June 10th is China's seventh cultural and natural heritage day, and Guizhou is a cultural hotspot that you don't expect!
As China's "mountain park province", Guizhou ranks first in the country in terms of the number of world natural heritage sites, with 1.258 million mountains, and Guizhou ranks first in the country in the number of traditional Chinese villages and villages with Chinese ethnic minority characteristics (as of 2020), shaping the "cultural thousand islands". In Guizhou, the two Han can meet Yelang, silver jewelry and big songs are colorful intertwined, there are thousands of people and thousands of faces between the mountains and rivers, and it also contains the brilliant sparks of the revolutionary years...
Mountains and rivers, waterways crisscrossing,
The diverse landscape of Guizhou is the basis of colorful culture.
The picture shows the Wujiang Yangguan River.
Photo by Liu Dequan
The colorful and colorful cultural pattern of the blend of ancient and modern can be seen everywhere in Guizhou. Guizhou culture is a colorful epic created by the world's deeds and the mighty power of heaven and earth!
Guizhou, 92.5% of the area is mountainous hills, the basis of this epic poem, naturally between its "high in the west and low in the east, three steps" mountain pattern -
Schematic map of Guizhou's topography and geomorphology.
Cartography/Tian Dongyu
In the western part of the Guizhou Plateau, Wumeng Mountain and Dalou Mountain are like two giant dragons, carrying two pearls, Bijie and Liupanshui, supporting the first "step" of the highest altitude in Guizhou. The envoys of the two Han Dynasties, the mountain people of Qiang, the merchants on the Southern Silk Road... Stepping on the footprints of "Guizhou people" hundreds of thousands of years ago, they jointly outlined the far-reaching outline of Guizhou humanities here.
A celebration on the leek ping of Hezhang.
Photo by Gong Xiaoyong
The second "step" in the middle is the hilly mountains and rivers that connect from Guiyang and Anshun to Zunyi, where people and things seem to blend and deposit in the precious "10,000 mu dam" of mountain provinces, becoming the "Great Ming Style" 600 years ago, Wang Yangming's "Dragon Field Enlightenment", and it is also the poem "Beauty and Harmony" inscribed on many treasures in the Dasongshan tomb group in Qianzhong since the two Jin Dynasties to the Song and Yuan Ming dynasties.
The Anshun Tunbao opera team of "thousands of people and thousands of faces".
Photo by Qin Gang
From this highland in Qianzhong to the north, east and south, the mountains and rivers of the third "step" are like turbulent waves, leaning down, connecting the cultural contexts of the Central Plains, Bashu, Lingnan and other places, and gathering a humanistic cave - the "Brahma Pure Land" stands in the southwest; The Chishui River flows with fine wine, which is also a long cultural river; Under Lei Gong Mountain, Miao Dong villages are scattered everywhere, gathering the world focus of national culture...
The vast area above is not so much the third "step" of the Guizhou Plateau, but a sea of culture full of pearls.
So, where does the cultural pattern of Guizhou's magnificent mountain province come from?
Guizhou, where is it from?
The Guizhou we are talking about here is, first, the Guizhou Plateau, which was shaped by hundreds of millions of years, and second, Guizhou, the thirteenth province in Chinese history.
The Guizhou Plateau is one of the youngest lands in southern China. The "Fanjing Movement" 1.4 billion years ago made the mountains and wilderness of Guizhou appear in one fell swoop. Since then, more than 20 geological movements have caused the Guizhou Plateau to go through ups and downs, laying the foundation for its undulating mountain step pattern from high to low.
The Beipanjiang Grand Canyon is the epitome of the drop of the terrain step in Guizhou.
Photo by Hu Yunjiang
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau cuts off atmospheric circulation and shelters Guizhou, making it a rare emerald in the vast desert at the same latitude of the earth. The large-scale and violent strata uplift, coinciding with the north-south air mass "Yungui quasi-stationary front" on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, the climate is humid and the rain washes out, shaping 1,258,000 peaks and 984 large and small rivers of more than 10 kilometers in this 176,200 square kilometers of land.
Libo Maolan Karst, the karst "emerald" of Guizhou.
Photo by Qin Gang
"Earth Memory Museum", "Paleontological Kingdom", China's province with the most natural heritage in the world, one of the world's three major karsts, "South China Karst", the largest distribution area... One shining title after another shows why Guizhou is China's first mountain province. Walking on this land, every place is a change in time and space, a glance at the mountains and peaks of hundreds of millions of years.
Representative of Guizhou paleontological fossils.
