It is not a day since I decided to retrace this path, and whenever I think of some past events, this idea of "re-walking" will follow up, and over time, it will become a knot in my heart.
This road is longtan lake in the southeast corner of Beijing. Longtan Lake is a place I am very familiar with, and I lived in that area from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s, even if I moved away later, not far from there. I have walked around every corner of Longtan Lake, and it seems that there is a living map engraved in my heart, but there is one place that I have hesitated for a long time, that is, the former residence of the literary historian Zhang Cixi, which is what the old people call "Zhang Yuan".
This time, it is to find the location of Zhang Yuan again.
Longtan Lake Photo: Hu Tiexiang
❶ Homework left by the Members of the Committee of Literature and History
Why do I have to worry so much about the specific location of Zhang Yuan? Because this Mr. Zhang Cixi is the predecessor of Beijing literature and historiography, his works are not to be concerned, his deeds involve too many people and things, in the distance, involving Yuan Chonghuan, the great hero of the late Ming Dynasty, involving Cao Xueqin, who wrote "Dream of the Red Chamber" in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, and closer, the names of a large number of cultural celebrities such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Xu Beihong, Qi Baishi, and Zhou Ruchang can be arranged, and these figures have all come to Zhang Cixi's Zhang Garden as guests, or visited, or lived, or created, just like the Immortal Society.
As a literary historian, Zhang Cixi has written dozens of literary and historical works, especially "Self-Description of the Old Man of Baishi" and "The Life of Qi Baishi" have become the most trusted valuable materials for the study of Master Qi Baishi.
Qi Baishi and Zhang Cixi
However, Zhang Cixi's name is only left in the small circle now, unless the literary and historical circles, not many people know him, just like "the flow of water and flowers in the spring also go". I know him in the mid-1980s, when I was a specially invited member of the Cultural and Historical Committee of the CppcC Chongwen District Committee, and at several meetings, some people mentioned that Zhang Cixi should be written, and most of the members were elderly people with an age, only I was a young man, and I also lived in Zuo'anmen, not far from Longtan Lake, so I hoped that I could find Zhang Cixi's former residence, Zhang Yuan. Everyone only knows that Zhangyuan is in the area of Longtan Lake, but the specific location is unknown.
Zhang Cixi is no longer alive, there are no clues, and there are no people who have been to Zhang Garden, so this matter has become a slow job without hurry. As long as anything in the world is slow, in fact, it is far away, and up to now, there are very few committee members who often gather together to meet, and I am no longer young, and this matter must always have an explanation.
In recent years, there have been articles saying that Zhang Yuan was donated to the Teaching Botanical Garden in 1957, and other articles saying that it was donated to Longtan Lake Park, or on the west bank of Longtan Lake, or on the south bank, or next to the Temple of Yuan Doushi, which became the north shore again. So it's different, so where is it?
Start with the Temple of Inspector Yuan.
Yuan Doushi Temple
There is an article that says that next to the Temple of Yuan Doushi is Zhang Yuan, which is indeed not true, it depends on what is near the Yuan Temple.
The Temple of Yuan Was built in 1917 by Zhang Bozhen, the father of Zhang Cixi, in a quiet place in the northwest of Longtan East Lake, where there was originally a cemetery built by the Guangdong people in Beijing. Far from it, in the 1950s, this area had not yet formed a huge lake with a water surface, but was a dotted field of wild reed ponds of different sizes, and there were many cemeteries in the open space between the reed ponds, most of which were righteous gardens bought by merchants, scholars, and officials living in Beijing who had saved money to buy for the people who died in Beijing. Starting from the north end, there are 13 Yiyuan on the map from Guangqumennei Avenue to Guangming Lou. In the 1950s, the Longtan Lake area recorded Tingzhou Yiyuan, Jiangxi Yiyuan, Zhenjiang Yiyuan, Chuntai Yiyuan and Guangdong Yiyuan, which were far away from the citizens and deserted and deserted.
The outer city of Beijing in the Ming Dynasty was built in the Jiajing period, and the city bricks were fired from the soil here, and the larger ones nearby were Panjiayao and Liujiayao. The city wall was built, the Panjiayao became two halves of the partition wall, and the area of the puddle on the outer edge of the southeast second ring road in Beijing was not smaller than that inside the wall, and today's so-called "Panjiayuan" is suspected to be changed from the Panjiayao sound.
The soil was taken away, the bricks were burned, the walls were built, and the pits were left. The water of the entire southern city, whether it is rain or sewage, has flowed to the southeast depression for hundreds of years, into the moat, and through the large and small rivers to the countryside of Gyeonggi.
