The pictures in this article are all from the 2024 "Green Mountains and Clear Waters, New Hunan" Ecological Literature Huayuan Creation Exchange Activity. Courtesy of the author
In the world, there are always some things that like to wait for other things, or to happen, or end, just like a gust of wind waiting for another gust of wind, and one rain waiting for another rain.
Early one morning in March, I set off from Yuanling, passed through Luxi, passed Jishou, and went to Huayuan. Sitting in the car, squinting at the window, the undulating mountains, fields, and villages along the way rushed forward and jumped one by one, like a rabbit that had been dormant for a long time, and suddenly threw its legs and carnivaled.
The silent days, apparently frozen for too long by the winter of last year, gradually began to warm the wind, regardless of the east and west of a mallet, looking everywhere for the crops and weeds in the fields, the peach and plum apricot trees in front of the house and behind the house, the tender green, pink red, light dai, a handful of pinches turned out, dried in the front of the flat, slope treetops, not long after, lush, beautiful, all kinds of shades of green, light makeup and thick red, diffused in the whole far or near green daisy haze.
The rape flowers of the Shako terraces are blooming, blooming plainly and brilliantly, a large patch, a large patch, without a little subtlety and hidden. The Jianyan Mountain in the distance is a single peak, the terraced fields near are like chains, the cauliflower yellow is layered on top of each other, and the winding Mo Shang Road, people come and go, and they are intricately like weaving. A large group of women dressed in Miao clothes, flowers came over, although a little older, their faces were slightly dark, but they were obviously traveling with makeup with the past days, to see their own fields, planted land, planted rape flowers, planting years, they pulled their throats to call friends, while skillfully taking pictures, while also singing the ancient Miao song. The song seemed to burst out from the depths of the earth, out of the cracks, with the wind, accompanied by the fragrance of flowers under the clouds, the birds on the treetops, from low to high, from slow to fast, from one person to many people, from monophonic to multi-voiced convergence, slowly, gradually, tactfully, tactfully ups and downs, spiraling up, and finally becoming a majestic momentum, straight into the sky...... These old ladies of the Miao nationality who "feed their lives and relieve their hearts with songs" are indeed able to withstand despair and joy wherever they go to the mountains and songs, and they have an innate sense of awakening, spaciousness, spaciousness and wandering. The sky on the ground, blue, the flowers under the dome, golden. The women walked briskly, the color storage flower handkerchief on the top of the head was towering, the blue background flat embroidered flower placket rolled with the wind, and the cloud shoulder quadrangle moire color decoration was embroidered into a brocade. They weave all their thoughts out of the warp and weft, embroider them stitch by stitch, and almost put an indescribable national epic on their bodies and put them on their heads, colorful, ring-wringing, like clouds after rain, calm and not frizzy, free and not embarrassed, prudent but not urgent, tranquil and less arrogant. I looked at them as if I saw my grandmother and mother, who were also of the Miao ethnic group, but they were somewhere else, in another rape field that I couldn't see, listening to other insects and other birds flying.
Thin, tender sunlight that has been shining for many years. Because it's so commonplace, it doesn't attract much attention. The wind, blowing buzzing bees from one flower to another. The small and delicate shoots climbed from one treetop to another, and the sparkling greenery rippled slightly, and the whole field and village soon came alive shyly and vigorously. In the crowd, I was alone, far away, alone behind, staring at the land in the hinterland of Wuling Mountain for a long time, remembering that in the first two years, I also started from Yuanling, Suliye, through Huayuan, Jiwei, Buchao, Youya, Laershan, Wuchaohe, Zhengda, Alaying, Huangsiqiao, all the way to the south, as if in the sequence of ancestors, trying to find a certain node, a certain location. As I walked, I imagined what kind of great migration the Miao ancestors experienced, and finally walked into this deep mountain, dense forest, and wild land, where they lived and multiplied.