Figure 1: Sea lily. Photo by Qin Gang
Figure 2: Ichthyosaurus. Photo by Li Guiyun
This is the basic pattern of Guizhou as a mountain park, and the birth of Guizhou as a province is due to the historical process of the unification of China 610 years ago.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, hundreds of thousands of Ming troops from all over China entered Qianqian from the Qingshui River, passing through today's Guiyang and Anshun, and garrisoning troops to conquer Yunnan, and Guizhou's status as a pivotal point in the southwest became more and more prominent. In the eleventh year of the Ming Dynasty (1413 AD), Zhu Di ordered the establishment of the Guizhou Bu Government. In the epic of promoting national unification when the Ming army forged the northern border pass and pacified the southern land, Guizhou, which controlled the southwest, appeared as the thirteenth province in Chinese history.
The ancient city of Zhenyuan, known as the "key of Yunchu and the gateway of Qiandong".
Photo by Cao Jingjian
In the following three hundred years, Yunnan Wusa Province (Weining Province), Sichuan Zunyi Province, Huguang Zhenyuan, Yiqiao, Pingxi, Qinglang, Wukai, Tonggu Liuwei and Tianzhu County, Libo County in Guangxi and the north bank of Nanpanjiang and Hongshui River in the northwest "joined" Guizhou, and the area of Guizhou Province expanded by nearly 1/3, and finally basically fixed in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.
Schematic map of changes in administrative divisions of Guizhou.
Cartography/Satoshi
The establishment of the province is also the foundation of the basic cultural structure. The culture of ancient and modern four directions will meet in the young hot land of Guizhou - the broad acceptance of the Central Plains culture, the leisure and calmness of the Bashu culture, the beauty and romance of the Huxiang culture, the beauty and variety of the national culture, the ancient mystery of the Yelang culture, and the distant Zhongzheng of the two Han cultures... The key word of Guizhou culture - colorful.
It is the people of Guizhou who have shaped this colorful culture in ancient times.
Where do Guizhou people come from?
What is a Guizhou person?
the prehistoric "Guizhou people" of the flood famine era; the four major ethnic groups of ancient China that migrated to China; Han immigrants from Guizhou have been pouring into Guizhou since the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods; The elites who traveled to Guizhou together formed the main body of Guizhou people. Today, Guizhou connects the world with 10,000 bridges in the mountains, making this subject more diversified and rich.
The colorful ethnic group of Guizhou originated from the four major ethnic groups in ancient China.
Top left: Miao; Top right: Yi people;
Bottom left: Dong people; Bottom right: Gelao.
Photo by David Fung
5.6 million years ago, in today's Bijie, Liupanshui, southwest Qianxi and northern Qianbei plateau mountainous areas, there were "Guizhou people" appeared. Among the hundreds of Paleolithic relics represented by Guanyin Cave in Qianxi, we can see a history book written by the earth, rivers and peaks - late Homo erectus "Tongzi Man", early Homo sapiens "Shuicheng Man", late Homo sapiens "Xingyi Man"... The ancient human sites in Guizhou connect the minimalist history of ancient human attacks.
Schematic map of the distribution of ancient human sites in Guizhou.
Cartography/Liu Yunshuo
These are the first ancestors to live on the Guizhou Plateau. In the "starry sky" of the early rise of ancient Chinese civilization, they became the main force holding the torch of southern Chinese civilization.
The ancient drumbeat gradually drifted away, and flow and integration became the main tone of Guizhou people since then. Since the Shang, Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties, whenever the Central Plains region is full of smoke, looking at the southwest and the Guizhou Plateau, which is a peaceful and peaceful place for soldiers.
Schematic diagram of the evolution of the four major ethnic groups in ancient China in Guizhou.
There is still academic controversy over the migration routes of ethnic groups and the evolution of corresponding ethnic groups.
This figure refers to the main views of the current academic community.
Cartography/Liu Yunshuo
The Baipu ethnic group inhabits the area of Qianzhong and northern Qianbei; The Miao Yao tribe came west from the Xiaoxiang water system; The Baiyue ethnic group crosses the Duliu River and the Hongshui River and goes all the way north; The Qiang ethnic group travels from west to east through Yunnan and the western Sichuan Plateau into Qian... In the Yuan Dynasty, Mongolians, Hui and other ethnic compatriots also entered Guizhou, and now the symbiotic pattern of eighteen ethnic groups in Guizhou has gradually formed.
Han immigration is also an important part of this pattern. As early as the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, there were remnants of Cai and Song who opened up the mountains of Guizhou. Since then, the "Hao family" of the Han Dynasty, the generals who entered Banzhou in the Tang Dynasty to defend their homeland, the tide of immigration in the Ming Dynasty, and even the army of the army and civilians of the War of Resistance and the construction of the third front... They have become a powerful boost for the development of Guizhou.
