The story of Li Changqing and the village of the sentry tower
Li Kangyun
In the early spring of 2024, I drove more than 120 kilometers from Leshan in the rain to Renshou Whistle Tower Village, and after the simple and touching opening ceremony, we were quickly taken to the Whistle Tower Village History Museum. Outside the museum, the winter rain is dense, and the village is even quieter. The museum was already crowded, listening to the tour guide excitedly and quietly. The narrator is more than 1.8 meters tall, square-faced, handsome, and although Mandarin is not very standard, he speaks quite passionately. I didn't like congestion, and I waited for more than 60 writers in the province to be brought to the front by the man's voice, and then I quietly browsed the exhibition. The "preface" is simple and heavy, and it really has a story. On the front of the hall, there is a group portrait of the village sages in the past dynasties, it is said that there are three hundred talents, fifty jinshi in the village during the 600 years of Huguang filling Sichuan, and more than a dozen people are carved in the group, which is the representative of the village sages, and the leader in the center is Li Chunwang, who was a Henan official hundreds of years ago, a rare sculpture figure, lifelike, which master should be from. Looking at the side exhibition wall, there is a vertical arrangement of "Spring and Autumn Records of the Sentry Tower" in red and black characters.
The article is more than 500 words, the Spring and Autumn penmanship, the ancient style of the village is blowing in the face, signed, written by the owner of Qinqi. Continuing the tour, I suddenly learned that the owner of Qinzhai was not mysterious, it was Li Changqing, the commentator in front of him, wearing a gray cotton gown, quite like an artist resurrected in the old era. I heard others say that he is the director of the "Whistle Tower Village History Museum", and he is also the designer of the construction and exhibition of this museum. From a distance, he stood tall in the crowd, and under the light, it looked like a beam of light with sound.
He was surrounded by crowds all the time, and it was inconvenient for me to interject to get to know him. He didn't have a spare time until the afternoon, and after returning, he finally managed to add his WeChat, and it was night, in his circle of friends, he found the original text of "The Spring and Autumn Records of the Sentry Tower" and the 18 notes at the end of the article.
The first sentence of the article is "the land of cheap springs and water, the district of Wenli Wuxiang." Borrowing the inscription given to the sentry tower village by the literati of the Qing Dynasty, the sentry tower village was revived.
The second section of "Whistle Tower Village, located in the hinterland of Tianfu, spans 2,000 years of civilization." Han is the east of Wuyang County, Wei belongs to Pingjing County, the five generations of Mengwen township, the Song Dynasty and the champion of the common Zi, the late Ming Dynasty Jinggong Li, the early Qing Dynasty Anxia Jia, the Republic of China Northern Expedition important town. The ancient towns of 'Guiping, Pingjing, Guangdu, and Lingzhou' villages, and the present names of 'Juyuan, Xiaozhi, Sentinel, and Changfu Villages'. In my opinion, except for the slightly exaggerated "hinterland to Jin" and the "2,000-year-old civilization" to be verified, the rest of the village history evolution narrative is concise and powerful.
The third paragraph "Virtuous Wu Sentinel Tower, the Abyss of the Famous Star of Guling Prefecture, the first successive successes of the Branch, both civil and military, loyalty, filial piety and righteousness, and the history of the world." The Gu family has ten generations of Lianke, and the hairpin is prosperous; The surname Li is a family of ten tributes, two poles and three archways; Zhang's Qujiang noble, a family of military merits, Wen Xuanhuazhang; General Gu, Deputy Envoy Li, Chief Examination Pu, Wang Xundao, protégé of the Son of Heaven, Lilu champion, 600 years of Ming and Qing dynasties, Chongwen and education, 300 talents, and more than 50 tributes. The battlefield often leaves a hero's body, Hanmo has repeatedly heard the name of the villagers, and the virgin is famous here, showing the eunuch to help the horse's head in the past. "Briefly more than 100 words, the core of the village history and civilization is like prying open the walnut gully, the essence of civil and military affairs, the pearl shell out of the shell, the folk customs, and the rhyme of the zither. The short text is like the salt brine essence taken out by the salt probe, and every bit of it is the taste and taste of Sichuan village civilization. With a little taste, there are hidden deep seas where Huguang fills the 600-year-old fate of the Li family and the Gu family in Sichuan.
