In the spring of 1982, Shen Congwen's novel "The Long River" was republished after being revised. In May of this year, 80-year-old Shen Congwen and his wife Zhang Zhaohe set off for Xiangxi.
Before leaving, he changed his nationality to "Miao".
Shen Congwen returned to that kind town, Phoenix. Although it is already full of silver threads, it is accompanied by spring light.
In the sound of gongs and drums in the opera, Shen Congwen cried. With tears in his eyes and dripping on the back of his hand, he remained motionless, and memories of his childhood flooded back to him.
Shen Congwen and his wife Zhang Zhaohe
Xiangxi is the homeland where Shen Congwen was born and grew up, and it is also the starting point for him to build a grand imaginary world, and it is also the cornerstone of his spiritual support in his life.
Like Marquez and his Macondo, Mo Yan and his Gaomi, Shen Congwen's writing almost never leaves Xiangxi.
From Xiangxi, he went to the world.
"Xiangxi is a Miao area, and at the same time it is a bandit area. Women are more likely to release Gu, and men are especially happy to kill. This idea seems very ridiculous, but many people pass through Xiangxi with such anxiety and curiosity, so Xiangxi has become a special area in this situation, full of primitive and mysterious horror, intertwined with barbarism and beauty. ”
——Shen Congwen "Xiangxi"
In the past, the phoenix was called "Zhenxiao", because of the dangerous mountains and rivers and the deep obstruction of the road, it was a remote mountainous area that the central dynasty had no time to take care of.
It is also in this comfortable small city that the most elite team of the Hunan army has come out, known as the saying "no Hunan can not be an army, no Hunan can not be an army".
Shen Congwen's grandfather, Shen Hongfu, was a member of the army. In 1853, at the age of 16, Shen Hongfu joined the army, and was quickly promoted to the guard of Zhaotong Town, Yunnan Province because of his bravery, and later served as the governor of Guizhou.
After becoming famous, he led his family surnamed Shen to move from the remote Huangluo Village to the city.
After this, Shen Congwen's father, Shen Zonghei, also joined the Hunan army and was sent to the north to guard the Dagukou Fort, which coincided with the capture of Tianjin by the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900, and he escaped death and returned to Xiangxi.
Wenchang Elementary School
Influenced by his father, who tried to revive his grandfather's glory but failed to do so, Shen Congwen's ambition from an early age was to be a "general", and his interest was not in books.
"When I come to school, I have to take a book basket, which contains more than a dozen broken books, from "Baoju Magazine" and "Kindergarten Qionglin" to "Analects", "Book of Songs" and "Shangshu", which usually have to be memorized, and the weight is quite heavy. It's a bit stupid to hang your book basket on your elbow when you skip school. Anyone who does this can be said to be an unintelligent child. So we came up with a way to store the book baskets in a land temple. ”
"When I learned to see the world with my own eyes and live in a different society, the school was no longer interesting to me."
- "Autobiography from the Text"
When he was a teenager, Shen Congwen didn't know that the things he saw in front of him would subtly affect his lifelong interest and aesthetics.
But because of his stubbornness, he often reaps the sticks of adults.
Young Shen Congwen
In 1911, Shen Congwen's carefree teenage life was suddenly interrupted by the sound of gunfire outside.
On October 10 of that year, the revolutionaries revolted in Wuchang, and after that, various localities responded with a nationwide revolution aimed at overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and establishing a republican form of government.
On December 17, the Phoenix Uprising, and the Miao masses were the main force of the rebel army.
As one of the organizers of the uprising, his father, Shen Zonghe, led the rebel army to fight the Qing army in Phoenix City all night.
At dawn, everything was quiet again. Shen Congwen, who woke up, found that many things around him had changed.
"I don't know what happened in and out of the city that night. The uncles were all gone, and my father was the only one in the main room, sitting on his special Taishi chair in the main room, bowing his head and not saying a word. I asked him, "Daddy, Daddy, have you ever been in a battle?" "Little thing, don't talk nonsense, we've been defeated at night!" The whole army and horses were wiped out, and thousands of people died! As he was talking, the tall uncle came back from outside, sweating all over his head, and stammered, "The yamen has brought back four hundred and ten heads and a large set of ears from the edge of the city."
- "Autobiography from the Text"
This was the first time in Shen Congwen's life that he felt the cruelty of war, but he didn't seem to feel scared at a young age, and even became more curious.
In March of the following year, the uprising finally succeeded, after which Shen Congwen's father went to Beijing to organize an iron-blooded group with his fellow villagers to assassinate Yuan Shikai, but was discovered by detectives and fled to Guanwai incognito, and did not return to Xiangxi until many years later.
In the days when Shen's father was exiled outside the gate, the Shen family gradually declined.
Shen Congwen returned to Wenchangge Primary School
This small phoenix city, which is sprinkled with the memories of his youth, is a place of growth and a starting point for Shen Congwen.
In the sixth year after his father left home, Shen Congwen also left Phoenix City under his mother's arrangement and went to a wider world.
In 1923, the little soldier Shen Congwen told the commander of his unit that he was going to Beijing to break into the world. Chen Quzhen, commander of the First Army of the Xiangxi Protectorate Alliance Army and commander of the Xiangxi Patrol Army, was not surprised.
He told this little soldier who was a little literary and bookish that if he didn't make it, he would still have his job here. Chen Quzhen ordered him to advance his military salary for three months, totaling 27 yuan.
When he left Xiangxi by boat and rushed out of the pass, he subconsciously looked back at the mountains and rivers of his hometown.
At the moment, there are not many people in China who know that there are not many people here.
It is difficult for this young man, who seems a little stunned, to realize that his hometown is so special in his destiny in the future, he has come a long way, but he seems to have never left......
Producer: Tang Damai
Choreographer: Wang Dingyao
Editor: Wang Dingyao