Among them, it is particularly worth mentioning that after Zhu Yuanzhang sent an army to conquer the southwest in the 14th year of Ming Hongwu (1381 AD), nearly 200,000 Ming troops were stationed in Guizhou "transferred north to fill in the south". They built countless forts, connecting the cultural context of the Central Plains and Jiangnan, and also worked with the local residents to open up thousands of mountains and mountains in Guizhou.
Descendants of Han immigrants from the Ming Dynasty who called themselves "Tunbao people".
Photo by David Fung
Some people have taken root in this mountain and river, and there are also many passers-by, either with hope and imagination, to record the mystery and color of Guizhou, or into Guizhou, becoming the source and promoter of Guizhou culture.
Li Bai, Meng Jiao, Liu Yuxi and other Tang poets chanted the poems of Guizhou for thousands of generations, Wang Yangming realized the Tao in the Dragon Field of Guizhou, and wrote "Legend of the Elephant Temple", issuing the grand wish of "no inalienable person under the world", while Xu Xiake measured the land of Guizhou with his steps, outlining many scenic spots such as "majestic thousands of miles, victory for the southwest", "one stream hanging, ten thousand lian flying into the sky" and so on.
Wang Yangming realized the Tao in the Dragon Field of Xiuwen and pioneered the study of the mind.
The picture shows the local Yangming Cultural Park.
Photo by Xu Qingyi
Today, Guizhou is a world-class destination. Scholars who visit culture, "migratory birds" who escape summer and winter, builders who forge the flying frame of ten thousand bridges... You can all be in Guizhou or reminiscing about the past and present, or enjoying it comfortably, or showing your skills.
At any time, Guizhou is a treasure land where hundreds of schools converge and accept all directions, and naturally it has also formed a cultural outlook of "thousands of people and thousands of faces".
The representative of Guizhou's warm contemporary culture - "village BA".
Photography / Xiang Yifeng
Why is Guizhou culture colorful?
The diversity of Guizhou's culture is reflected by the two spiritual primary colors of "the unity of heaven and man" and "the unity of knowledge and action".
On the one hand, the people of Guizhou have long lived in the mountains and wilderness, facing the impetuous hustle and bustle of the times, with their own guarding and indisputable escape; On the other hand, the repeated tide of migration from the outside to the inside is like a source of power, allowing the people of Guizhou to constantly cross thousands of mountains and fight hard at the time of the rise and fall of the country, becoming an infinite driving force for cultural generation.
A Guizhou village on the terraces of "the unity of heaven and man".
Photo by Fu Ding
From the "five-foot road" and "Nanyi road" of the Qin and Han dynasties, to the establishment of "station chi" in the Yuan Dynasty, the establishment of the five major post roads in the Ming Dynasty, the development of water and land transportation in the Qing Dynasty, and then to the current Wanqiao flying frame, this mountain park province in different historical stages, because of the gradual development of roads, the cultural treasures hidden in the folds of the mountains have also been gradually discovered, so as to shine brightly and achieve a cultural landscape and time peaks.
Bridges, opening up mountain transportation in Guizhou.
The picture shows the Wujiang Five Bridges.
Photo courtesy of Guizhou Provincial Department of Transportation
From west to east, attack the Stone Age
Today, the first "step" of Guizhou in the Bijie and Liupanshui mountains, as well as the adjacent southwest and northern Qianbei areas, have a humid climate and many karst caves, which are suitable for the reproduction of life. The earliest light of civilization in Guizhou began here.
The prehistoric culture of Guizhou in the Paleolithic period was no less prosperous than the primitive civilization in the Yellow River Basin at the same time, as can be seen by the most important production tool at that time - stone tools.
Rich stone and bone tools are the epitome of Guizhou's glorious prehistoric culture.
Cartography / Jiuyang
In the Shuicheng Ash Cave, people used the more convenient "sharp edge smashing method" to smash many sharp stone pieces, realizing a "technological revolution" 50,000 years ago; Inside the cave in Pan County, a rock-faced "workbench" was built to repair stone tools, shattering the view that this technique was only the preserve of Western contemporaneous cultures. In the late Paleolithic period, Xingyi Cat Cat Cave has unearthed a large number of finely polished stone and bone tools, like a mountain technology center in ancient times...
Petroglyphs are natural "history books",
The picture shows the Zhenfeng petroglyphs with a history of nearly 10,000 years.
Photography / Lu Xianyi
In the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, the ancestors of Guizhou descended from the first "step" on the plateau and widely "lived by water" in the main streams of the Beipan River, Qingshui River, Wujiang River, Chishui River and other rivers and their tributaries. It can be seen from the bronzes excavated on the bed of the Qingshui River that the ancestors of Guizhou at this time had already communicated with the cultural settlements of the Yangtze River system and Huxiang. This is the epitome of the exchange and integration of southern civilizations in the ancient period.
