The land under our feet was formed 6,000 years ago, and there were ancestors who lived 5,000 years ago, giving birth to the Maqiao culture, which is known as the "foundation of Shanghai", and confirming the cultural source of Shanghai's "sea and all rivers".
In the eighteenth season of the "Discover the Beauty of Minhang" series of book recitations, we invited teenagers from Minhang Jingcheng Middle School affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine to recite "Minhang". Today, what you will hear is "Half a Mile Out of the Door is the River".
-Click to listen to the reading-
"Half a mile out of the door is the river", as a veritable water town, in Minhang, residents live by the river, and the waterway is when they go out of their homes. The rivers here are dense and criss-crossed, forming a huge network of water. In the past, many towns and villages were named after rivers, and almost all market towns were located on the banks of rivers, and every village had a river flowing through them.
Among the many rivers, the largest is the Huangpu River. The Huangpu River is the mother river of the Shanghainese, and its source is Dianshan Lake, which starts from the Chedun Desheng Port in Songjiang, flows into the territory of Minhang, and flows slowly eastward on the southern border, becoming the boundary river between Minhang and Fengxian. At the gate port, the water flow changes direction, forming the famous "Pujiang First Bay", turning north, running through the district, until the vicinity of Longhua, entering the urban area.
Wujing Cherry River, Maqiao Daughter Jing, Pujiang Heneck Bay, have been singing rural songs for hundreds of years (data map)
The Huangpu River divides Minhang into two parts: Pudong and Puxi. Except for the Huangpu River, most of the other major rivers flow in an east-west direction, arranged in parallel, and converge towards the Huangpu River. From Puxi, the important rivers in the east-west direction, from north to south, are: Suzhou Creek (Wusong River), Puhuitang, Dianpu River, Chunshentang, Liuleitang, Yutang River, etc. In the Pudong area, the important rivers in the east-west direction, from north to south, are: Zhouputang, Shenzhuangtang, Yaojiabang, Yantietang, Dazhi River, etc.
In addition to the Huangpu River, the Suzhou River, the Dianpu River, and the Dazhi River are all municipal-level rivers, and there are countless district-level and town-level rivers, which play an important role in navigation, irrigation, drainage, and aquatic production.
This is also the foundation for Minhang to become the land of fish and rice.
The Huangpu River and the Wusong River (Suzhou Creek), we know a lot, so I won't expand on it in detail, but talk about this thousand-year-old river that flows through the territory of Minhang.
In the 80s of the 20th century, on the bank of the Puhuitang River
The whole map of the frontispiece of the water system of "Tongzhi Shanghai County Chronicles".
On March 23, 1952, the dredging project site of Yutang River in Maqiao, Shanghai County
The river with the longest history - Yutang River. The river originates from Dianshan Lake, passes through the entrance of Songjiang Mao River, flows east through Maqiao, Zhuanqiao, Wujing in Minhang, Jiaonujing, Beishagang, Beizhugang, Henglijing and Danshui River, and enters the Huangpu River, with a total length of 25.5 kilometers. The Yutang River has a long history, and there is a record of dredging in the second year of Chunxi in the Southern Song Dynasty (1175). In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, it was vigorously repaired, and it was dredged twice in the Guangxu period of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, and when it was dredged in 1928, due to limited funds, it had to be hastily completed. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the dredging was repeatedly repaired. From 1969 to 1970, the section from Beizhugang to Daughterjing was straightened to form the current river section.
The land along the Yutang River is high and fertile, suitable for growing quinoa, and the rich households competed to buy and the land appreciated, so there was a folk proverb that "it is difficult to buy Yutang North if you have money". Many literati and writers also left famous poems for it. During the Chunxi period of the Southern Song Dynasty, the poet Xu Shang wrote: "Outside the three townships, the east flows and the sea passes. The river god has repeatedly favored, and the sail borrows the wind. Huang Ting, a poet from Maqiao in the Qing Dynasty, has another poem: "The first white dew is slightly cool, and the wind blows the fragrance of ancient ink." When the new rice in Shagang is ripe, the full plate of moon cakes has been tasted first. Maqiao has a village named after "Yutang", the famous Maqiao cultural site was excavated here, there were human beings living here more than 4,000 years ago, even more after the Yuan and Ming dynasties, there were also a number of famous families such as Dong, Lu, Gong, Dai, Jin, Niu and so on, and the whole Shanghai area was prominent and glorious at that time, almost incomparable.
It is rumored that the imperial ship of the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty once passed through Yutang during the southern tour, for this reason, Dong Han, a native of Maqiao and a Jinshi during the Shunzhi period, also specially composed the "Southern Tour Song".
From May 2023, the District CPPCC Office, the District Education Bureau, the Youth League Committee and the District Financial Media Center jointly launched a series of book reading activities called "Discover the Beauty of Minhang", and successively invited young people from many schools in Minhang District to read good books, be good at reading, understand history, and love their hometown, and work together to promote the implementation of the "Min Market" reading activities.
In the eighteenth season, we invited teenagers from Minhang Jingcheng Middle School affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine to recite "Minhang".
Don't forget the original, there is a future. Following the compilation and publication of five volumes of 25 volumes of "Discovering the Beauty of Minhang" literary and historical series, the Minhang District CPPCC once again compiled and launched this "Minhang", trying to reproduce the historical development trajectory of Minhang in a panoramic way in the form of a minimalist history, and also trying to mark a new coordinate for the grand plan of Minhang to spread its wings and soar.
The book is divided into four chapters: "But I want to be the homeland", "The glory is thick", "The scenery is drunk in the countryside" and "Fall in love with this city", with concise words and a large number of historical pictures, the vast local chronicles are transformed into easy-to-understand local reading books, so that more people can quickly understand Minhang, explore the spiritual character of Minhang's development and progress, feel the humanistic feelings of this land, obtain the energy power to move forward, and promote the continuous dissemination of Minhang's long history in the excavation, protection and utilization. A book can't contain the vicissitudes of Minhang, let alone the affectionate nostalgia of Minhang people for this land. We hope that on the thick trunk of the tree of history, we can intercept a few rings of annual rings, find the subtle lines, record the passing moments, and leave a historical background that can be traced, so that the rich history and culture of Minhang will add more charm and elegance to the new journey of creating an innovative, open, ecological and humanistic modern main urban area.
From October 2024, the eighteenth season will officially start, and at 21:30 every weekday, we won't listen or sleep!
Listen to the sound of Minhang together and discover the beauty of Minhang......
Read aloud: Wang Yichuan, Minhang Jingcheng Middle School affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Editor: Tang Jingxian
Preliminary review: Zhao Ruonan review: He Tingting Final review: Wang Tingting
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