Author: Wu Chen
In the small street outside the East Gate of Yizheng City, there is a humble cement bridge, built across the Li River, recently demolished outside the East Gate, there are no residents nearby, but this small bridge is visited from time to time, these visitors include elderly scholars, there are young men and women, there are Yizheng locals, there are also people from Beijing, Nanjing and other places, they all have a common title: red fan.
【Lihe Bridge】
Red fans are "Dream of the Red Chamber" enthusiasts, their organization is called "so-and-so city red fan association", and if it is big, it is called the "Dream of the Red Chamber" society or research society in so-and-so city. Red fans are interested in this small bridge, Yizheng Dongmen locals call it "gate nest", before the construction of the small bridge in the 1950s, here is an ancient stone gate, the big stone was demolished to the new gate construction site, here became a deep pond, this is the origin of the name of the "gate nest", the cement bridge was built on the original site of the stone gate, and this ancient stone gate, the scientific name is "Dongguan Gate", Cao Yin once wrote "Rebuilding the Dongguan Stone Gate", so this has become a holy place for red fans to visit, The author has explained the Dongguan Gate to visitors many times on the small bridge.
[Illustration: The author explains the Dongguan Gate to red fans]
Red fans came to Yizheng to visit the relics of Cao Yin, Cao Yin is the grandfather of Cao Xueqin, the author of "Dream of the Red Chamber", from the forty-second year of Kangxi (1703), Cao Yin and his brother-in-law Li Xu took turns to serve as the "Inspector of the Two Huai Salt Class Inspector Yushi" (referred to as the Inspector of The Salt Imperial History, Yan Zheng), the office (embassy) was in Yizheng Tianchi, they worked and lived in Yizheng for eight years, leaving some relics and a large number of poems, "Rebuilding the Stone Gate of Dongguan" is the forty-ninth year of Kangxi (1710) when Cao Yin was the fourth time when he was the governor of Yanzheng, Designated Yizhen County's Qiú to carry out the reconstruction project, which was written after its completion in March of the following year.
Cao Yin said in the "Record of rebuilding the Dongguan Stone Gate": "Where the salt ships are in Huainan, wanshu stands, and the business economy is two or three hundred miles, and the transfer from the capital is divided into divisions Yutong and Tai, and the office is urged to stop." At the end of the day, when it goes to the Yizhen Examination Institute and arrives at the Lihekou Lock, it enters from the Dongguan Gate and enters the Tianchi Pond. Yu Shigong personally came to press the scales, over-inspected, cut and did not comply with the rules, and then unbundled and run, and the merchants were transported to the four provinces of Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Henan, and Huguang for distribution, and the legislation was comprehensive. Looking at the east of the river and the transfer of the two Zhejiang provinces, it is particularly important. It is this gate, the district Huai water and water, in the flat land for rock danger. Waiting for the tide to shrink, set the version in and out. Inside and outside the city, wheels and hooves are lined up, and floating beams must be placed to lead to it. ”
The meaning of this passage is that the sea salt produced from the Lianghuai Salt Works, through several branches in Nantong and Taizhou, sailed two or three hundred miles (Tongyang Canal) waterways, arrived at Yizhen (formerly known as Yizheng because of the avoidance of Yongzheng), drove from the Dongguan Gate into Tianchi Mooring, and came to the Yizhen Examination Institute (the full name is the Huainan Batch Salt Inspection Institute, referred to as the Salt Institute). As the inspector of the two Huai salt royal history, I have to personally visit the scene, supervise the weighing, over-inspect, cut, unbundle many links, ensure the supply of salt sales (designated monopoly place) Jiangnan, Jiangxi, Henan, Huguang four provinces, the sales volume of the two Huai salt is more than Hedong, two Zhejiang, this place is a heavy place! The Dongguan Gate is on such an important waterway, it separates the waterways of caoyun and salt transportation, and sets up a barrier for the Tianchi waterway. Use the tide to increase or decrease the water level of the Tianchi To ensure the smooth flow of salt boats. I also built a bridge over the gates to facilitate cross-strait exchanges.
From the title of "Rebuilding the Dongguan Stone Gate", it can be seen that the Dongguan Gate was not built by Cao Yin, he was only rebuilt. The text emphasizes that the Dongguan Gate is so important, when was it built? This starts with the evolution of the canal's estuary.