In the northwest corner of Guizhou, there is a southwest cultural corridor
Time came to the Qin and Han dynasties, and in this critical period when the basic structure of China was laid, the "highway network" after Qin unified the Six Kingdoms, the "five-foot road" divided by the chi road, and the "Nanyi Road" from Yibin, Sichuan to the south of Bijie in the Han Dynasty, entered the first "step" of the mountains of the western plateau of Guizhou and spread along the mountain. Therefore, the line between Qianbei, northwest Qianbei and southwest Qianzhou became the protagonist of Guizhou's cultural stage at this time.
"Pullover burial" copper kettle, Hezhang Cola rod was unearthed,
It is now in the Guizhou Provincial Museum.
Photography / Lu Xianyi
In Sima Qian's writing, due to the development of the Central Plains Dynasty in southern China, the ancient kingdom of Yelang on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau met with the Western Han Dynasty, which was the first large-scale communication between the Guizhou region and the Central Plains - we can still imagine the distant and mysterious ancient country of Chinese New Year's Eve Lang from the mysterious "pulling burial" in today's Hezhang Cola site, the magnificent bronze sword on Pu'an Copper Drum Mountain and other cultural relics.
The "sleeve burial" excavated at the site of Hezhang Cola,
This is a unique southwestern ethnic funeral custom.
Photography / Lu Xianyi
At this time, this cultural stage of Guizhou was under the jurisdiction of Muqi County in the Han Dynasty. In the Han Dynasty, "Raising Rich People Tian Nanyi", and the "Three Sages of Han" in Qianbei were recorded in the annals of history, and one character of Han has been deeply cut into Qiandi since then.
The Fuqin figurines unearthed in southwest Qianxi are peaceful and peaceful, with Bashu cultural elements.
Photo / Chen Weihong
Although the county government of Muqi County is still a historical puzzle, the prototype of Guizhou as a cultural corridor in southwest Qianzhou can already be seen from the exquisite cultural relics of the Han tombs in Xingyi, Anlong and other places in southwest Qianxi, such as the bronze trees and rap figurines of the Chengbashu culture, and the copper button bell of the sheep's horn that echoes the Lingnan culture and Yunnan culture. Today, as the "treasure of the town hall" of the Guizhou Provincial Museum, the Eastern Han Copper Carriage and Horse witnessed the first chapter of Guizhou's integration into the culture of the Central Plains with its elegant style.
Guizhou Provincial Museum "Treasure of the Town Hall" Eastern Han Copper Carriage Horse,
The details are exquisite, rare in the world.
GIF / "How Beautiful is Guizhou in Winter" Guizhou Scenery Tour Video
How to refine the cultural roots of the "southwest key" of Qianbei?
In the following millennium, as an important node on the southwest access road, Guizhou gradually accumulated economic and cultural heritage. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the northern horse road was cut off, so the Southern Song court opened a horse market in the southwest, and good horses produced in the Wumeng Mountains in northwest Qianxi could enter the horse markets in Guangxi and Sichuan through Qianzhong and northern Qianbei and enter the northern war.
The ancient tea horse road is also a cultural passageway, which shows that the lofty mountains and mountains of Guizhou have gradually ceased to be an obstacle to cultural circulation and integration. In the Yuan Dynasty, the "Station Chi" post station system was set up in Guizhou, which was the first time that Guizhou was included in the national "national highway" traffic. At this time, Guizhou has gradually emerged in the national strategic location.
Over the past 600 years, land transportation in Guizhou has undergone earth-shaking changes.
Cartography / Tian Dongyu
So, how did Guizhou go from an "indisputable place" between mountains to a "fence of the country" and usher in a highlight moment on the Chinese stage? Let's turn the clock back to 1257 AD --
This year was a critical period of war between the Southern Song Dynasty and the Mongols. Between the dangers of the Dalou Mountains, the Yang family toast, which had been operating Banzhou (present-day Zunyi Prefecture of Guizhou) for hundreds of years, worked with the Southern Song Dynasty to build a majestic fortress "Hailongtun", and the brothers of the Banzhou righteous Ran went to Hezhou (present-day Hechuan District, Chongqing) to build a fishing city to echo each other, intending to rely on the mountain situation to "curb riding with steps" and make the southwestern hometown solid.
Qianbei Tianxian Hailongtun was a choke point in the Song and Yuan Dynasties.
Photo by Yin Shilin, courtesy of Zunyi Hailongtun Cultural Heritage Administration
After that, the Mongol army really broke under the fishing city and had to detour back to Xiangyang to find another way. Hailongtun, which was not in use, was an important fortress that was later awarded a World Heritage Site, as if the Guizhou region was the epitome of the southwestern throat at this time.
