Original title: The three stores have more than just a coal shop
A water brings the remnant sun, and the four mountains give birth to white clouds.
Leaning on the mouth of the village, the wine is slightly drunk.
The ancient road hears people's words, and the birds flock in the world.
It's twilight when you wander, and the weeds are fragrant.
A poem "Three Shops Scene" was written by a Manchu royal poet Aixin Jueluo Baoting more than 100 years ago. This poet of the late Qing Dynasty, who is known as comparable to Nalan Xingde, often walks among the mountains with two or three friends because of his love for the beautiful scenery of western Beijing, and every masterpiece is published. In the eyes of the poet, the three stores in western Beijing are quiet, quiet, and poetic, not the soot and smoky miasma that the people of Beijing thought when they mentioned Mentougou in the early days.
The small temple in the countryside actually hides the dragon and the crouching tiger
The Dragon King Temple that still stands in Sanjiadian Village, although the word "Ejian" is not written on the door plate, but once the history is told, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is the highest level Dragon King Temple in Beijing. The temple is dedicated to five dragon kings. We are generally familiar with the Dragon King of the Four Seas, who is the fifth Dragon King in the Dragon King Temple of the three shops?
The fifth is a river dragon king, the river god of the Yongding River. According to some promotional materials, this is the only remaining statue of the Yongding River God in Beijing. Don't look at the family is just a river god, but he has been knighted by four emperors. First of all, in the nineteenth year of Jin Dading, Jin Shizong named the Yongding River God as the "Marquis of Ping'an". In the sixteenth year of the Yuan Dynasty, Yuan Shizu crowned the Yongding River God as "Xianying Hong Jigong". In the Qing Dynasty, first Emperor Kangxi enshrined him as the "River God", and finally the Qianlong Emperor crowned him as the "Anliu Guanghui Yongding River God". The river god in a small country temple has been honored by the emperor four times, which can't help but make the village of Sanjiadian look very unusual.
This small dragon king temple has another amazing thing. When the clerks cleaned up the Longwang Temple, they found a large number of Buddha cards under the Buddha shrine, some of them used paper to write the Buddha number, and some of them depicted the image of the gods and Buddhas on silk, which were basically preserved in the Yongding River Cultural Museum, which was indeed exquisite, and should now belong to the protected cultural relics.
There is a story in the Guandi Temple
In the three shops, there is also a temple, called Guandi Temple Iron Anchor Temple. At first glance, this name is very strange, I have never heard of a temple after the door number of the Guandi Temple. The reason why it is so called is because in this temple, not only Guan Erye was once enshrined, but also a very large iron anchor was enshrined.
As for why an iron anchor is enshrined in the temple and worshipped from time to time, there are still a few stories that can be told.
According to the introduction sign in front of the Guandi Temple, the three shops are on the edge of the Yongding River, which is often threatened by floods, and the buildings in the village have become a boat-shaped, so the villagers have enshrined a five-foot-high iron anchor with four claws next to the righteous Guan Erye, hoping to protect the village from flooding through this town's water things. The iron anchor of the past is gone, but now it has been recreated and placed in the temple. Take an iron anchor as a temple to offer to the gods, and you can't find a second one when you go all over Beijing.
There are two more theories about this iron anchor. One is that according to the "Old Tang Book", before Tang Taizong's crusade against Liaodong, the minister Wei Ting lived in Youzhou to buy timber to make ships for grain transportation. The iron anchor may have been left over from Wei Ting's shipbuilding here, and was preserved as a holy relic by the villagers. But this statement has not been verified, just listen to the story.
There is another statement, which is even more bizarre, full of the romantic imagination unique to the Chinese. Legend has it that when someone was crossing the Yongding River on a ferry, he heard someone shouting "help" in the water, so he told the villagers about it. People didn't believe it at first, but then they heard the sound of "help" in the river. So, the bold people in the village formed a team and went to the Yongding River to check out.
Diving underwater, people found a huge iron pillar poked in the sand at the bottom of the river, and the sound of "help" came from the iron pillar. Everyone emboldened each other, tied the iron pillar with ropes, used the cows, horses, mules and donkeys of the village, and with great effort pulled the iron fellow out of the water to the shore, and at first glance, it turned out to be a huge iron anchor.
The villagers thought that this was a manifestation of the gods and gave spiritual objects to bless the village, so they simply moved the iron anchor into the Guandi Temple to worship. As a result, after the iron anchor was enshrined, the three stores were not flooded for many years, and almost every year when the wind and rain were favorable, the grain was ripe, and the life of the villagers was getting better and better.
Legends, don't take it seriously, just listen to it to relieve boredom. But this also somewhat reveals the people's yearning for a better life and their expectation of good weather, and there is no need to criticize it.
Surging red genes
The three stores not only have a heavy historical precipitation, but also take the lead on the road of revolution. In 1925, coal miners rallied in three shops to demand wage increases and oppose layoffs. In 1928, the underground party of the Communist Party of China in Beiping sent party members to work in Sanjiadian, established the first rural party branch in the history of western Beijing, and also led the struggle to increase wages and oppose the exorbitant taxes imposed by the Feng warlords who occupied the canals. In 1945, the villagers cooperated with the Eighth Route Army to attack the Sanjiadian Railway Station, defeated the Japanese puppet army gathering point, and successfully occupied the railway station.
It's such a small village, it looks unremarkable, but it's not that simple. It is by no means an ordinary village with simple coal streets, it has history, culture, and spirit. The fly in the ointment is that many cultural preservation units are in a state of closed doors, and it would be a good thing if it could be opened up so that people can walk on the streets of the three stores and experience more retro style at any time.
The Yongding River will not be exhausted, and it will pass by the first village of the Jingxi Ancient Road, which has given birth to this village from ancient times to today. Everything, no matter how vigorous and withering, is indelible after all.
Author: ✎ Wang Hetong
[Article source: "Beijing Chronicle" April issue]