When I came to Xinshi Ancient Town, what impressed me the most was the stone bridge here.
There are many old bridges here, all of which are short and short, spanning narrow rivers and heavy and practical. Most of these stone bridges are similar in shape, but the stories behind them are different. Let's pick up a few to talk about.
The bridge of Xinshi Ancient Town is the most conspicuous and the oldest bridge built on the Xiaoxi River, which is almost the same as the history of the establishment of Xinshi Ancient Town. It was built in the Jin Dynasty, stable in the Song Dynasty, the design of the single hole + stone column is very beautiful, and when viewed from the side, half a stone arch and the reflection reflected in the water form a large circle.
Xinshi people say that the Taiping Bridge has been protected as a monument since the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the current state has basically maintained the appearance of the last renovation 120 years ago, and the stone lion on the bridge is also a historical relic of the same era. The people in the town are unstable when they run boats and do business, and there is this lion "town", trying to be at peace and peace.
Taiping Bridge is also a "custom bridge".
In the old days, men and women in the new town had to walk solemnly from this bridge on the day of their kissing, heralding "a lifetime of peace". Later, walking the Taiping Bridge became a customary ritual, and whoever gave birth to a daughter-in-law, a child with a full moon, the elderly's birthday and other major and minor events will walk on this bridge and ask for an auspicious one.
Of course, tourists will also take a walk. But remember, don't look back when you leave, so that you can leave all your worries and sorrows on the other side of the bridge.
As we mentioned in the previous travelogue, the alias "Xiantan" of Xinshi Ancient Town is derived from the story of Lu Xiujing, a Taoist "ancestor" level figure, and the culture derived from this has influenced the naming of buildings and bridges on the xinshi side. For example, the "Zhuangyuan Bridge" in Beizha also has a name called "Xuanwu Bridge", along the origin of this bridge to go forward a thousand and eight hundred years will find that the historical regional planning of the new city itself has obvious gossip meaning, Qinglong Bridge, White Tiger Bridge, Suzaku Bridge, Xuanwu Bridge four elephants at the same time...
In fact, both roads and bridges fall under the category of "feng shui" in Taoist culture. "Five elements circulating, fate rich", bridges are undulating objects, and have the role of communication, good feng shui bridges, have the auspicious meaning of "promotion" and "nobleman".
Pictured: The architectural scenery under the Xinshi Bridge
This bridge is a bridge with a story.
It is said that there was a famous figure in the town of the Southern Song Dynasty named Wu Qian, who was a famous official of that period. In the feudal era, Keju and the first was the first step for a person to take a step forward, and Wu Qian won this "step" in this life - he was admitted to the title in his early 20s, and the official sea was shaken all the way, becoming the pride of the whole family and even the whole town.
Wu Qian was a man of good charity, and attached great importance to talents, helped the imperial court to develop water conservancy, and also passed the strategy, he was not only a prosperous official, but also very talented, and was a famous lyricist of that dynasty, leaving a large number of works for future generations. But when I went to look at his lyrics, I found that although Wu Qian was once an official and a minister, his works carried a strong depressing emotion:
"There is no way to complain about the country, and when the time comes, who will spit it out?"
"All over the country, where do you want to go?"
Reading Wu Qian's words, it seems to be stormy, but in fact, it is full of depression.
Throughout Wu Qian's life, he contributed most of his life to the imperial court, but in the special historical environment of the Southern Song Dynasty, which "humiliated people and disgraced the country", he had to pin his heart on the country and no way to do anything in his poems, worrying about the country and the people but unable to do anything; although for a small town in Jiangnan, he could be called a typical representative of "one person gets the Tao, the chicken dog ascends to heaven", but for various reasons he did not end well in the end.
According to historical records, due to jealousy and framing, Wu Qian was deposed in his later years. Although the evening scene is bleak, Wu Qian is generous and does not forget his roots, and after "retirement", he once opened a academy in WuJiayuan in the ancient town of Xinshi, aiming to cultivate successor talents for the country. Unfortunately, in the end, he did not escape the fate of becoming a victim of the power struggle, and was poisoned to death.
The Ancient Town of Xinshi Ishizuna Bridge is near his family's house, which is named after his story. As the "only way" for Wu Qian to embark on his career, Zhuangyuan Bridge has become one of the "auspicious bridges" among the "seventy-two bridges" in Xinshi Ancient Town. Anyone who has students will also walk on it, seek a gold list title, and "cross" the ups and downs that Wu Qian has experienced in his life. Together with the Taiping Bridge, the Zhuangyuan Bridge is merged into the bridge that "successfully reached the other shore".
Speaking of which, the contribution made by Wu Potential in the history of Xinshi has an indissoluble relationship with the Taoist "sect leader" Lu Xiujing mentioned in the previous travelogue: when Lu Xiujing lived in seclusion in the ancient town of Xinshi, he lived in a small house by the Dongzha Waterhole, and it is said that whenever Lu Xianren bathed in the pool, there was a "Daoguang" in the sky, so it was called "Xiantan". 800 years later, Wu Qian personally wrote the word "Xiantan", which became the "Legend of Jiangnan" and once overshadowed the name of "New City". And also:
Xinshi Ancient Town also has a bridge related to Lu Xiujing:
After Lu Xiujing "drove the crane to the west", people built a "driving immortal bridge" on the edge of this Wang Xiantan, and in the Southern Song Dynasty, another "Lu Xian Lou" was built in Dongzha, which has been protected as a cultural relic in the ming and qing dynasties. Influenced by Lu Xiujing, many of the buildings and bridges in the ancient town of Xinshi have retained the word "xian" to this day.