The Banzhou Yang Tusi that built Hailongtun is said to have entered Qian from Taiyuan, Shanxi during the Tang Dynasty. During the Tang Dynasty, the central government set up the system of economic prefectures and prefectures, and the region of Guizhou south of the Wujiang River mainly implemented the "local autonomy" system of bondage, an inclusive and unique system, so that Guizhou's thousands of mountains and rivers, the system of etiquette is relaxed, and the residents' lives are stable and calm.
During the Tang Dynasty, the area north of the Wujiang River in Guizhou was mainly an economic prefecture.
To the south is mainly the prefecture of Qiao,
The picture shows the Tongren section of Wujiang.
Photography / Weng Junhua
Represented by the Yang clan of Banzhou, at this time, Guizhou had many local clans such as the Sizhou Tian clan, the Shuidong Song clan, and the Shuixian clan, who were appointed to rule the central government from the Song Dynasty, and gradually transitioned to the Tusi family during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. In this kind of "local autonomy" that has lasted for thousands of years, Guizhou has continuously deposited its own heritage with the power of dripping water and storage. The Yang's toast tomb complex is a cultural treasure in Guizhou at this time. The exquisite Song porcelain, gold and silverware, and the smooth and rounded stone carvings in the tomb, reflect the slow and orderly years of Guizhou.
Ming dynasty gold-encrusted treasure five phoenix crown,
In 1953, the five-chamber tomb in Gaoping in Zunyi was unearthed,
It is now in the Guizhou Provincial Museum.
Photo by Zhu Rui
And one of China's top ten archaeological new discoveries this year, the Dasongshan tomb group in Gui'an New Area, Guizhou, is a living "general history of Qianzhong". The 2,192 tombs (as of January 2023) are not dignitaries, but only the layers of life of ordinary people. But we can see from the unpretentious living utensils, different styles of silver and gold makeup, exotic gemstone glass, from the two Jin Dynasties to the Song, Yuan and Ming dynasties, spanning more than 1400 years, endless ethnic integration and colorful convergence.
Panorama view of the Omatsuyama tomb complex where archaeological excavations are taking place.
Photo courtesy of Guizhou Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
Southwest chest and abdomen, how to become a cultural melting pot?
The establishment of Guizhou more than 600 years ago is like a key to opening the treasure house of mountains. Soldiers and civilians from the Central Plains and Jiangnan poured into Guiyang and Anshun, taking the second "step" of the relatively gentle Guizhou Plateau as a military fortification, multiplying and going to all parts of Guizhou. Since then, the central hub of Guizhou has been fully stimulated, and its overall cultural style has not been a cultural flickering of one place and one mountain and one river, but with the continuous development of transportation and logistics, the cultural wave of the province has gradually rushed.
Anshun Baojiatun is a Tunpu cultural village that is still thriving today.
Photo by Wu Zhongxian
The Ming army, which "transferred the north to fill in the south", built the Weisho City and the forts, tun, and zhai outside the city wall on a large scale, and the distribution pattern of today's important cities in Guizhou laid the foundation for this time. Their 600 years of stationing in distant places, pioneering the tragic grandeur of the mountains, and the various past events of the "Daming style" are now deeply hidden in the Tunbao culture, a typical local regional culture in Guizhou.
The military and civilians integrated into Guizhou during the Ming Dynasty left a rich architectural cultural remains.
Figure 1: Yunshan Tunyun Vulture Temple; Figure 2: The ancient city of Longli. Photo by Lu Yukun;
Figure 3: Architectural details of Benzhai Tunpu. Photo by Chen Weihong;
Figure 4: Architectural details of Baojiatuntunbao Castle. Photo by Chen Qingquan
More importantly, Yunnan Qian Avenue (also known as Yunnan Qian Chu Avenue), which connects Huguang and Central Plains in the east and Yunnan and Guangxi in the west, has been fully opened. This passage runs from the west of Hunan through Hunshui all the way to the west, continuously transporting nutrients and bringing cultural accumulation to the hinterland of Qianzhong. For example, Xiongchengyuan, known as the "Key of Yunnan and Chu and the Gateway of Qiandong", is on this important road that it welcomes the wealth and customs of all parts of the Central Plains and sends Burmese envoys who ride elephants, becoming an important Chinese historical and cultural city.
Zhusheng Bridge, an important cultural passage in the ancient city of Zhenyuan.