Australian historian Geddes once said that there are two indomitable and indomitable ethnic groups in the world, one is the Jewish people scattered around the world, and the other is the Miao people in China. Huayuan is the hometown of Chiyou, and the tragedy of the Miao people originated from a war 5,000 years ago. The united tribes headed by the Yellow Emperor and the Yan Emperor, and the Jiuli tribe led by Chi You, fought in the field of Zhuolu. In the end, Chiyou was beheaded, the Jiuli tribe was defeated, and was chased and killed by successive rulers. The Jiuli tribe was forced to move south, first in the left Dongting, the right Pengli established the "three Miao country", and then was hunted down, so a Miao ancestor traced the water upstream, entered the Wuling Mountains, entered the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and hid into the southwest mountains.
Qing Fang Hengxian said in "Miao Customs Chronicles": "From the west of Yuanzhou, there are many Miao people, and there are more varieties in Yunnan and Guizhou...... But there is a difference between raw and cooked. The living are hidden in the depths and dare not come out, and there is no way to see them; the familiar ones are often seen in the fields and rents in the fields, and the Han people. Liu Yingzhong, the prefect of Chenzhou in the early Qing Dynasty, recorded in "Ping Miao Ji": "The friends of Chu, Guizhou, and Shu are all Miao. The species are different, called red seedlings, and their clothes are still red. It is said that the seedlings are not taught by their strong voices, and they are different from the mature seedlings. As a result, Miao did not leave the country, and the rulers of all dynasties believed that the Miao people, especially the Shengmiao, "have a changeable temperament and are rebellious" or even "a small rebellion in three years, and a major rebellion in ten years", and in order to conquer and control the "Shengmiao" area, they did not hesitate to resort to force many times to carry out large-scale military conquest and massacre.
Before the Yuan Dynasty, the Central Dynasty entered the Yunnan-Guizhou region, had to cross the Sichuan Basin, crossed the Wumeng Mountains, and opened up the Jianchang Road from Kunming to Chengdu and the Wusa Road from Kunming to Luzhou. In the twenty-eighth year of Yuan to Yuan (1291), a new "official road" from Huguang to Yunnan was opened up - Pu'an Road (known as East Road, a line), which greatly shortened the journey into Guizhou and Yunnan. The starting point of this ancient post road is today's Changde City, Hunan, tracing the Yuanjiang River by land and water, passing through Yuanling and Zhijiang, to Zhenyuan, and then changing to a land route, crossing Guizhou from east to west, entering Yunnan, and finally to Kunming, known as the "Ancient Miaojiang Corridor". In the Ming Dynasty, guards were intensively set up along the Pu'an Road and the surrounding areas of the "lonely hanging line", and the garrison guarded them, among which there were 7 guards in Changde, Chenzhou, Yuanzhou, Chongshan, Jingzhou, Yongding, and Jiuxi in the western Hunan region alone, with nearly 40,000 troops. Later, during the Qianjia period of the Qing Dynasty, because of the "hook up incident", it was impossible to "raise the seedlings of Liuli", a large-scale Miao uprising broke out from here, swept through Hunan and Guizhou, the war lasted two years, the number of people participating in the uprising amounted to more than 200,000 people, the Qing court mobilized more than 100,000 troops in seven provinces to conquer, and the two commanders of the Qing army - Fukangan, the governor of Yunnan and Guizhou, and the governor of Sichuan, and Lin, were tired and exhausted, and died of illness in the army. The Qianjia Miao uprising became the "battle of middle decline" of the Qing Dynasty.
It was also on a mid-spring morning, the sun was not barren, and I came to the old Acropolis Village in Jiwei Town alone to visit Chongshanwei. The name of "Chongshan" may come from the allusion of "letting go of the mountain". Chongshanwei, lonely hanging seedling nest, is obviously a sharp sword inserted into the hinterland of the seedlings, in order to clamp and press the Miao people anytime and anywhere, but in this bitter cold place, the imperial court has been difficult to maintain for 30 years, that is, "sheep's hooves beat drums, hungry horses rattle" as a calculation, helpless as abandoned. When I inquired all over the passers-by and climbed the highest hill of the Acropolis, I saw that the former Chongshan Acropolis was surrounded by high earthen walls, there was a gate in the east, west, north and south, there were traces of military camps, racetracks, martial arts halls and so on in the city, and there was a horse washing pond outside the city. It's just that, more than 600 years have passed, the rammed earth of the old city wall is still faintly recognizable, and the rest have been submerged in the cauliflower bushes everywhere, disappearing in the long river of history.