The ancient architectural style and folk culture preserved in Xinshi are all integrated with the spirit of the "celebrity effect" of different eras, and the influence is far-reaching and fascinating. When I visited the Xinshi Museum of Culture and History, I was surprised to find that this obscure Jiangnan water town had so many celebrities in history. Among them, there is one called [Chen Ting], which is worth mentioning.
Chen Ting was a scholar and scholar of the Ming Dynasty, a native of deqing, and his life and Wu Qian have some similarities: they have all had great ups and downs in their careers. But Chen Ting was lucky, and he was rehabilitated in middle age, and then he told the "old" to return home with interest.
Perhaps it was this bland disposition that knew how to make trade-offs received extra favors from heaven, and Chen Ting's real "brilliant" life began with a distance from the imperial court.
Returning to his hometown, Chen Ting began to concentrate on writing books, and in the remaining decades of his life, he successively created and compiled works such as "Xiantan Zhi", "Two Mountains Ink Talk", "Zhushan Tang Words and Sayings", leaving precious records such as "Three Pools of Night Moon" and "Ten Views of Xiantan", providing a large number of valuable documents for future generations to study the history, humanities and landscape of Xinshi Ancient Town, and also providing detailed and considerable materials for this travelogue I wrote.
Contrary to Wu Qiancheng's self-resentful self-indulgence, the temperament between the lines of Chen Ting's poems is much more leisurely and indifferent: "The fine grass is fragrant and traced, and the east wind opens the door for guests." Bamboo leaves new shoots for tea, and trees borrow shade to cover the wine. Look, this sentence reveals a transparent state of mind that is looking down and "letting go".
If Chen Ting's contribution to the ancient town of Xinshi lies in "Wen", then Zhu Si lies in "Wu".
There are actually very few historical materials about the life of [Zhu Si], and I also found a small description of him from the "Xiantan Zhi" compiled by Chen Ting: Zhu Xu and his wife, a native of Sizhou, Fengyang, stayed in Xinshi with the army and gave birth to Zhu Si. Zhu Si's (uncle) grandfather and uncle were both Generals of the State of Wu during the Three Kingdoms period, and his father was the "Great General of zhenguo" (zhu Si himself) of that dynasty. Zhu Si was born into a family of shomen, took the character "Si" from his ancestral hometown as his recitation, and became the "founder" of the ancient town of Xinshi.
In the Jin Dynasty in 308 AD, the people of Lushi next door migrated to Xinshi due to flooding in their hometown. It was this general Zhu Si who led the people to dig the channels through the Jiangnan Canal and the local section. In addition, the "Ten Views of Xiantan" was initially formed under Zhu Si's participation in the "planning". In order to commemorate Zhu Si, his descendants built a temple for him, and every Qingming Festival, they would offer incense and worship, praying that his "spirit" in heaven would bless the people with smooth winds and rains in the coming year. This custom developed with the prosperity of people along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the prosperity of the trade in the new sericulture industry into the "Xiangshi" - the predecessor of the famous annual folk event "Silkworm Flower Temple Fair" in the ancient town of Xinshi mentioned in the previous travelogue.
In the history of Xinshi, there was also a famous artist named Shen Quan.
Shen Quan was a court painter appointed by the qing dynasty court, and the first painter in history to travel overseas to teach Chinese painting skills, and his reputation was quite high. At that time, people with such "identities" usually either had a foundation in the famous and prestigious family, or the Scholarly Mendi had a background, and Shen Quan did not have these. He was originally from a poor family, and when he was young, his family did small business.
From childhood to adulthood, Shen Quan's closest moment to art is to watch the small handicrafts that his father fiddled with, and to go to the town to see the painters paint live whenever the "xiang market" is held. Over time, Shen Quan learned some pen and ink talents, and the road of art was enlightened.
At the age of twenty, Shen Quan finally had the opportunity to "dominate" his life, when he officially began to study painting. Because the two teachers he had studied were good at flowers and birds, they laid a solid foundation for the establishment of the "Nanping School".
The biggest feature of Shen Quan's paintings is that the composition is exquisite, distinguishing the level of all things in the plane without "crossing", under the exquisite brushwork, the things on paper are particularly flexible and vivid, and in the Jiangnan school of painting that revered color at that time, he appeared quite different.
There is such a saying: In the Jiangnan painting circle at that time, if Shen Quan recognized the second, no one dared to say that he was the first. The ancient town of Xinshi still has the former residence of Shen Quan, and there is a "Shen Quan Research Society" that gathers his works and grinds his artistic skills for the use of future generations.
Xinshi Ancient Town has a history of 1200 years, in fact, 500 years ago has been "fixed" - in the Ming and Qing Dynasties when the ancient canal was most prosperous, Xinshi has long been a strong commercial flavor, and now it is "light" a lot, or precipitated.
The ancient town of Xinshi has been precipitated, hiding a long-ago story, and there is no one who has passed away. The clanging of copper and silver trading is intertwined with the sound of paddle paddles paddling under the eaves, the short voices of parents on the shore, and the sound of drinking tea and sizzling melon seeds under the eaves of the porch – they have a long history, let you develop, I pass on to myself.
Zhejiang travel is still continuing, the next issue of the article: Xinshi Ancient Town and LinJia Shop. Remember to follow me, remember to come and see.
I am a big red sister, an anchor of the audio radio travel channel, a professional travel player, focusing on niche gameplay and sharing unpopular destinations. Travel is not an attitude, but life itself.