Photo by Zhang Jinming
Since then, with Guiyang, Zunyi, Bijie, Fuquan and other important towns as nodes, Guizhou has connected the surrounding provinces through a complex road network system such as official roads, post roads, and commercial roads. In the early years of Qianlong, the Chishui River channel across Sichuan, Qian, and Yunnan was dug through. Guizhou gradually changed from an important place in the southwest to a southwest hub where personnel converged, gathering visitors from all over the world in the material exchange with all parts of China and the great flow of materials in the era of great exploration, and the commerce and culture "gradually compared to Zhongzhou".
Qingyan Ancient Town in the hinterland of Qianzhong,
It has been an important military, commercial and cultural town since the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Photo by Xu Qingyi
"Sichuan salt goes to Guizhou, Qin merchants gather in Moutai", Sichuan salt into Qian, four major ports prosper, of which Moutai Town, as "Ren'an", has smelled the world with sauce wine mellow fragrance since this time. With Qianjiu as the leader, tea green in northeast Qian, fir wood in southeast Qian, lacquerware in northwest Qian, silk in northern Qian... A kind of Qiandi wind out of the mountains and well-known in China.
The 214 local guild halls that have survived to this day, as a living culture of Guizhou, bear witness to the gathering of merchants from all over the world in Guizhou during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The majestic atmosphere of Qin Long, the ethereal and free of Bashu, the romantic beauty of Jing Chu, and the gentle charm of Jiangsu and Zhejiang are all blended and precipitated into carved beams and paintings everywhere and cornices and angles.
Guizhou's architectural culture encompasses both ancient and modern Chinese and Western.
Figure 1: Sanmentang Liu Clan Ancestral Hall. Photo by Wang Jiwen
Figure 2: Feiyunya Moon Lake Temple. Photo by Lu Xianyi
Figure 3: Shifu Manshou Palace. Photo by Li Guiyun
Between the changes in wind and logistics, Guizhou also shows the spirit of accepting the world. Potatoes and corn from the shores of the ocean nourish the mountain people, and chili peppers are first eaten in Guizhou from the southeast coast, and have since set off a "rolling red dust" in Chinese food culture.
Silver jewelry, one of today's cultural symbols of Guizhou, is the epitome of Guizhou's participation in the world's material flow. At that time, the towering giant trees in the dense forest southeast of Qiandong became the dry beams and skeletons of Huanghuang buildings in various parts of China through the hands of forest merchants. Silver from South America crossed the Pacific Ocean, and it was also during this period that through the fir trade network on the Qingshui River, it was forged in the tide of the times as a costume for Miao compatriots.
Wood, chili, sauce wine, tea are all famous in China's Guizhou style.
Figure 1: Timber discharge in the Qingshui River. Photo by Lu Xianyi
Figure 2: Drying peppers. Photography / Wang Qin
Figure 3: Winemaking. Photo by Lu Yukun
Figure 4: Tea making. Photo by Xia Xiaoxi
Commerce and trade prospered, and the construction of homes also promoted the accumulation of culture and education. Wang Yangming entered Qianzhou for three years, first with the Dragon Field Enlightenment, and then with the disciples of the "Qianzhong Wang Gate" who set up academies throughout Guizhou and scattered the sparks. This is where the psychology that influenced China, East Asia and the world began.
Wang Yangming's "Elephant Shrine" written in Guizhou
It is a classic prose collected in the "Guwen Guanzhi".
The picture shows its famous phrase - "There is no indispensable person under the world".
Cartography/Jiuyang
During the Wanli years of the Ming Dynasty, the governor of Guizhou, Jiangdongzhi, who had been supporting Han Shirui for many years, presided over the construction of Jiaxiu Building on a huge rock between the Nanming River on the bank of Guishan Mountain, an important cultural landmark in Guiyang, with the residence of "Ke Jia Ting Xiu and Talents", in hundreds of years, witnessed how Guizhou with the barrenness of "money is not as good as a large county in Jiangnan" at that time, and many handsome people with "seven hundred warriors and six thousand people" emerged, and compared with the Central Plains with the "latecomer advantage".
Jiaxiu Building has witnessed the rise of culture and education in Guizhou.
Photo by Zhang Jinming
With prosperous commerce and trade, flourishing talents, and cultural accumulation, Guizhou is about to shock the world with a new cultural wind in the vicissitudes of the modern century.
A hundred years of Qian people out of the mountains, Qian land humanities shocked the sea
If it is explained that the cultural context of Guizhou at the time of the Qing Dynasty was a long river that gradually grew, then the accumulation of culture and education in Guizhou since the late Qing Dynasty was like a karst waterfall, bursting out in the "great changes unseen in a century", hanging for nine days.
Anshun Confucian Temple, stone pillar openwork carving unique in the country.
Photo by Li Lihong
First of all, it is the prosperity of Guizhou humanities at this time.