Yizheng since ancient times is the mouth of the canal, the Spring and Autumn Wu King excavated the Han ditch, its inlet is in the ancient city of Jiangdu (forty-six miles southwest of Tangcheng, now Linguo Village, the new town of Yizheng City); due to the rise of the Yangtze River, the "Water Break of Jiangdu" occurred during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the canal estuary was excavated southwest to Ouyang Dai (the new town area of Yizheng City); Emperor Wen of Sui opened Shanyangdu, and the inlet of the river extended to Yangzijin (the old port of the present-day Yizheng Development Zone); the Tang Dynasty extended to Baisha (now Tianning Tanan, Yizheng City); the Song Dynasty extended to Zhenzhou Lingchaoyan (Zhenzhou is the name of the Yizheng Song Dynasty, Lingchao Weir was located in the present-day Qingjiang Gate of Yizheng City).
The Song Dynasty was the pinnacle of China's water transport history, and during the Song Renzong period, a record of 8 million stones per year was set, and the famous Zhenzhou Fuzha was born at the mouth of the canal (both the History of Song and Shen Kuo's Mengxi Pen Talks). The Song Dynasty implemented a mixed transportation system of Cao and salt, and set up a grain and Huai salt transfer warehouse in Zhenzhou, and the river boats unloaded the goods after carrying grain from Huguang and other places to Zhenzhou, and the return ship was not empty and brought back huai salt.
Due to the influence of the Song Dynasty and the Yuan-Ming Wars and the rising of the river beach, the Song Canal was seriously silted up at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, and The former military department Shangshu Shan An Ren, who was retired in Yizhen, asked the imperial court to agree to it, and implemented it in the fourteenth year of Hongwu (1381): on the one hand, dredging the Song Dynasty Canal and rebuilding the Song Dynasty sluices, on the other hand, using the Riverside Inter-Zhou Waterway (Lotus Weir) in the south of Yizhen City, excavating the New River to Tianchi, extending the inlet along the Yudai River to the Yellow Mud Beach (now Yizheng Grand Wharf), in order to ensure that the new river water does not lose, All the five harbors that were connected to the Yangtze River were built into dams, known in history as the Five Dams, and the New River was called the Weir River, and the wide water surface surrounded by the five dams was called Tianchi.
The salt boats arrived in Tianchi from the Tong and Tai seashores, and the porter carried the Huai salt ashore to the salt house on the west side of the first and second dams to go through the formalities for inspection, and then carried it to the bundle of salt on the other side of the salt house, unpacked (unbundled) and remade into small bags (sub-salt) to adapt to the small boat transportation of the streams in the prefectures and counties in the Huguang area, and then used barges to transport the salt to the river boats on the riverside, and the river boats transported to the Yangtze river on the four banks of the Yangtze River (Xiang, Hubei, Gan, anhui) on the upper river. Tianchi has become a key place for Huai salt transit, distribution, weighing, inspection, cutting, and unbundling.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Song Canal was used in conjunction with the Tianchiyan River, and when the Song Canal was shallow, the boats had to cross the dam and take the Weir River. By the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Song Canal had been completely shallow, and the Tianchiyan River had to be salted and crossed. It is better to say that the salt is artificially lifted across the dam, and the canal salt boat returns the same way; crossing the river is complicated, not only to unload the grain off the ship, but also to lay some silt and water grass on the dam, increase the lubrication, and then use cattle and horses to drive the winch, pull the dam on the boat, "burst into the water", and then reload the grain into the ship, through the Weir River into the canal to Huai'an to Beijing. It is laborious, time-consuming and laborious, and the loss of ships and grain is serious. Qian Pu, the left attendant of the official department, said: "Yi Zhen Face Jiang Bei Huai, for a metropolis." Where Nanjing supplies, Grain and goods from Jiangxi, Chuanhu, Yungui and other places, as well as the contribution of the sea and the sea, are sent from Jiangche dam to Huaihuai to reach the Beijing Division. When his ships reach the dam, they need to be in the air, and if they fall into a well, they will not be able to win. Cao Yin also said: "When the boats arrive at the dam, they will pass by, and the tens of thousands of ships will be sick." "So there was a motion to open the outer river again.
In the tenth year of Ming Chenghua (1474), Lang Zhongguo Sheng, the Ministry of River Patrol, excavated the Yizhen Outer River, and built a new Luosi Gate (withdrawing luoqiao, hence the name, also known as the Linjiang Gate), the Tongji Gate (Middle Gate), and the Xiangshui Gate; in the fourteenth year of Hongzhi (1501), the Caoyun Capital Yushi Zhang Shihua built a new tidal lock on the Outer River, and this newly opened river channel was called the Outer River, also known as the Gate River, because it was on the outside of the Tianchiyan River; correspondingly, the Tianchiyan River was called the Li River. The four locks form a three-level lock, after completion, the boats go to the outer river, the salt boats go to the river, do not affect each other, complement each other. Although the "five dams and four locks" of the Ming Dynasty did not have the fame of the Song Dynasty's "Zhenzhou Fu lock", it also occupied an important position in the history of Chinese shipping, especially in the history of the evolution of canal inlets.