The fourth paragraph "leisurely my sentry tower, the bureaucrats live in caves, and there are gradually human tracks." Huguang fills the river, Gu Li Zhang Huang, and hundreds of rivers flow in Situ. The sentry tower was built to defend against foreign enemies, and it was named for a year. The land of goodness, abundant products, once the salt works were forested, and now the green waters and green mountains, the people live happily and peacefully. After thousands of years of rise and fall, the folk customs are still simple; Generations of farmers, the people of Li are still loyal. Cliff carving, the country's treasure, thousands of years of elegance still exists. Qinzhai clay sculpture, a famous product in Shu, carries the charm of the inheritance. This description has a historical texture, it is the "seafood" that Li Changqing exhibited for the sentry tower village, the migration and reproduction of people, the sentry tower and the bandits, the harmony of the villagers and neighbors, the salt wind and the smooth wind, the people's livelihood and loyalty, and the ecology is vigorous, far beyond the similar villages in Sichuan that I know. However, it would be more energetic if "leisurely" was changed to "strong sentry tower village".
At the end of the article, it was written: "Si people are also cultivating and reading heirlooms, cultivating both civil and military, and producing heroes." Si Di Ye, Yuxiu Zhong Ling, grain, cotton, potatoes and fruits, spread for hundreds of miles. Sven also, serving the imperial court, teaching the people, and relying on the family and the country. Si Wuye, defending the country, the Northern Expedition increased glory, and the Gu family was heard. Sentalou Village, the famous area of Tianfu! Lingzhou's thick soil! Sentinel Village, outstanding people, Wuhua Tianbao, Yishi Longchang!" This paragraph is compared with people, places, literature, martial arts, and buildings, five characters and six sentences, and the village style civilization has been refined and refined, although the author's feelings at the end of the article are slightly more cathartic, and it is not as subtle as the ancient "remember" text, which Li Changqing is not simple.
Speaking of the style of "remembering", it originated in the pre-Qin period and prevailed in the Han Dynasty, and the official and private individuals used it to remember people's memories, transitive romances, and the style began to become independent. From the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang and Song dynasties, "Ji" gradually integrated into personality and ideology, leaving behind immortal texts with mature styles of 3,500 words, such as "The Story of the Peach Blossom Spring", "The Story of Yueyang Tower", "The Story of the Drunken Man's Pavilion" and "The Story of the Wandering Bao Zen Mountain". From the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties to modern and contemporary times, "Ji" in novels, essays, reportage, and non-fiction writing has not only not been decomposed by elements, but has promoted the writer's feelings and thoughts to the extremely high realm of narrative aesthetics. This may be the ultimate weapon for human writing against AI writing. Reading Li Changqing's "Spring and Autumn Chronicles of Sentale Village" is awe-inspiring and poetic, using ordinary rural history to pass on the memory of civilization, and illuminating the mirror image of the great cause of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization in China today.