In Zunyi, a small beach village gave birth to "Southwest Giants" such as Zheng Zhen and Mo Youzhi. Qianbei poetry is known as "three hundred years of Qing poetry, Wang Qi in Yelang". In the foothills of Shuijingpo Mountain in the southwest corner of Xingyi Old City, a Bishan Academy is listed in the annals of modern Chinese education. Zhang Zhidong, Ding Baozhen, Li Duandi, Le Jiazao... Guizhou people continue to go out of the beautiful mountains and waters of their hometowns, and at this time of the stormy meeting, they open their eyes to the world and become famous in China.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Dynasty, a large number of influential figures emerged in Guizhou.
Cartography/Jiuyang
Wentong Bookstore, founded by industrialist Hua Zhihong, created the precedent of Guizhou's first overseas communication of technicians and procurement machines, and ranked among the top seven bookstores in China together with important publishing institutions in Beijing, Shanghai and other cultural important places. During the Anti-Japanese War, many academic masters came to Guizhou, and Wentong Bookstore invited more than 100 scholars from all over the world to establish an editorial board. Zhu Kezhen, Mao Yisheng, Feng Youlan... An expert scholar who has a reputation at home and abroad, or cultivates talents, or writes books and lectures, has set off a new cultural wind in Guizhou.
Secondly, it is the emergence of Guizhou in the development of modern industry and commerce.
Qingxi Iron Works "Tianzi No. 1" iron ingots.
Photo by Lu Xianyi
It is known that Zhang Zhidong, a native of Guizhou, established the Hanyang Iron Works in Wuhan. But what is not known to everyone is that when the Hanyang Iron Works was still under construction, the "Tianzi No. 1" iron ingots produced by Chinese himself had landed in Yuanqingxi Iron Factory, China's first modern steel factory, creating an important cornerstone for China's modern industrial development.
The textile, silk and winemaking industries in Guizhou also rose at this time, and the fine wines from Moutai Town and the good tea from Duyun were brought to the international stage of Panama for Le Jiazao, who traveled to Western countries, and achieved a bright color of Guizhou tea and wine culture in later generations.
When Zhejiang University moved west, it brought Hangzhou tea-making technology to Guizhou.
The picture shows the wooden black crushed tea production line of the Zunyi Meitan Tea Industry Museum.
Photo by Xia Xiaoxi
At this time, the family and country feelings of the Qiandi Qian people are even more worth remembering. At every major node in modern history, the figure of Guizhou people has forged ahead bravely and has never lagged behind!
The letter on the bus was signed by 96 Guizhou scholars, ranking second in the country; Guizhou is the seventh province in the country to successfully realize the republican revolution. During the Anti-Japanese War, the southwest of Guizhou became a large rear area carrying the flow of people and logistics throughout the country. Qinglong's 24 turns are the lifeline connecting the war in Southeast Asia. The bloody battle of Dushan thwarted the Japanese invaders' attempt to march into the southwest.
The "lifeline" of the rear of the Anti-Japanese War, Guizhou Qinglong turned 24 turns.
Photo by Xu Shipeng
The most important of these historical nodes is the important town of Zunyi in Qianbei in 1935. The soldiers of the Red Army who came from afar, together with the military and people of Guizhou, achieved a great turning point in Chinese history here. The vast mountainous area of Guizhou has left a rich red cultural accumulation, making Guizhou one of the most important provinces and regions for the construction of the "Long March National Cultural Park".
Bing'an Ancient Town, an important battlefield of the Red Army's "Four Crossings of Red Water".
Photo by Xiong Yonghong
Cultural Thousand Islands is Guizhou
Mountainous Guizhou has been inhabited by many ethnic groups since ancient times. Fifty-six ethnic groups in China have left their own marks on Guizhou, and 18 ethnic groups have carved out unique residences here. The depth of mountains and rivers has made Guizhou the richest and most diverse region in the whole country and even the world where the living national culture is preserved.
In Guizhou, the landscape has a spiritual realm.
There are 312 villages with Chinese ethnic minority characteristics, accounting for about 19% of China's ethnic minority characteristic villages, ranking first in the country. Walking in the mountains and rivers of Guizhou, you can see that the sky is in the field, people walking on it, and there are Miaoxiang stilt towers, Dongzhai's drum tower and wind and rain bridge, layered in the clouds and mist green mountains, which is the best presentation of the concept of "the unity of heaven and man" of Chinese civilization.
Xiaohuang Village, Xiaohuang Dong Village, thousands of people, Dong ethnic group big song.
Photo by Zou Xuejun
In Guizhou, clothing has a thousand faces.
