Qing "Qianlong Southern Tour Map" (partial)
Ming Zhang Ruitu "Former Chibi Fu Album" ◎ Wang Jiannan
Exhibition: Jiangtian Wanli - Yangtze River Culture Exhibition
Duration: On display
Venue: National Museum
"I live at the head of the Yangtze River, and I live at the end of the Yangtze River." Thinking about the jun every day, he did not see the jun, and drank the water of the Yangtze River together. The Northern Song Dynasty poet Li Zhiyi used the length and might of the water of the Yangtze River to express his deep thoughts about his lover in this poem "Bu Operator". Although the poet says, "I live at the head of the Yangtze River," people like him who lived in the Song Dynasty still don't know where the source of the Yangtze River is. The Yangtze River comes from the snowy mountains, and the mighty rushes to the East China Sea, and in the long years, the ancients' understanding of the Yangtze River has deepened little by little. Along the rolling Yangtze River, we can trace the most brilliant branch line of Chinese culture, which is also an important message brought to us by the "Jiangtian Wanli - Yangtze River Culture Exhibition" that the National Expo is exhibiting.
The name "Yangtze River" began in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, before which the ancient name of the Yangtze River was "Jiang". In ancient Chinese times, "jiang" was a special term, specifically referring to the Yangtze River. The earliest document to record it is the Book of Poetry, Zhou Nan Hanguang: "The Eternal Of the River, The Unthinkable". During the Han and Wei dynasties, people began to call it "Dajiang". The Yangtze River is too "long", in the ancient traffic is extremely inconvenient, the ancients often according to their own location to the yangtze river flowing in front of the yangtze river name. As a result, the Yangtze River has other names such as "Chuanjiang", "Xiajiang", "Jiujiang", "Yangtze River" and so on. In the opening part of the exhibition "JiangTian Wanli" at the National Museum, the curators spend a lot of time explaining the process of the ancients in finding and identifying the source of the Yangtze River. On the "Imperial Public Opinion Overview Map" drawn during the Kangxi Period of the Qing Dynasty, the Mulu Wusu River (Shangyuan is Buqu) is the source of the Yangtze River, showing that the people at that time still had a vague understanding of the Jiangyuan area, but the location of the river confluence was basically correct.
In 1977, the state-organized scientific expedition team for the source of the Yangtze River finally figured out that the Yangtze River originated in the glacier on the southwest side of the Main Peak of the Tanggula Mountains, Geladan Dongxue Mountain, and the Tuotuo River was the source of the Yangtze River. The section from the Tuotuo River to the Yushu section in Qinghai is called the "Tongtian River", and after a drop of up to 3,000 to 4,000 meters, it reaches the border between Sichuan and Tibet through the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and the latter section has the name of "Jinsha River". The Jinsha River turned seven major bends on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan, and received the Min River near Yibin, which began to be called the "Yangtze River".
Bashu culture
The Yangtze River and its main streams, the Minjiang, Tuojiang and Jialing rivers, formed the Bashu culture in the Sichuan region, and gave birth to many outstanding writers and artists. Li Bai grew up in Qinglian Township, Mianzhou, the father and son of "Sansu" were from Meizhou, and the great painter Huang Xiao of the Five Dynasties Era was a native of Chengdu.
Located in the heart of the Chengdu Plain formed by the alluvial minjiang river, Chengdu has been the political, economic and cultural center of the southwest region since the Qin and Han dynasties. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, jinguan city was built in the south of the city, in charge of the silk weaving industry. Therefore, Chengdu's Shu Jin is famous all over the world, selling well throughout the country, and has been prosperous for a long time, and Chengdu has also gained the reputation of "Jinguancheng".
The Tang Dynasty poet Du Fu wrote in "Happy Rain on Spring Nights": "Xiao looks at the red and wet places, and the flowers are golden." In the winter of 759 AD, in order to avoid the "Anshi Rebellion", Du Fu came to Chengdu, found a wasteland on the bank of Huanhua Creek in the west of the city, and built a grass hall with the help of relatives and friends. During the four years of his residence, he wrote many immortal masterpieces. Among them, "The Song of the Hut Broken by the Autumn Wind" rose from lamenting the hardships of personal life to the prayer of "ten million rooms in Ande Guangsha, sheltering the world from the cold and the people are happy, and the wind and rain do not move like a mountain".
In order to commemorate Du Fu, the five generations of poets Wei Zhuang rebuilt the hut on the old site, and during the Northern Song Dynasty, it was rebuilt as the Gongbu Ancestral Hall, which was later expanded to lay the scale of the current Du Fu Caotang. Compared with Du Fu, who temporarily avoided Chengdu, Li Bai left his hometown early and went to the outside world to pursue his dreams.
Jingchu culture
In "Early White Emperor City", Li Bai praised the speed of the Yangtze River flow rate can reach "a thousand miles of Jiangling a day". At that time, the Yangtze River carried him through the Three Gorges, through Yichang, to the Two Lakes area, where the water flow was relatively gentle. At the age of 27, Li Bai started a family in Anlu, Hubei Province, settled in the beautiful Peach Blossom Rock, and spent nearly a decade of relatively stable life. Located in the hinterland of Central Hubei, it is the birthplace of Chu culture. It is also an area full of mystery and romance radiated by the Jingchu culture.