When I read the introduction at the end of the article, the name is impressive. I only knew that he was the curator before, but I never thought that he was born in 1982 in Sentalou Village. Since childhood, he has learned from his family and learned folk skills from his grandfather and father. The young man studied at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, and later specialized in clay sculpture, becoming a representative of the Sichuan school of clay sculpture, an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, and the titles of sculptor and folk artist have become national brands. Yicheng founded a cultural communication company in Meishan, and the industry became the president of the Meishan Sculpture Association, leaned over the folk clay sculptures, raised his head to become a member of the Meishan CPPCC, and at the same time devoted himself to the study of local literature and history. Meishan Taihe Town, his hometown Whistle Tower Village, he has a residence. His clay sculptures "Picking Ears", "Playing Drums" and "Su Dongpo" went out of Sichuan, went to the whole country and even participated in the International Art Biennale of the Grand Palais in France. It is also based on the traditional skills of folk mortals laughing and scolding, and it is also a lifelike clay sculpture figure, compared with the writer Feng Jicai's 1100-word essay "Clay Man Zhang" in the late Qing Dynasty folk artist Zhang Mingshan, Li Changqing is not only the darling of the family, the darling of clay sculpture art, but also the darling of the times since China's reform and opening up. Li Changqing has won seven generations of family clay sculpture skills, active in the peak of contemporary literature and art, and even dared to explore and innovate five years ago, "clay sculpture + technology", the use of 3D printing technology, innovative contemporary clay sculpture artistic means, improve the efficiency and quality of clay sculpture works, Xiangxian group carving is also from his handwriting, to the development of folk art to bring imagination and poetic enlightenment.
Unexpectedly, Changqing is really a poet, and he has the old poem "Qingming Festival":
I'm dressed in old-fashioned clothes
Traveled thousands of miles for a hundred years
Only then did they come to the graves of their ancestors
I visited my relatives in the Republic of China
Visited relatives in the Qing Dynasty
Visited relatives in the Ming Dynasty
Visited relatives in the Tang Dynasty
I'm from Xishu
All the way to Huguang, all the way to Jiangnan, all the way to Longxi
I'm from the heyday
All the way to peace, all the way to the wind and rain, all the way to the north
I'm from the end of the bloodline
Through the fog, thorns, sorrows and joys of history
Only then did he return to the beginning of the bloodstream
I am an emperor, a military general, a jinshi, a lifter, and a talent
A seed planted on a winding dirt road
I used to be the voice of the Tang Dynasty, the chapter of the Ming Dynasty, the bow and arrow of the Qing Dynasty, and the scroll of the Republic of China......
The poem describes his devotion to his roots. He really loves the study of local literature and history, and mainly devotes himself to the collection and collation of the genealogies of the Li clan and outstanding figures in Renshou, Sichuan, and Southwest China, which is particularly attractive to me. Forty-three years ago, I left at the age of 17 to go to university in Baima Village, 20 kilometers away from the village of Zhanglou, and then taught at Aba and Leshan universities for nearly 40 years. Although he often goes back to his hometown to participate in the Qingming Meeting, he is always vague about the genealogical inheritance of the Renshou Li clan, and he feels deeply sorry for his ancestors. A few years ago, I devoutly read the map of the Chinese Li family's gene flow and migration engraved on the high wall at the Jiangyou Li Bai Memorial Hall, and I was skeptical that "the Li family in the world came from Longxi". In the summer of that year, I was soaked with sweat and my eyes were blinded, and I couldn't figure out the Li family before Longxi, I only remembered that a mother and son fled into the mountains to eat plums and continue to live and reproduce The origin of the surname Li is legendary, and I can't figure out the situation of the Li family now.
