", there is no vitality.
Gold panning refers to the fact that after gold prospectors salvage the silt in the river or lake, they wash the silt in the pan in order to find the natural gold sand in the silt. Gold panning has been a means of enrichment in the eyes of many adventurers, and there have been several degrees of gold rushing in history.
Its long history is recorded in history books.
"Wei Shu Food And Goods Chronicle": "There are more than a thousand gold households in Hanzhong, often panning for gold in the han water sand, and they always lose at the end of the year." ”
The fifth generation of Xue Zhaoyun's "Huanxi Sha" words: "Yue nu panning for gold in the spring water, stepping on the clouds and perceiving the minghun." ”
Ming Tang Xianzu's "Peony Pavilion Gurudwara": "There is no truth or falsehood in the color of the treasure, only in the gold panning will pick sand." ”
Satin's "Gold Rush" II: "At the beginning of the gold rush, he ran and opened up, hoping that he would be a factory owner or a partner with someone else." ”
From the glory of history, I saw the kindness and romance of the industrious and wise people, and saw the fearless spirit and hard work passion of the "gold diggers". "Gold panning", if we can, we can compare it to finding useful and suitable things in complex things, and the pursuit and yearning for a better life.
A long time ago, the Moon River River Road was rich in bran gold, which is today's sand gold, and the moon river sand gold reserves ranked first in the country. So the Western Wei deposed emperor Yuan Qin gave Ankang the resounding name of Jinzhou. The moon river out of gold has become a well-known thing, and the dynasties after the Tang Dynasty have to pay tribute to the imperial court every year. This required a large number of gold diggers, so the unique gold panning style continued in Hengkou for more than a thousand years.
The Tang Dynasty poet Liu Yuxi has a "gold rush poem".
Rizhao Chengzhou River fog open,
The gold panning woman accompanies Man Jiang Kuma.
Beauty Jewelry Marquis Seal,
It's all the bottom of the sand.
From the verses, it is not difficult to see the hardships of the ancients to pan for gold, but also to understand the ancient methods of gold panning, the most widely circulated gold panning methods are digging, slipping, and panning.
With the passage of time, the gold panning method left by the ancients has gradually been forgotten. However, the industrious and kind people of Hengkou have witnessed a history of prosperity and decline of the "gold diggers".
Wealth is unearthed, a piece of history is enough to witness the generations of Hengkou people's spirit of adventure, enterprising spirit and the spirit of "gold panning" for a better and happy life!
Let's look back on this glorious history together.
A historical station that witnesses the "gold diggers"
Ankang Gold Mine
At the end of the 1960s, after exploration by the National Geological Department, the gold storage volume was 15 tons, mainly distributed in the area of Hengkou Yuehe River Road. Until 1984, it was prepared in Hengkou, with a design investment of 16.71 million yuan, an annual mining sand volume of 2.43 million cubic meters, and an annual output of 12846 taels. The gold deposits are mainly distributed in the Cenozoic fault basin in the Yuehe River Road.
The Moon River Basin was formed in the early Tertiary Period, with a Lower Paleozoic strata in the north and a medium acidic rock mass in the south. The Yuehe Basin is distributed in an east-west direction along the north side of the Yuehe Fault, from Hanyin Gaoliangpu in the west to Ankang City in the east, with a total length of 70 kilometers. Under the influence of the neo-tectonic movement of the early Holocene in the fourth century, the basin was divided from west to east into four small basins: Hanyin, Puxi, Hengkou and Ankang. There is a concentration of placer gold in the gravel layers of each basin as early as the Holocene period.
The Hengkou Gold Deposit is located between the canyons of Tieling Pass and Changgun Ridge, which is about 25 km long and 1 to 9 km wide. The gentle bottom of the lunar river valley provides favorable conditions for the sedimentary enrichment of placer gold. The gold-bearing gravel layer is continuously stable, horizontal and band-like, and is one of the largest placer gold deposits under development in China. The top of the ore layer is sandy clay and silt layer, which contains no gold or very little gold, and the bottom plate of the ore layer is a semi-cemented, semi-weathered gravel layer or sandy soil layer of the Upper Neogene, which is the main gold-containing layer.
The Ankang Gold Mine was fully operational in 1987. At that time, the enterprise had 496 employees, including 91 professional and technical personnel of various types, 8 people with senior technical titles, and the enterprise had 8 production units, 12 management departments, and 3 economic entities.
In 1990, Ankang Gold Mine ranked 18th among the 500 largest industrial enterprises in China and 50 of the 50 industrial enterprises with the best economic benefits in the non-ferrous metal mining and dressing industry, and ranked 44th among the 50 best economic benefit industrial enterprises in Shaanxi Province. In March 1991, Ankang Gold Mine was awarded the title of "Provincial Advanced Enterprise" by the People's Government of Shaanxi Province.
