In the northeast capital of Chongqing, there is an old saying: "Gold and silver are not as good as Liang Ping." "Kai" here refers to Kai County (present-day Kaizhou District, Chongqing), "Wan" refers to WanXian (present-day Wanzhou District, Chongqing), and "Liangping" refers to Liangping County (present-day Liangping District, Chongqing).
From the map, these three places are located in the northeast of Chongqing, centered on Wanxian County, adjacent to Liangping County in the west and KaiXian in the east, like a golden triangle.
Before the Republic of China, for a long time, KaiXian County, Wanxian County, and Liangping County were all subordinate to the prefecture of Fuzhou (府治 located in present-day Fengjie County, Chongqing). At that time, they were all counties, belonging to the same level, and had a basis for comparison.
One
Let's first look at the sentence "gold and silver".
From the literal understanding, it means that Kaixian is stronger than Wanxian County. Is this really the case?
In ancient times, although Kaixian and Wanxian were mainly agricultural farming, there were subtle differences between them.
There are three major rivers in Kaixian County, namely Puli River, Jiangli River and Dongli River. These three rivers form a large valley plain. Rivers and flat land, it is an excellent place to develop farming. Therefore, in ancient Times, Kaixian had a relatively developed farming civilization, rich in rice and fish, which can be called the "land of fish and rice", and the local people lived a relatively rich life.
Due to the abundance of products, in 216 AD, when Liu Bei set up a new county on a plot of land in the western part of The County, he took the meaning of "Han Tu Feng" and named it "Han Feng County". This is the predecessor of Kai County.
Not only that, Kaixian has a long history of citrus cultivation. The citrus produced here is sweet and sour, nutritious, and dregs in the mouth, and it is very early as a tribute to the imperial palace.
When the citrus ripens, the land is golden, and people call Kaixian "Jinkai County".
Two
Compared with Kaixian County, which is rich in products and citrus, Wanxian at that time was somewhat bleak.
Although Wanxian is adjacent to the Yangtze River, it has not formed a shock plain where the Yangtze River passes. From the perspective of geographical conditions, Wanxian is dominated by mountains and hills, and the hills in the territory are undulating, and there are only sporadic distributions in the Pingba area, which is not suitable for agricultural cultivation. Therefore, the Wanxian County hundreds of years ago can be called "poor and remote".
The Song Dynasty poet Wang Yuanliang wrote a seven-sentence poem "Wanzhou", which said: "The Chaya Bird Road is uninhabited, and the wolves and tigers are stagnant." Looking back at the green mountains and hidden whites, the grass under Wanzhou City is full of sky. "This means that Wanxian County is inaccessible, sparsely populated, tigers and wolves are rampant, and the grass under the city is overgrown." Another Song Dynasty poet Fan Cheng's capitalized wuyan ancient poem of the same name, "Wanzhou", said: "The nuclei of apricots are left sour, and the branches of tea are bitter." The poor countryside is barren and the customs are also cold. "You see, the apricots produced in Wanxian are sour and the tea is bitter.
No wonder there is a saying of "gold and silver".
Three
After saying "gold and silver", let's look at "not as good as Liang Ping half".
If we look down on Liang Ping from the plane, we can't help but marvel that Shangtian is really taking special care of Liang Ping. In the middle of Liangping County, there is a large flat dam made of ancient lakes deposited, and the terrain is flat and open. This is the Liangping Dam, known as the "Bayu First Dam" (the first dam in eastern Sichuan). Liangping Dam has more than 100 square kilometers, equivalent to 3 Macao.
In fact, Liangping County was originally called "Liangshan County". It is precisely because there is such a large area of Pingba in the county that it was renamed "Liangping County".
With this large piece of flat land, coupled with the nourishment and incubation of six major rivers of Gaotan River, Boxuan River, Xinsheng River, Puli River, Ruxi River and Golden River, Liangping County has formed a geographical condition of "fertile wilderness and thousands of miles, and the green field is tilted", and the development of farming and agriculture has a unique advantage, known as "Xiao Tianfu". Liangping grapefruit fruit is huge, aromatic, juicy and sweet, rich in nutrition, together with Guangxi Shatian grapefruit, Fujian Wendan grapefruit and known as China's three famous grapefruit. Liangping's bamboo shoots, dried beans, sweet tea, etc., are famous all over the world, and Liangping Zhang ducks sell more than 1 million pieces every year...
Obviously, in ancient times, the degree of agricultural development in Liangping County far exceeded that of Kaixian and Wanxian, and the saying that "gold and silver are not as good as half of Liangping" did not go away.
Four
As the saying goes: "Thirty years of Hedong, thirty years of Hexi." Since September 5, 1902, after the signing of the Sino-British Treaty on Continued Negotiations on Commercial Shipping, Wanxian was added as a treaty port, and the development situation of the three places has undergone subtle changes.
In modern society, wanxian's disadvantage in agriculture is no longer so important. Wanxian, which has the golden waterway of the Yangtze River, gradually became an important material distribution center in eastern Sichuan, western Hubei, southern Shaanxi, qiandong and western Hunan, and was the third largest city in Sichuan Province after Chengdu and Chongqing at that time, and Chengdu, Chongqing and Wanxian were also called "Chengdu-Chongqing". Wanxian came first among the three places, and left Kaixian and Liangping behind.
Later, Wanxian was upgraded to Become a Special District (District) of Wanxian County, which administers 9 counties, including Kaixian and Liangping. After Chongqing Municipality was directly administered in 1997, Wanxian became Wanzhou District, which was planned to be the second largest city in Chongqing. Kaixian and Liangping Counties were successively withdrawn from the county and set up districts, becoming Kaizhou District and Liangping District.
Today, the economic fit of Wanzhou District is like a trend of riding the dust, far exceeding the Kaizhou District and Liangping District.
In 2020, the GDP of Wanzhou District was 97.068 billion yuan, the GDP of Kaizhou District was 53.581 billion yuan, and the GDP of Liangping District was 49.324 billion yuan. In simple terms, the GDP of Wanzhou District is almost equal to the sum of Kaizhou District and Liangping District. The saying that "gold and silver are not as good as liang ping" has become history.