There were no locks on the Li River at the beginning, only the Dongguan Pontoon Bridge, Guo Sheng built the Xiangshui Locks of the Outer River, and built the Dongguan Locks on the Li River at the same time (also known as the Lihekou Lock, the First Lock, the Head Lock, and the Xiangshui Locks 100 steps), but because the new locks were built in the section of the Song Canal that coincided with the Li River, affecting the civilian boats entering the city, it was not used normally after it was built.
In the twenty-second year of Chenghua (1486), Xia Ying, the director of the Nanjing Engineering Department, built a new Dongguan Stone Gate at the location of the original pontoon bridge on the south and main stream of the Li River at the Guosheng Dongguan Gate Site. After the capital of the Ming Dynasty was moved to Beijing, there were six departments in Nanjing (in fact, only five), and the "Nanjing Engineering Department" in Yizhen was a dispatch agency of the Nanjing Ministry of Works, whose main responsibility was the distribution of bricks and tiles in Jiangnan, which was later transformed into cao salt transportation management. The Dongguan Gate built by Xia Ying is the protagonist of this article.
【Dongguan Gate Waterway Map】
The main role of the Dongguan Gate is to ensure the stability of the water level of Tianchi, and Hanlin reviewed Zhuang Chang in the "Records of the Dongguan Gate": "Yi Zhen, the place where the throat of the Beijing master is located, the place where the water is transported must be transferred, and the place where the tribute merchants are involved must be involved." There is a Kyoshi, and it cannot be without Yi Zhenye. However, the five dams of Yizhen must be given to Dongguan. If the five dams are surplus, they will store the East Pass to dry up; if the five dams dry up, they will drain the East Pass to help their emergencies. There are five dams, and there can be no Dongguan also. It is the five dams, used for Yizhen; the Dongguan people, used for the five dams also. ”
The completion of the Dongguan Gate provided navigation support for the normal operation of the Yizheng Tianchi Huai salt distribution, and after entering the Qing Dynasty, it has been used, and there have been many repairs during the period. In the middle of the Qianlong period, the four gates of the Outer River were damaged and the river channel was increasingly seriously silted, and the water transport was forced to change to Guazhou, but the salt transport line of the Lihe River was running normally due to the protection of the Dongguan Gate, and the Yizheng Tianchi in the Qianjia period even set a record of 1.34 million salt transport, and the famous literati Wang Zhong praised: "When the salt class is directly connected, from Taizhou in the east to Hanyang in the west, the transfer is half a day under the heavens, but the Yizheng is its mouth." The columns cover the air, and the river stands. Looking at the city is looming".
【"Daoguang Reconstruction Yizheng County Chronicle" Water Conservancy Map】
After the outbreak of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War, Yizheng became a tug-of-war battlefield, the Taiping Army entered and exited in four directions, the county seat and the outer Tianchi area around the embassy, salt houses and most of the houses were destroyed, the river was silted, and the Tianchi bow was grass. After the end of the war, Zeng Guofan, the governor of Liangjiang, tried to restore the salt transport transit in Yizheng, but Tianchi could not be repaired, and in the twelfth year of Tongzhi (1873), li Zongxi, the salt government, built the Lianghuai Salt Transport General Stack to the Twelve Weis five kilometers downstream of Yizheng County, thus continuing the glory of the two Huai salt transport for 63 years.
About the Author:
Wu Chen, born in Jiangyan, Jiangsu Province in 1961.12, graduated from the Department of Physics of Soochow University in 1982 and is currently a fourth-level researcher in the Yizheng Municipal Government Office. He is the author of "Ruan Yuan and Yi Zheng", published by Guangling Book Club in 2014; "Ruan Yuanyi Zhengshi", published by Guangling Book Club in 2015. In 2014, as a scholar from Ruan Yuan's hometown, he attended the "Nguyen Yuan and Kim Jong Hee" International Academic Exchange Conference held in South Korea.
This article is included in the China Salt Industry Association, China Salt Jintan Salinization Co., Ltd., edited by Zhong Hailian, Salt, Nanjing: Jiangsu People's Publishing House, May 2021 edition.