The wheel of history is rolling forward, and this treasure land of people has left the spiritual hymn of the "gold digger" for the sake of a happy life for generations of people.
As early as 1400 years ago, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the ancestors of the Ankang area engaged in the ancient and primitive gold panning industry here, and the Moon River became a sacred place for gold diggers. So there are legends of "gods buried in the golden altar" and "spider spirit pulling golden ships". In the Tang Dynasty, the placer gold mining in the Ankang area, especially in the Area of the Hengkou Yuehe River, reached its peak and became a tribute to the imperial court with its beautiful quality. During the Qianlong and Guangxu years, the gold production here was nearly 1,000 taels. Until the end of the 1970s after the founding of New China, the masses mined gold without interruption, so the Yuehe placer gold mine was discovered by successive generations of working people. However, the evaluation of mineral deposits has been since the 1980s.
The Hengkou Placer Gold Mine is a large valley alluvial placer gold ore body, and the geological department has delineated the placer gold reserves in the ore body of 14.893 tons and the off-balance sheet reserves of 1.420 tons. The "Preliminary Design of Ankang Gold Mine" re-delineates the geological resources of Hengkou Deposit, with a design of recoverable reserves of 8.416 tons and a design resource utilization rate of 56%, which is mined by Ankang Gold Mine to build three 150-liter gold mining vessels, with a service life of 17 years.
Since its commissioning, Ankang Gold Mine has generally experienced three stages of development.
The first phase was from 1986 to 1988.
This stage is the period of arduous growth of ankang gold mine, the enterprise has only started to build, the internal management is still exploring, the external environment has not been straightened out, the farmers do not understand the gold mining boat gold mining, reclamation and return to the field, and refuse to provide gold mining land, especially cultivated land, it is even more difficult to rent. Even if it has been requisitioned, the gold mining ship will not be allowed to mine, and even the crowd will be gathered to block the normal production of the gold mining ship.
On July 18, 1986, the No. 1 gold mining vessel was forcibly blocked by farmers, causing the ship to stop for 105 consecutive days at a time;
In June 1987, Ship One was stopped again, its windows smashed, and production stopped for five days. The No. 2 gold mining vessel also could not escape this misfortune, and often suffered unreasonable obstructions, resulting in a serious impact on the operation time of the ship. Coupled with equipment and other reasons, the average working time of the whole mine is less than 50%.
The second phase was from 1989 to 1991.
This stage is the period when Ankang Gold Mine carries out "enterprise upgrading" activities around the country, comprehensively strengthens enterprise management, and various economic and technical indicators move towards a formal period. The equipment of the 6 major systems and 8 posts of the whole ship is linked with the corresponding posts and people, from maintenance, maintenance, discovery of hidden dangers, information feedback to troubleshooting are responsible for by the individuals on the post, forming a complete equipment management system, thereby improving the equipment integrity rate, and achieving an average daily operation time of more than 20 hours throughout the year.
In 1989, the No. 2 gold mining vessel was awarded the title of "Civilized Gold Mining Ship" by the Metallurgical Department of Shaanxi Province, and Yang Zhencheng was also rated as a national model worker. Cui Lan, deputy general manager of the China National Gold Corporation, said after inspecting the No. 2 vessel: "The gold mining vessels throughout the country are all at the level of management such as Comrade Yang Zhencheng, the captain of the No. 2 ship of the Ankang Gold Mine, and the mainland's placer gold production must at least double."
The period from 1992 to 1997 was the third phase.
The average annual excavation time of the three gold mining vessels is more than 5180 hours, and the total excavation volume reaches 2.28 million cubic meters. In 1994, the gold production reached 10,891 taels, achieving a profit of 10.05 million yuan and a per capita profit of more than 20,000 yuan.
Among them, 8 major economic and technical indicators rank among the best in the national placer gold mines, and the fixed assets increased from 17 million yuan at the beginning of the mine to 52.13 million yuan, the owner's equity was 29.68 million yuan, and the preservation rate of state-owned assets reached 104.65% by 1997.
The ancient gold digger was once a symbol of the times.
In the human world, how many forgotten memorials are there, just like this quietly flowing moon river...
Perhaps, no one knows how many years she has been here? Even in the battlefield of Jingo Iron Horse, there are always regrets of changing winds and clouds. On the bank of the Moon River, maybe There is Roselle coming? The night is silent, looking forward to sorrow, only the babbling water is silent.
Gazing at the Moon River, there are also feelings of looking at each other tirelessly. Just like the ancient craftsmen, there is always a belief they hold on to...
Sometimes, the angler, perhaps, is not necessarily for the fish. Gold diggers, I think, don't necessarily want to be for gold.
Let's remember the "gold digger" together and look back on this glorious time together.
We believe that the spirit of "gold diggers" of the people of Hengkou since ancient times will be passed down from generation to generation, and will continue to forge ahead in the future, and will be carried forward!