Xiuzhou is located in the Hangjiahu Plain, which belongs to the water town of Zeguo, with the Grand Canal as the main axis of the water network to communicate the north and south, across the ancient and modern.
There are many bridges in the water town. There are more than 100 existing ancient bridges in Xiuzhou, from the Changhong Bridge, which is listed in the national cultural protection unit, to the Yuchihui Bridge that reflects the local style, and then to the national boundary bridge that outlines the historical memory, all of which are still in the weathering of time, inheriting the heavy canal culture and the ancient bridge civilization in the south of the Yangtze River.
The column of "Literature and Art to See Xiuzhou" will select some characteristic ancient bridges, reproduce the story of the bridge with written narration, and preserve the appearance of the bridge with the shooting of photos, in order to use the bridge as a link to connect the cultural history and customs of Xiuzhou.
Come to Xiuzhou, enjoy the smoke and willow painting bridge, and watch the Changhong lying wave.
Changsheng Bridge
Photography / Gan Genhua, Xia Song
Text/Shao Honghai
Changsheng Bridge is on Chengxi, Youchegang Town, Xiuzhou District.
Chengxi, as the name suggests, is a quiet and clear stream. The source of Chengxi is in Shenshidang, and there is a stone door between the two to regulate the water flow: in the rising season, Chengxi is full of water, and the water of Chengxi is released into Shenshidang to accumulate; In the dry season, the water flows out again to replenish the Chengxi.
Changsheng Bridge is on the east side of Chengxi Bridge (a cement bridge on the main road of the old market town of Youchegang), and I have been to see it many times, but the first time I went to see it 10 years ago, I was the most impressed.
Starting from Chengxi Bridge, follow the street by the stream, all the way to the east. The river is flanked by two rows of old houses, some of which have long been uninhabited, overgrown with weeds and musty smells. My friends and I went with us cleared the grass and explored a few places, and passers-by reminded us that these were dilapidated houses, so we should not enter them casually.
Indeed, these old houses that no one lives in seem to be standing untenable, and a few of them have simply collapsed into a pile of rocks on the side. Walking on the streets, I rarely see locals, and some of them are old people who have little energy like the house. We met an old lady sitting under the eaves listening to an old radio, her eyes closed, leaning back in a chaise longue, groggy and looking like she was about to fall asleep. The radio was also in tatters, and the sounds coming from it were like the words of a person who had lost his teeth, babbling and making it difficult to hear.
The Changsheng Bridge connects Gangbei Street and Gangnan Street on both sides of Chengxi. These two streets are the main roads of the old town of Tanchegang and have witnessed the rise and fall of the old town. According to the "Chronicles of the Town of the Oil Truck", the old town was quite prosperous for a while, and more than 30 workshops and factories were opened one after another. The south and north streets are more magnificent, comparable to some ancient towns. The doors of the shops on the street are opposite, and the eaves and ceilings are connected, which can shelter from the wind and rain, forming a unique "Langxia Street".
Among the two streets, Gangbei Street is the main business district. Every morning at the morning market, the market town is bustling with activity, and the streets are filled with agricultural and sideline products that farmers from all over the world bring out to sell: vegetables, eggs, chickens, ducks, geese and other poultry...... The crowd was bustling, some drinking tea, some eating breakfast, and some buying things, shoulder to shoulder.
The riverport was full of boats, mostly people from distant villages, who came by boat to meet the market, and some came to buy and sell goods, which could be used as a means of transport. Some of the women of the town squatted on the edge of the river, and in the gap between the boats, they soaked the clothes to be washed in the water, and then lifted them up and banged them with clothessticks......
These are the scenes of the past that I have imagined based on the written records.
Day after day, year after year, the people of the south of the port walked from the Changsheng Bridge to the north of the port, and the people from the north of the port walked from the Changsheng Bridge to the south of the port, which is really a bit of an endless taste.