Nowadays, walking on the shore of Longtan Lake, but seeing the clear water of the lake, the color of wood and stone, the Temple of Yuan Doushi is in the middle, which is undoubtedly very suitable. Of course, zhang yuan would be good if it were here, but it was not like this now, and it is difficult to imagine that The Zhang father and son would build Zhang Yuan in the yin and yin place of the Yi Garden.
Zhang Bozhen did guard the temple next to the Yuan Temple, but he would not build a mansion much larger than the Yuan Temple next to the temple, which was unreasonable. According to Qi Baishi's self-description, there was a fishing platform near the pond on the east side of the Yuan Temple, which was where Zhang Bozhen kept the temple resting, and Qi Baishi also fished with him there, but it was only a fishing platform after all.
❷ There is a Left Ann New Ciri
So will it be in the boundaries of the Beijing Teaching Botanical Garden? There are articles in Beijing and Guangdong that Zhang Cixi donated Zhang Garden to the Botanical Garden.
However, the dictation of Qi Baishi, a close friend of the Zhang family for two generations, and Zhang Cixi's own articles are written in black and white: Zhang Yuan is at No. 3 Xinxili in Zuo'an. So, where is this New Cili?
Left Ann New Ciri? I have lived in Zuo'anmen since the mid-sixties, and the place is called Zuo'anxili, but there is no place name for "New Xili". Query the historical map, and really find, in a strip north of Zuo Anxili, very narrow, called Zuo An Bei Li, there are only a few houses, the east is the Zuo An Men Avenue official road, the west is a large open space.
This important clue comes from the 1950 regular map of Beijing, which is impressively marked with "Zuo'an Xinxili".
I have repeatedly pondered the appearance of this "New Xili" in my memory, from the mid-1960s to the period of overall demolition of the Zuo'anmen area in 2003, the west side of Zuo'anmen Avenue is collectively known as Zuo'anxili, and the core building is more than a dozen simple buildings, with a few bungalows around the circle. The northernmost point of Zuo Anxili is Xiangxin Elementary School, and on its east side is a small piece of bungalows, which extend to the north into a lonely section, which should be the location of the "Zuo'an Beili" marked on the 1950 map. The west side of this Zuo'an Beili, that is, the north side of the wall of The New Primary School, is a large open space, for tree planting nursery, no fence, the north side is the Longtan Lake In the middle of the lake, slightly west of the natural swimming pool changing place, and then to the west is the Beijing Teaching Botanical Garden, which is referred to as the Botanical Garden by locals. This vacant lot is what the old map calls "Zuo'an Xinxili".
Longtan Lake Zhonghu was built as a Beijing amusement park in 1984, and until then its central part had been a natural swimming pool. There is no fence in the middle lake, the surrounding trees are luxuriant, sparsely populated, only there is a "Sanyi Temple" on the side of the hudong road, there is no mountain gate, sitting west to east, has been a resident. The old land icon shows that the location of Zhang Garden is not far southeast of The Sanyi Temple.
The reason why it took the trouble to describe the topography of this place before the demolition was that Zhang Yuan should be just north of the original Xiangxin Primary School. Thinking of this, my heart is full of regrets, because for a long time, I often rode through there, so to speak, as long as it is from Zuoanmen to the north to the "city", this is a short road. The path is very rural, there are no lights at night, and it is dark. The Zuo'anmen area is still like an independent town, surrounded by a moat to the south and east, a green team and a botanical garden green space to the west, and Longtan Lake to the north. From Zuo Ansiri to the north, the path next to the new elementary school will be cut a lot closer, but only occasionally during the day.
In 1950, the roads, waters and houses of Zuo'anmen in the map of Beijing underwent two major changes in the following days, one was the completion of Longtan Park and the laying of Zuo'anmen Avenue, and the other was the demolition and transformation in 2003. The original Xiangxin Primary School was demolished in 2003, and part of the nursery on the north side of the wall was built, leaving only a small green area.
