In mid-August 1983, I took the "Seagull" camera to the Shengshou Temple of Lingkong Mountain to take pictures, but I was trapped in the mountain by heavy rain and continuous rain, and I lived alone in the old box of the ancient temple deep in the mountain for eight days. In these eight days, I did not live in vain, and there were many unexpected gains.
The most surprising discovery was that in the small thatched an, from a stone tablet that fell to the ground, I saw the seven words "Lingkong Mountain Public Forest Farm". This stele is the 23rd year of the Republic of China, 1934 AD, to be precise, it is only 49 years old, not old at all, not an ancient monument. The handwriting is clear and the strokes are neat. Unfortunately, the stele was broken into three pieces, and there were traces of being hammered, which seems to be the merits of the Red Guards in "breaking the four olds" in the year of the outbreak of the "Cultural Revolution". The title of the inscription is "Rebuilding the Maoan Stele", in which it is inscribed "Lingkong Mountain Public Forest Farm", which records that when the Mao'an was rebuilt, the public forest farm participated in it and donated funds. The stele was not too thick, and it was broken into three pieces, and I turned the three broken monuments over one by one. The back of the monument bears the names of many donors. Among them: Tang Changchun, the "manager" of the public forest farm, Guo Zhijian, the "assistant" of the forest farm, Guo Zhijian, the "assistant" of the forest farm, Duan Bingjun, the "supervisor" Dinghu, Sun Xiangzhong, and Zhang Tingjun and An □□ (from Qin County). When I was copying these names one by one, a middle-aged sheep herd came in, and he also looked at the stele with me, and he said that most of the people on the inscription had never heard of it, but only knew that this Zhang Tingjun was from their Xiwu Village, and his current name was Zhang Guangfu, who was still alive, eighty years old, and had done things in Lingkong Mountain in his early years.
I was so happy to hear that. I didn't expect that there was a "public forest farm" here fifty years ago, and what is even more surprising is that the person on the inscription is still alive, and in his stomach, how many scattered past events will be contained!
That afternoon, taking advantage of the lack of rain, I came out of Shengshou Temple, descended the wind tunnel ditch covered in cliffs, went all the way south, through the vinegar willow forest, walked out of the rocky beach, and about two hours later, entered Xiwu Village. Ask a kind elder Huajia, who told me that Zhang Guangfu went to Dangjia Mountain Village today. I asked, "Go relatives?" "He said he was doing wood work for people." Isn't it eighty years old and still doing wood work? "I was surprised." He has been a carpenter all his life and is in good health! "I asked this elder for his surname, and he said his surname was Dou. I suddenly remembered the retired forestry section chief in Qinyuan County, so I asked, "Do you know Section Chief Dou?" He smiled and said, "I am Dou Xiangqing." You are-" "I'm from the office of the Taiyue Forest Bureau, surnamed Li. "He invited me into the house and laid down home-cooked side dishes, as well as a bottle of bamboo leaf greens." Call you Xiao Li, don't you think it? Stay with me today. "Qinyuan's fellow villagers are sincere and hospitable, not to mention that we are all from the "Lin family shop".
On this night, Elder Dou told me a lot about Lingkong Mountain, many of which he personally experienced, and some of which were legends of people. He talked about the generations of people from several nearby prefectures who came to Shengshou Temple to pray for rain every year, about Japanese devils killing the wounded of the Eighth Route Army in the temple, and about the earliest forestry school held in Lingkong Mountain, and also ran a tea farm. I asked him about the public forest farm in Lingkong Mountain, and he said that tomorrow you should ask Zhang Guangfu, he knows a lot about the forest farm.