Changsheng Bridge is a three-hole stone bridge, which is now a cultural relics protection point in the city. I checked the relevant information and learned that the total length of the bridge is about 22 meters, the width is 2.97 meters, and it is composed of 5 stone slabs side by side, and the maximum span of the veneer is 6.43 meters. Standing on the bridge, it can be seen that there are stone railings on both sides of the bridge deck, and there are pillars on the bridge, and the bridge body is partially engraved with cloud and thunder patterns, curly lotus patterns and other ornaments. The two piers in the river are made of stone masonry, and the south and north sides of the bridge are slightly trumpet-shaped, each with 7 stone steps. I walked from the south of the bridge to the north of the bridge, and then to the side of the bridge, looking for the bridge on the bridge. But except for the words "Qianlong fifty-five years", the rest is not seen, presumably the Changsheng Bridge was rebuilt during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty.
On the second trip, I went with my colleagues to see the Changsheng Bridge. The old market town of the oil truck port is getting more and more ruined, but Changsheng Bridge still stands on Chengxi. At that time, I thought that the transformation of the old market town is an inevitable trend, but as long as this Changsheng Bridge does not fall, the old market town of the oil truck port will inevitably reveal a new breath. My colleague and I walked across the Changsheng Bridge to Gangnan Street, hoping to ask someone about the style of the former market town.
After asking a few questions, they all shook their heads - they were new residents who had rented from outside. Later, I finally met an old man by a dilapidated Western-style house. He was originally from Fengqiao, and when he was young, he followed his family to do business in the town of Youchegang, and stayed as soon as he did it, and it was decades in a flash.
The old man is familiar with the market town, and he will point to the east and the west: "Gangnan Street is mostly a large courtyard, the east section is the Lujia Hall, the Chen House and the Cocoon Station, and the west is the Ni family's rice warehouse (in addition to the oil business, the Ni family later also did the rice business), and now there are some houses. The Ni family's compound in the northeast corner of the old town was used as a grain station and a national grain warehouse after 1949, and has now been demolished. ”
When asked about the previous use of the Western-style house on the side, the old man said that this was a police station during the Republic of China. No wonder it is so magnificent, several walls are made of cement, with large pillars, but the houses have collapsed, and the word "demolition" is written on the walls in bright red.
There are also remnants of a steamship dock along the river beach. At that time, the people of the market town of the oil truck port used to get on the ship to the city from here, and at first it was a "fast boat". There is a poem in Mr. Wu Rongting's "Medicine Window Poems" about the "fast boat": "The black canopy sampan goes out of the mountain, and the oars fly through the blue xun." Boring and boring all the way to urge customers to pass, the rivers and lakes are full of dialects. ”
This kind of "black canopy boat" is passed from Shaoxing, the hull is long and narrow, the front is low and the back is high, there are 4 oars, which can be shaken at the same time, and there is a person sitting in the bow of the boat to pull the oar, so the speed is faster. When it arrives at a pier, the crew strikes a gong to indicate that the ship is coming and the guests are ready to disembark and disembark.
Wu Lao has this account in "Medicine Window Poems": "In the second evacuation of Jiazi and Wuyin, one is from the diagonal bridge to Guodian to Haining, and the other is from Jiaxing to Nanhui, and I have sat three or four times, and finally appreciated the 'scenery of Yueguo', and when I reached the end point, I also experienced the proverb of 'landing the ship first and going ashore at night'. ”
According to the calculation of the year, Mr. Wu Rongting took a "fast liner" to pass through the oil tanker port, which should have occurred in 1938 during the Anti-Japanese War. At that time, the Japanese army had landed from Jinshanwei and Jiaxing had fallen. Because of its location in the remote lake of Beixiang, a large number of urban residents have fled here, and the local population has increased dramatically, which has led to the further development of commerce.
In addition to the "fast liner", as early as the 12th year of the Republic of China (1923), the wealthy merchant Jiang of Nanhui has begun to operate steamers between Nanhui and Jiaxing County, and has a stop in the old market town of the oil tanker port. "Landing the ship first and going ashore at night" means that when the "fast boat" and the steamer exist at the same time, no matter how fast the "fast boat" is, the manpower can not reach the machine, so it is always the person who takes the steamer to arrive at the destination first. Twenty-two years later, in 1945, the Ni family also opened a passenger ship transportation business, opening a passenger engine sailing ship from Jiaxing to Nanhui, named "Nanhu".
When I went to the old market town of Tanchegang for the third time, there were fewer and fewer old houses, only Changsheng Bridge, as its name suggests, and its face is not old.
Editor: Chai Cheng
Editor-in-charge: Li Li
Review: Lin Rong
【From Xiuzhou Literature and Art】
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