Qu Yuan, a statesman during the Warring States period, was the first great patriotic poet in Chinese history and the founder of Romantic literature. He founded "Chu Ci", marking the beginning of a new era of Chinese poetry from collective singing to individual originality. Together with its influx tributary, the Han River, the Yangtze River floods into the fertile Jianghan Plain, covering an area of 46,000 square kilometers. The Three Kingdoms Chibi Ancient Battlefield is also within this range. More than a thousand years ago, the late Tang Dynasty poet Du Mu once found a rusty iron halberd by the river, sighed in his heart, imagined and wrote down" that "the iron that folded the halberd is not sold, and the self-polishing and washing recognizes the former dynasty." Iron weapons are indeed often unearthed here, accumulating more than a thousand pieces. After many investigations by archaeologists, Puxi City was identified as the core site of the Battle of Chibi. In 1998, Puxi City was renamed Chibi City. Another Chibi in Huanggang was once recognized by the Northern Song Dynasty literary hero Su Shi as the ancient Chibi battlefield, and it was precisely because of his misreading that the famous pieces in the history of Chinese literature were produced, "Before and After Chibi Fu" and "Nian Nu Jiao Chibi Huaigu".
In 1079, Su Shi was imprisoned for more than three months in connection with the "Wutai Poetry Case", and after his release, he was demoted to Huangzhou (present-day Huanggang) in Hubei Province as a deputy envoy to the regiment. This is a job-holding and powerless idle worker, who, with the help of friends, obtained the right to reclaim a slope in the east of the city, and wrote the most popular work of his life in addition to cultivating the land. There is a small article called "Lingao Idle Question" about his relationship with the Yangtze River. It reads: "Eighty steps under the Lingao Pavilion is the great river, half of which is Emei snow water, and my diet and bathing are all taken, so why return to my hometown!" When Su Shi was extremely depressed and lonely, he suddenly thought that there was snow water from Mount Emei in the gushing river, and it turned out that he was close to his hometown of Chao Si Twilight every day.
Jingchu culture has cultivated countless readers. Yuelu Academy, one of the "Four Great Academies" in ancient China, was located at the foot of Yuelu Mountain in the Yuelu District of Changsha, Hunan Province, while the Bailudong Academy, another major academy, was hidden in lushan Mountain under the jurisdiction of Jiujiang City, Jiangxi. After crossing the Jiujiang River, the Yangtze River, which is more than 6,300 kilometers long, has begun its final journey.
Gangnam culture
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the two banks of the Yangtze River were full of vitality and gave birth to a famous cultural symbol "Jiangnan". Jiangnan is not only a symbol of the abundance of people, but also a symbol of culture. When it comes to the culture of Gangnam, I have to mention its exquisite life side, all of which are integrated into daily life. For example, all kinds of noodles in Suzhou, diners know that the essence of "Su-style ramen" lies in "toppings". Toppings are the juices used to flavor or garnish dishes. As the saying goes: "Toppings, toppings, a pour to solve a thousand sorrows." "There are so many varieties of toppings here that they can be roughly called "the first in China". If you want to choose the "king of toppings" in Suzhou noodles, it should be the "three shrimp noodles" listed in early summer. The three shrimp are shrimp, shrimp seeds and shrimp yellow, according to the Suzhou people's exquisite, fresh shrimp should be taken from the small shrimp caught in the river that day. After returning to the store, you need to soak in ice water for half an hour, and then peel the shell to take the meat, but still keep it in ice water, otherwise you will lose the elasticity of the meat. The next pot is boiled and brought to the table, and the diners re-gather the three "toppings" and mix them into a bowl of authentic "three shrimp noodles".
The charm of Jiangnan is always accompanied by the memory of all kinds of eating, otherwise the Qianlong Emperor would not have visited Jiangnan six times that year. Although it is impossible to know whether he has ever eaten "three shrimp noodles", his nostalgia for Jiangnan must be beyond the realm of this cuisine. What he had in mind was "a thousand feet of snow", which was a scenery in the northern cold mountains of Tianping Mountain in the western suburbs of Suzhou. During the Ming Dynasty, Gao Shi Zhao Gongguang bought a mountain here to bury his father and keep filial piety for life. In the meantime, he stacked stones to build gardens, thin springs and pile mountains, and built Hanshan villas. Qianlong's first visit was a great deal of poetry. A song "A Thousand Feet of Snow on the Imperial Cold Mountain" was left behind, engraved on the west wall outside the east gate of the "Listening Snow Pavilion" of "Thousand Feet of Snow". After returning to Beijing, Qianlong ordered the construction of the scenery here in three places, and personally drew the "Hanshan Villa Map".
Jiangnan is both a geographical concept and a cultural metaphor. In the minds of most people, Jiangnan has been gentle since ancient times, but in the great changes in the Ming and Qing dynasties, the awe-inspiring integrity displayed by the people of Jiangnan cannot but be admired.
The Yangtze River comes from the snowy mountains, passes through Bashu, passes through Jingchu, travels through Ganwan, passes through Wuyue, has nine veins in the vastness, and flows in the east, bringing together more than 700 large and small rivers before and after, with a basin area of more than 1.8 million square kilometers, covering 17 provinces, autonomous regions and cities. The Yangtze River Zhong Ling Yu Xiu, the spirit of the people, thousands of years, the emergence of countless popular characters, writing endless legendary chapters. Splendid poems have been recited through the ages, and the ingenuity of the craftsmanship has shown its ability. The pavilions of the academy shine for thousands of years, and the people of the ancient town live in nostalgia. From Bashan Shushui to Jiangnan Water Town, the ideological elite of the past generations has been cultivated, and countless popular figures have emerged.
With its abundant nourishment and eclectic broad mind of day and night, the mighty rivers and rivers have achieved the continuation and development of Chinese civilization and connected China and the world.