Evergreen's research gave me the opportunity to put an end to my regrets. First of all, he generously sent the "Southwest Li Clan Root-Seeking Joint Sect Preparatory Committee" is editing and perfecting the "Introduction to the Li Family in Sichuan" document, 330 pages, more than 230,000 words, and has identified 824 Li families in various parts of Sichuan, more than half of which have retained the characters and songs. He also sent a "Introduction to the Li Family in Renshou County, Sichuan Province", which has few pages, but records 45 Li clans, more than half of which have genealogical songs. I quickly looked for the Li family records in Baima Village, at the junction of Zhangjia Town, Shijian Town, and Baofei Town, Renshou County, and there is a Li family, but the corresponding genealogy is not as good as my "inheritance of the ancestral aspirations and the completion of Yongshixun...... Fushou Ankangning" genealogy of the family branch records. I wrote back to Changqing and said, "I hope that in the future, it will be clarified and recorded as the 46th branch of Renshou Lee." ”
Although Changqing and I have the same surname and different branches, we have a relationship, but we feel very cordial. However, now the surname is sorted out, just so that future generations will not forget their ancestors and forget the way they came; The same side of the sentry tower village survives in the water and soil, just to reproduce in peace. Changqing said that there are more than 3,000 people in Sentalou Village, including more than 1,100 descendants of the Li family from Xiaogan, Macheng, Hubei Province, and more than 300 descendants of the Li family from Guangdong and Guangxi in the same village. For hundreds of years, he has married nearly 1,000 people from the same village, the Zhang family, the Huang family and other families, rarely had infighting, and has been friendly for generations. Yes, a harmonious village is a mixed-race heart city, and the cohesion of the heart city is the eternal gene of rural revitalization. As recorded in the "Spring and Autumn Chronicle of the Sentry Tower", for hundreds of years, when a foreign land has become the endless hometown of all surnames, once the bandits attack and the whistle of the sentry tower mountain rises, they will have the same hatred and hatred, and the surnames are already a family; Once the sky is clear and clear, the country will employ people, and the sentry tower village will be able to stand up, and the whole country will be a family; Once the countryside is revitalized and the whistle blows again, they will be able to unite as one and work hard to revitalize their homes.
To tell the truth, I envy Li Changqing's sentry tower village. There are 35 towns, 25 townships and 527 villages in Renshou County, with a total of 1.67 million people, equivalent to twice the 800,000 people in 13 counties of Aba Prefecture. Traveled all over Aba, Ganzi, Liangshan, Guangyuan, Bazhong, Dazhou and other underdeveloped areas, and various places have also launched model villages for rural revitalization such as Xianglou Village, which is indeed very demonstrative, but similar to my hometown Baima Village, ten households moved away from five or six households to work in the county and buy houses, even if the government ploughed the land and called for returning to the hometown to farm, there are still not a few hollow villages that do not want to return to their hometowns. In just over three years, the once closed and underdeveloped Sentalou Village has miraculously transformed into a demonstration village for rural revitalization in the province, and the key factor is people, not the problem of unequal hearts, but the collective imagination and creativity of the leaders of rural governance.
Sentalou Village is not Li Changqing's Sentale Village alone, he is just a cultural messenger who feeds back to the countryside and creates a village civilization in the new era. The village is also the village of Zhang Guojun, the party secretary of the village of returned college students, and Zhang Kai, the deputy secretary. Of course, the village is the old village chief Li Shuqing, who is over 80 years old and went to the construction site on crutches to resolve the doubts of the villagers, and more than 3,000 villagers. Obviously, this is of course a model village for the people of Renshou and even the people of Sichuan. A few years ago, the poverty alleviation campaign of "no one is missing" has long been internationally recognized as a Chinese miracle in the history of world poverty alleviation. Nowadays, rural revitalization is in the ascendant, and Sentalou Village can be called the "miracle" of China's miracle in the history of world poverty alleviation and governance.
The reason why the "miracle" was born is precisely because of the advice and suggestions of the old and strong Gu Zhongjiang and other virtuous people in the world, the strong support of the old village chiefs "Li Shuqing" in the past dynasties, the imagination and creation of talents such as Li Changqing, Zhang Guojun and Zhang Kai who returned to their hometowns, and the inheritance and influence of the civilization genes and cultural self-confidence of the sages of the past dynasties, as well as the leadership and dedication of the government and the people with one heart and one mind.
The three-dimensional and multi-dimensional linkage of talents and industries can have such a vigorous and magnificent village civilization on the land of a village. Li Changqing is just one of them, and he will continue to be the builder, creator and sculptor of the future of the village.
Notice: This article has been authorized to be reprinted by Chengdu Daily, without the authorization of the original media Chengdu Daily, please do not reprint!
Source: Chengdu Daily, April 16, 2024, page 8
Text / Photo: Li Kangyun