The trees around are busy growing taller, the grass and flowers on the edge of the fields are as busy opening themselves as ever, and the women of the Acropolis are busy getting up early and greedy for darkness, and are busy carrying out their peaceful and quiet days with baskets. The sky was empty for a long time, and some things and things above their heads sat in the twilight, growing old as the light wore on. I withdrew my gaze, and many complicated things crawled around like insects.
Two years later, I returned to this land, with a different state of mind, a different expression, and a different kind of change. Because, spring is coming, there are so many leaves that need to be budded, so many flowers that need to open. The birds, chirping to the sky, are calling to themselves, to the sky and the clouds, and to every busy person on the earth.
Perhaps, everyone, for their hometown, for their homeland, whether they are far away or returning, will have a burning ear and itchy heart. Man, once he stays in silence somewhere, the wind there will recognize him, the rain will recognize him, the insects and birds in the dust will also recognize him, and after many years, the grass, stones, and water droplets will still remember him, just like Leopold's Sand Township, Thoreau's Walden, Beston's Cape Cod, Marquez's Macondo, Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha Township, Mo Yan's Gaomi Northeast Township, Jia Pingwa's Shangzhou, Alai's Jiarong Tibetan Area, Chi Zijian's Ice and Snow North Country, Bi Feiyu's Northern Jiangsu Water Town, Liu Zhenyun's Yanjin world is the same, chattering, quiet and leisurely, all of which are in the eyes, brains, and hearts, and have become the hometown of the deep heart.
Yu Huayuan, think about it, how can the people who live in this land not be like this?
Huayuan, originally a garden, originated from the southern suburbs of the town in the past for the Baojing Tusi to build a large garden, as a place for banquets, there is the victory of the mirror pavilion of the makeup building, mixed with all kinds of flowers, spring is like a brocade...... According to legend, in the early Qing Dynasty, Qufu Kong Shangren once visited this garden, watched the legend of the peach blossom fan made by the performance, and dispersed with great joy. However, the original Yongsui Hall was governed in Jiduoping (now Jiwei Town), because of the "lonely hanging seedling land", which was not conducive to the war and military supply, in the sixth year of Jiaqing (1801), the Qing court ordered the establishment of appeasement town, and built a stone city, and in the seventh year of Jiaqing (1802), the Yongsui Hall was moved to the new city, and since then, the "garden" has become the "flower wall".
My initial impression of Huayuan actually came from Mr. Shen Congwen's novel "Border City": from Sichuan to Hunan, there is an official road to the east. When this official road approached the border of western Hunan to a small mountain town called "Chadong", there was a small stream, and there was a small white tower by the stream, and a single family lived under the tower. There was only an old man, a girl, and a yellow dog...... In this border town called Chadong, one foot in three provinces, Mr. Shen "Those rafts, swimming in the quiet stream, both sides of the bank are full of oleander forests and high mountains, giving people an extremely quiet feeling." Ten years later, it still occupies a place in my memory. These impressions, also left in my initial memory, seemed to see Cuicui's unpredictable "tomorrow", and also seemed to see Mr. Shen Congwen joined the army back then, sitting alone on the high cliff on the bank of the Qingshui River, watching the boat on the beach, watching the boatman pull the fiber, and even running to the boat, chatting with the boat owner for most of the day in the vernacular, listening to the beautiful and sad song, everything has an accidental coincidence, but the result is as inevitable as fate.
Later, for a long time, Huayuan as the "Oriental Manganese Capital" and "the hometown of non-ferrous metals", has a great reputation, in the "state-owned people's mining, there is water fast flow" on the road of the season, thousands of troops and horses day and night, will be excavated into a mine full of holes, in the birth of countless wealth myths at the same time, but also ruined hundreds of miles of mountains and rivers for most of the life of the verdant and verdant life. In the most violent wind in the world, people "make a fortune and make a fortune", but they can no longer believe that the lights on the streets are the rivers flowing out of their hands. One water protects the field, two mountains row up, there is no longer the brightness of slowly "sending green", and the comfort of slowly "wrapping the green", every mountain, every river, every tree, every grain of soil, are withering, moaning, and calling.