For the compatriots of the Guizhou nation, clothing is a living epic. A festive costume can be decorated with mountains, rivers, earth, sun, moon and rivers. Even the mountain-shaped echo lines on the sleeves tell the past and origin of the long migration.
Guizhou's national costumes are colorful and have diverse techniques.
According to statistics, there are more than 100 kinds of Miao costumes alone.
Photo courtesy of Miaojiang Story National Costume Museum Zeng Li
For example, the Miao, the largest ethnic minority in Guizhou, although they sing the same migration epic together, have similar languages and rituals, and are dressed in splendid clothes, but countless possibilities have been derived. The Miao people in southeast Qiandong have many high-waist clothes and high pants, refreshing and capable, while the Miao people in Anshun, Liuzhi and other places are mostly dressed in beautifully embroidered long clothes and trousers, and the Miao people in Weining, Hezhang and other places are wearing felt carpets with ancient textures, which is more mysterious and far-reaching in the plateau and mountains.
Silver jewelry, one of the most brilliant symbols of Guizhou's national culture.
Photo courtesy of top left/Guizhou Pictorial; Top right photo / Pan Junxiang
Bottom left photography / Lu Xianyi; Bottom right photo / Li Guiyun
In Guizhou, there are festivals everywhere.
According to statistics, there are 1,046 traditional ethnic festivals in Guizhou, and more than 200 large-scale festivals attended by more than 10,000 people, which can be called the most vibrant festival in China.
Figure 1: Bai Torch Festival. Photography/Zhang Congwen
Figure 2: Miao Guzang Festival (also known as Drum and Tibetan Festival). Photo by Cao Jingjian
Figure 3: Asparagus Festival in Baisha Miaozhai. Photo by Yin Gang
In Guizhou, there is "March 3" in spring, "June 6" in summer, and in autumn and winter, harvest celebrations are one after another. The Guizhou Festival is still giving birth to new vitality. For example, the village BA and village chao that "must compete every festival", tens of thousands of spectators shouted, basketball, football and other world-class sports boiled in the mountains and wilderness of Guizhou.
Rooted in the earth and derived from life, Guizhou's cultural energy has long been in the rush of thousands of years, and the ancient inheritance and the call of the times are still rapidly stirring and integrating in this land.
Figure 1: Sisters' Day. Photo by Yin Gang
Figure 2: Taijiang Laotun Dragon Boat Festival. Photo by Wang Shaoshuai
Figure 3: Bullfighting Festival. Photo by Zhang Qi
Guizhou Cultural Plateau, when the world is amazing!
Guizhou is no longer what it used to be. Between the 1,258,000 hilltops, nearly 20,000 bridges have sprung up, turning the "mountain park" into a "high-speed plain". The comprehensive transportation hub in the southwest, an important node of the new land-sea channel in the west, and the intersection of the Chengdu-Chongqing metropolitan area, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and the new titles of Guizhou all show that the future of this plateau hot land can be expected.
The Beipanjiang Special Bridge across the Tianguan.
Photo by Cao Jingjian
What is expensive? Some people say that from the glyph, "expensive" happens to be "a treasure of China". That's right, the cultural treasures of Guizhou hidden deep in a thousand mountains are time to be opened!
So, what is the charm of Guizhou culture?
It is a long song of life on the earth for hundreds of millions of years, and an ecological "highland" of green water and green mountains;
She is vast, it is the harmony of people and mountains and rivers for 5,000 years, it is 600 years of exaltation, and knowledge and action are one;
She is enthusiastic, the drum beat of the era of thousands of people, and the mountain legend of the flying frame of ten thousand bridges;
She is deeply aware that she is a lingering home of life, a spiritual home where poetry dwells.
Fanjing Mountain, the victory of southwest humanities,
It is an ecological treasure island and a cultural secret place.
Photography / Yang Jian
Time casts peaks, mountains and rivers turn into chapters, this is Guizhou!
Why is it said that mountains are the foundation and basic context of Guizhou culture?
How did the people of Guizhou in ancient times and today smelt the cultural outlook of Guizhou from the outside in?
What are the wonderful connotations of the cultural thousand islands of Guizhou, one mountain and one world?
Why do copper carriage horses, a chili pepper, and a puppet mask also have hidden cultural characteristics in Guizhou?
What is the great value of Guizhou's many natural and cultural heritages?
What is the underlying spirit of Guizhou culture?
Stay tuned, the "Colorful Guizhou: Humanistic Landscapes and Time Peaks" series of topics launched by authentic customs in 2023!
Planning & Editing | Spark Fan
Text | consequence
Image editing | Tao zi
Map Editing | Liu Yunshuo
Cartography | Fish one Jiuyang
First image | Zhang Ting
Cover | Pan Junxiang