Today, I stand on the side of the road and look around, imagining the description and story of the old man of Shiraishi decades ago. In 1933, when Qi Baishi was 71 years old, he dictated his life experiences, and Zhang Cixi recorded it, preparing to ask the Jiangsu scholar Jin Songcen to write a biography in the future. Soon after, Song Cen died, and Qi's dictation was written intermittently until 1948, and in the end, Zhang Cixi himself published the record in 1962, called "Self-Description of the Old Man of Baishi". In this precious historical material, Qi Baishi has a large statement about Zhang Yuan, which he said directly to Zhang Cixi:
"Your family's Zhang Garden, no. 3 New Xili in Zuo'anmen, was originally the former residence of The Ming Dynasty Yuan Governor Chonghuan, and there are ancient monuments of the Listening YuLou. When Elder Zun Gong Huangxi was there, he repeatedly asked me to play, and I liked that place very much, although it was in the city, it had the meaning of mountains and forests. Looking west at the Temple of Heaven, Sensen Gubai was a green and dripping, as if it were close at hand. When the weather is clear, you can still see the peaks of Cuiwei Mountain, towering clouds. Distant mountains and near forests, it is simply a picture screen, and it is not tired of viewing. Sometimes the rain passes through the sky, and the rainbow falls, reflecting the sky and the sun, and the splendor becomes beautiful. Surrounded by nearby streams, dotted with several ponds, green water ripples and swimming fish to count. The creek is strange and long, outside the rice sorghum vegetables and fruits, the bean shed melon rack, all touching. Ploughing, water farming, like the scenery of the water town in the south of the river, the north is really rare, let alone in this metropolis of 10,000 people? In the summer, I often go to escape the heat. I remember that in the year of Xin Wei, you and Zun Gong specially crossed the back of the west house three rooms, let me live, and then drew a few open spaces, let me plant vegetables with flowers, and I wrote a 'borrow mountain residence' banner and hung it in the house. I painted there to spend the summer, get the qi clear, can wash the body and mind, and the mind is naturally healthy. ”
When the old man baishi said this, Zhang Cixi's father Zhang Bozhen (Huangxi) had passed away, and in the face of Cixi, who was 46 years younger than himself, Qi Baishi was full of nostalgia for the friendship between the past and the memory of the beauty of Zhang Garden. The scene that the old man said is impossible for us to see today, but there are a few points that can be inferred that there is a scenery of "urban mountains and forests" around ZhangYuan, and it will not be surrounded by graves. Second, the old man praised the far and near scene of Zhang Yuan, but did not mention the Fata Temple Pagoda, but it can be seen that it is far away from the ancient pagoda, and Zhang Yuan is not adjacent to the Yuan Temple.
Pagoda of Fata Temple
The old man of Baishi painted the scenery near ZhangYuan so beautifully that I repeatedly wanted to relive old dreams, so I recently came to Zuo'anmen to find the quiet. Take bus No. 139, get off at Zuo'anmennei Station, turn around a little north, there is a small road to the west, curved along the lake, this road has not changed for many years, and the surrounding pattern can still be seen. Fortunately, if there is no such path, there will be no basis for seeking the ghost. On the south side of the road, the nursery before the demolition in 2003 has been occupied by the building community, and the west side of the community is surrounded by a railing, and a gate stands, and the "Beijing Teaching Botanical Garden" is in Yan. This is exactly where the young tree nursery was located before 2003, when I came out of the Zuo Anxili residence, through which I could reach the natural swimming pool, and the swimming pool has long been returned to the Beijing Amusement Park, which has not been opened to the public since it was closed in 2011.
I am so wandering around Longtan Lake, if there is a soul hooked, it is because this place was once a place where wind and clouds gathered, and it is difficult to deeply appreciate the rainbow neon clouds floating in the smoke clouds of history.
❸ The ruins of Yuan Chonghuan are gathered here
The location of Zhang Yuan in the late Ming Dynasty was once the place where Yuan Chonghuan's former residence and garrison were located. In 1629, the Later Jin Emperor Taiji detoured through mongolia to destroy the Great Wall and invaded the interior of Daming, directly approaching Beijing, Yuan Chonghuan led his army from Jizhou to rush to the rescue, the two sides fought a bloody battle outside the Guangqu Gate, and finally forced Houjin to retreat to the canal, and the Houjin officers and soldiers were eager to step on the ice to cross the river, the ice was not strong, and drowned countless people. The place where Yuan Chonghuan's army was stationed was the open space between the ponds near Zhang Yuan.
Zhang Cixi himself interjected in "Self-Description of the Old Man of Baishi": "The former residence of Inspector Yuan, abandoned as a private residence at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the walls are on the side, the houses are destroyed, and the scene of depression is unbearable. In the early Yuan dynasty of the Republic of China, Xianjun funded the purchase, repaired and sorted out, planted many flowers and trees, and the people nearby called it Zhang Garden. After the death of Xianjun, the situation was complicated, and the courtyard gradually became deserted. For the sake of preserving the monuments, I obtained the consent of my brother and donated this premises to the management of Longtan Park. ”
Yuan Ju, Yuan Temple, Yuan Tomb, this is a line from southwest to northeast, and the distance of three points can be described as not far. He fought outside the Guangqu Gate and was buried inside the Guangqu Gate Gate; he lived in Longtan Hunan and was enshrined in Longtan Hubei. This is a place of memory left to us by history, and it is very precious.
Zhang Bozhen built the Yuan Temple, and in 1916 buried his young son who died early next to the Yuan tomb to accompany the great heroes of his predecessors. Zhang Cixi was instrumental in protecting Yuan's tomb in the 1950s, and both generations of father and son from Dongguan, Guangdong Province, made efforts to keep yuan Chonghuan, a great fellow villager, in Beijing.