The next day, I had breakfast at Dou's hometown, went to the supply and marketing cooperative, bought two packs of dim sum and two bottles of "Lu wine", weighed two catties of cooked peanut rice, and walked towards Dangjia Mountain. This village is from Anze County (now belongs to Gu County), but it is less than ten huali from Xiwu Village, but it is just a road uphill. After entering the village and finding a family building a new house, Lao Zhang was riding a stool, bending over and pushing and pushing, and his beard was floating, but he was not panting. I went over and shook his thin, strong hand and asked if he could rest for a while and talk to me for a while. He stopped what he was doing and walked out of the house with me, and we were sitting on two small horses under clear skies. I opened the door and asked, "Zhang Tingjun written on the stele of Maoan, is it you?" He said, "That's a daimyo, from school, and on a handband." My nickname is Guangfu, and that's what people call me. From here, he opened the chatterbox of the public forest farm:
The mountains and forests of Lingkong Mountain were given alms to the monastery by a rich man surnamed Yang during the Hongzhi period of the Ming Dynasty. Now Caogou "Four Solstice Cliffs" is also engraved with the text of the Chongzhen period. During the Ming Dynasty, there was a boundary between monks and secularities, and the mountains and forests of the monastery were drawn in the west and the Xianqiao in the east, and no one could cut down the trees of the monks. Just outside are the five surrounding villages. These five villages are Baizi (where the town of Lingkong Mountain is located today), Wangzhuang, First River, Shangxingju and Xiaxingju, and the mountains and forests of the five villages are publicly owned Sheshan. This gong is not a public household, it is shared by five villages, and it is not privately owned by that family. This was the case in the Qing Dynasty, when there was a township community in the five villages, and the patriarchs and prestigious people of each village took turns to be the head of the society. Everything is convened by the head of the society, the patriarchs of the five villages and the competent people with prestige discuss together, and the head of the society approves the decision.
The mountains and forests of your Taiyue Forest Bureau are state, and the former "Great Forest Area" is also a state, but Lingkong Mountain is different, and it was only nationalized during the Anti-Japanese War, and it was not a state earlier.
How many mountains and forests are there in the five villages? Among all the mountain forests of Lingkong Mountain, public forest farms account for at least 70%, the number of synthetic acres is about 32,000 acres, and the particularly good forests are at least more than 15,000 acres, including thousands of towering trees. After the establishment of the Republic of China, the county government opened the management of the mountains and forests of Lingkong Mountain, and did not allow it to be cut down casually. The county's public funds bureau sends people every year, and the "technicians" of the people give them numbers, and they approve the numbers every year, and approve 5 characters every year, each word 200 numbers, and it is difficult to cut down only 1,000 trees a year. The quasi-cut tree peels off a piece of bark and writes the number in lacquer. Hired workers cut down the trees according to the number, made them into lumber, and transported them to Huoxian, Hongdong, Zhaocheng and Anze to sell. Trees without labels are not allowed to be felled. Later, Taiyuan built a big way, and the supply of wood in Ningwu was insufficient, so the felling of trees in Qinyuan was increased, and the price of wood rose year by year, and indiscriminate logging sometimes occurred.
In the 21st year of the Republic of China (1932), the county finance bureau discussed with the village chiefs of the five villages and established the Lingkong Mountain Public Forest Farm, and the county sent Tang Changchun as the manager. When I first built the farm, I was a carpenter, and I cut the wooden ladder in the kiln. At that time, there were Master Guangdu and his four disciples in the temple, as well as his three disciples. The forest farm is located in the main kiln of the temple's western side hall.
After the trees are cut down every year, the income from the sale of timber is handled by the forest farm, 20% is handed over to the county government, 80% is owned by the five villages, and 20% of the 5 villages are proposed to repair the monasteries. The monks do not have to manage their livelihood in the forest farm, and they have other income from land rent. The felling of trees in Lingkong Mountain was originally well managed and strictly enforced.