In the early morning, the gray sunlight falls on the world, people walk and stop, can not see the front and back, left and right, the field of vision is everywhere, there are decaying walls, mines, slag warehouses and concentrators. The lush forests, the fresh fields, the silky scent of flowers, and the sweet and refreshing song of birds seem to have disappeared overnight. People who stumble begin to wake up, reflect, redeem. The sun rises and the moon sets, the strong man breaks his wrist, a broad backbone, domineering and impatient, desperately rushing to another battlefield: two broken and three clear, mine closure, comprehensive utilization of tailings, tailings pond closure, mine water treatment, green transformation, for dozens of problem tailings ponds, thousands of goafs, hundreds of abandoned plant areas, covering the soil and greening, comprehensive restoration and governance. Year after year, Nuwa mends the sky, praises her father day by day, exhausts her efforts, perseverance, at this time, the mine park, rows of trees and shadows of the wood, camphor, crape myrtle, is full of mountains and green, the flowers and trees on the old Wangzhai are full of hills, the mountains and rivers and forests in Dongli Village are back to life, the mulberry trees on the tailings pond quietly sprout, the heather and privet at the nursery base poke out the notes of spring, the golden tea on the Bawu Mountain exudes the mellow fragrance of the years, and the jagged vegetables on the Qingshui River are swaggering in the soft waves again. A piece of land, a stream of water, needs to keep the season, follow the climate, and grow the appearance of Qingming Valley rain. "The flowers fall in the dew belt, and the clouds flow with the wild water", some roads may be empty for a while in the evening, while others will lead to the afternoon sun in the morning. People walking on the road, in fact, do not need to be too stunned in the wind, the road has been walked for a long time, ripe, naturally, there will be birds flying over the sky, flowers blooming on the side of the mountain. Walking on the road, as long as the heart is clear and vigorous, the things in the distance will not be easily abandoned.
The ancient Miao River, from high to low, has been flowing quietly in the crack of the cliff canyon, a stone and a wall, a waterfall and a pool, white mist curling, water vapor, all kinds of waterfalls, large and small, high and low, such as ribbons, if long hair, like light smoke...... For thousands of years, it flowed out of the cooking smoke of the villages along the way, the barking of dogs by the fence, the sound of pounding clothes on the shore, the hard-working, enthusiastic and bold, fierce and domineering people on the wall, and also the robustness, delicateness, reality and good-looking of the world.
Very old things are often very "new", and "new" becomes a deep imprint on the soul.
The bluebird flies over the mountains, the magpie chirps, and Laladu, crossing the river of time and the day and night of life. "I was moved by the faint afternoon sun on the top of the mountain, and by the stones that were round like chess pieces at the bottom of the water. Many years ago, Mr. Shen Congwen pulled his trouser legs and said this meaningful thing. Spring, along the valley, along the slope, is rising inch by inch, early maturing grass, sorrel, cow tendon grass, purple flower lily, sorrel leaf knotweed, etc., each leaf petal hides a little joy, the insects, in the warm and moist arms, they tend to remember a lot of things, including many years ago, many years later, every morning, every noon and every dusk.
The empty steps overlap the upper clothes, and the long society swallows return at the beginning of the day; the paulownia tree bears seeds and bends the branches, and picks them carefully to blow them carefully. Far away, upstairs on stilts, there seems to be an ancient song of the Miao people faintly coming, deep and remote. I sat alone on the wharf of the Huayuan River, watching the women bend down and pound their clothes and pick vegetables with their backs, their hair flashing in the sunset, as if they were emitting a whispering fragrance. I suddenly remembered a quote from the Spanish poet Gliaño: "I am not looking for understanding, but for meaning." With silence, with an inexplicable premonition, dreaming of the stars and the lonely couch, where you can leave the world and go anywhere. "Immersed in this reverie, I think that Huayuan, originally a garden, was, is and will still be.
Zhang Yuanwen is a senior middle school teacher, a member of the Hunan Writers Association, a member of the Hunan Literary and Art Critics Association, a member of the Chinese Prose Literature Association, a member of the Chinese Poetry Society, and a director of the Ecological Literature Branch of the Hunan Writers Association. He is the author of essay collections such as "The Awake Soul" and "The River in the World", and has won the "Chinese Contemporary Prose Award".