But in the 22nd year of the Republic of China (1933), Yan Xishan built the Nantongpu Railway, and urgently needed a large number of sleepers, which we called "Daoban". Yan Xishan can really calculate, and using military engineering to build roads can save wages; Cutting slabs from nearby mountains and forests saves you from buying from afar. At this time, Lingkong Mountain can be lively, thousands of migrant workers live in, Caogou lives more than 2,000 people, Nanshan, Beishan, Bada Station and First River are full, the mountain is full of temporary workers' sheds, every day from morning to night I hear the shouts of trumpets, saws, and trees chopping, and the birds and beasts in the mountains are scared away. In the first year, it was still "forty miles in radius, looking up and not seeing the sky, leading mules and sleepers, and it was difficult to turn in the forest." In the second year, they "plucked big hair" and "pushed their bald heads", and the forest was full of "skylights", and some hills were cut bald. At that time, the price of each board was two cents, and you could buy 7 pounds of white noodles or 16 pounds of millet. A large tree can generally produce more than a dozen slabs, and can sell for two or three yuan, enough to buy seven or eight bags of noodles. Later, the price of the dow board rose to the point that each stick could be exchanged for 1 bucket of millet. When the big tobacco seller came, the migrant workers bought a big cigarette and smoked a few mouthfuls to relieve their fatigue, and in a few days, they were addicted, and the foreman simply turned his wages into "big smoke", and every 3 road plates could only be exchanged for 2 dollars of big smoke.
Less than a year after the establishment of the public forest farm, Yan Xishan successively sent several senior members, including Colonel Xiao Weihan, Ziyi Guangfu and Xie Yongchang, to Qinyuan to supervise the cutting of road plates. Local tycoons and wealthy merchants in Qinyuan also intervened in the production and transportation of road plates, most notably Deng Weichen from Guo Daozhen and Dong Fubao brothers from Chengguan. The officials in the provincial capital came down and said that they were supervising, but in fact they made a fortune in private. They let many trees that could make road boards into beams, columns, purlins, floors, and even coffins, and corrupt officials colluded with profiteers to sell them to enrich their own pockets. In the third year, there was a sensational "Lingkong Mountain Wood Theft Case" in the province, arresting several high-ranking officials, and Tang Changchun was also removed. The reason was that 7,000 electric poles were cut down, as well as quite a few bridge piles and girders, which were pulled by horse-drawn cart for more than a month.
The "Five Villages" also selected Shi Weifan of Xingju Village as the deputy manager, and the income from selling the road board was changed to eighty percent to the county, and two percent to the "five villages", and the share of the "five villages" was in the hands of Guo Zhijian and Shi Weifan, they did not profit from it, and after the income from the sale of the road board in Lingkong Mountain was distributed to the "five villages", two percent of the expenses went to the cost of establishing and maintaining the "Ling Five School", which is a higher primary school jointly run by the five villages around Lingkong Mountain.
The large-scale production of the Lingkong Mountain chopping slab, at least 3,000 people have been cutting it continuously for nearly 3 years. Except for the more than 100 ancient trees that the temple absolutely forbids to cut, the trees above the purlins have been cut down. In those two years, the forest farm sent me to the Dalu junction of the First River to count the road plates transported to Huo County, and I remember that the road boards that passed through my hands were more than 198,000. On average, each tree produces 8 slabs, which should be at least 25,000 trees.
In the 25th year of the Republic of China (1936), the Nantongpu Railway was completed, and Lingkong Mountain was also cut down. There was no more forest to cut down, and the public forest farm dispersed.
The old man Zhang Tingjun talked about the events of that year, like several family treasures. Finally, he asked, "You live in the temple these days, and you live in the east courtyard, and only the east courtyard can live in people." I replied, "Yes, the east courtyard, the wings, the house where the rangers live." Then he asked me, "Have you ever seen the 'half-faced bodhisattva'?" I said, "I haven't heard of it, I don't know." He told me, "Retreat from the gate of the east courtyard, retreat to the edge of the ditch, look up at the cliff, and you can see the 'half-faced bodhisattva'." ”
After I went back, according to what he said, I really saw the "half-faced bodhisattva" naturally formed by the stone crack on the cliff, which was actually sideways, the forehead of the head, the bridge of the nose, the mouth slit, the chin, and the eye sockets, which were faintly visible, and there was an inscription from the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty "Nan Wu Amitabha Buddha Half-faced Bodhisattva Icon" below. Later, I asked many people who had been to Seongjuji Temple, but they didn't pay attention. As for the stone stele in Maoan, the people of the county cultural relics management office glued the three pieces with cement and stood in front of the rock wall in Maoan, the wind did not blow, the rain did not hit, and no one bullied them. By this year, 84 years old, which is fine.