Old Man Baishi once said with deep feelings: "In the former residence of Inspector Yuan, there is a portrait of him, which is very well painted, and I once copied one. Not far from the north of the former residence, there is the Temple of Inspector Yuan, which is also funded by The Duke of Zun, and the temple site is said to have been the place where the Inspector was stationed. To the east is a pond, and there is a fishing platform on the side of the pond, which is where Zun Gong and I fished when they were staying at the temple. Near the temple, there was originally a Pagoda Temple, the temple has been abandoned, and the pagoda still exists. In the north is the Sun Palace, the inner sun star king, it is said that March 19 is the birthday of the sun, earlier arrived on that day, with a cake sacrificed to him, called the sun cake. What I know: March 19 is the day of the martyrdom of the Chongzhen Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the widow of the Ming Dynasty, in the early years of the Qing Dynasty, under the rule of foreign nationalities, missing the old monarch of the homeland, did not dare to say it explicitly, had to entrust the name of the sun, the sun is the meaning of the Word 'Ming' of the Ming Dynasty. It has been along for more than two hundred years, and it was only at the beginning of the people that it was dismissed, and recently even the sun cake is rarely known. ”
Although the old man of Baishi is a Huxiang person, he is so familiar with the customs and customs of Beijing.
❹ Qi Baishi's days in Zhang Garden
Qi Baishi and Zhang Bozhen came out under the door of the late Qing Dynasty celebrity Wang Minyun, who came to Beijing in 1917 and met at Yi Shifu's house, in the words of the old man Bai Shi, "If you meet the deceased, rejoice in life", and at the same time also met Chen Shizeng, Luo Haogong, Wang Mengbai, Xiao Longyou, Chen Banding, Yao Mangfu and other painters and poets. When the old man Baishi first came to Beijing, he could be said to have no fixed place to live, and he stayed between three or four temples such as Fayuan Temple, and Zhang Bozhen invited him to come to Zhang Garden many times, or to stay for a short stay, or to live for a long time. The old man of Baishi comes from the countryside of Huxiang, and the noisy city conditions in the capital are not suitable for his temperament, so once he comes to Zhang Garden, there is no shortage of interesting scenes in the countryside and mountains, and he is happy to come from it, and it is like seeing his hometown for a while. In addition, Zhang Shi set up a house and garden for him in the garden, which can enable him to recreate the life of the farmer from his heart.
The old man of Shiraishi writes and paints every day, so uncomfortable!
He once described his happy life in Zhang Yuan like this:
"At that time, Ling's brother Zhongge and Zhongmai were not yet twenty years old, and they often accompanied me during the summer vacation, which was lively and gratifying. I watched them flutter butterflies, catch dragonflies, catch them, and they all made me specimens of paintings. In the early morning and evening, I observed with them the insects jumping in the grass, the fish and shrimp swimming in the pond, and all kinds of gestures became my materials. I painted more than a dozen paintings of grass worm fish and shrimp, all of which were taken from the field there. I also painted a picture of multiple shrimps, hanging on the wall of the borrowed mountain house, which is the most proud of my life painting shrimp. ”
The white-haired old man and the innocent child, catching insects and watching fish in the wild pond and in the field outside the Zhang Garden, away from the red dust, this is such a pleasant time, no wonder the old man of Baishi can draw the most satisfactory picture of his life here. In the days that followed, the old man of Baishi took the initiative to give Zhang Cixi calligraphy and painting works and seal engraving seals many times, on the contrary, when Zhang Cixi himself or a friend wanted to ask for the seal seal of the old man of Baishi, he never paid according to the number of pens, and fully respected the painstaking work of the painter. Generally speaking, the old man of Baishi should not paint landscapes outside, but Zhang Cixi will be able to do so if he asks for painting on behalf of his friends, and he will paint more carefully.
Qi Baishi gave Zhang Cixi poems
When the old man baishi lived in Zhangyuan, according to the surrounding scenery, he painted "Zhangyuan Spring Color Map" and "Geyuan Cultivation Hidden Map" and inscribed poems, he said: "The poems of the inscription are my heartfelt words, not empty words, casual compliments, I also left the photo on the wall of Zhang Yuan's borrowed mountain residence, showing the descendants' poems saying: 'If the descendants are looking for old traces, Zhang Yuan will be buried in the West Mountain.' It can be seen that the qi and Zhang generations are so harmonious.
"GeYuan Cultivation Hidden Map"
The old man of Baishi and Zhang Cixi have been in contact for 40 years, and their common interest is not limited to calligraphy and painting, but also has a multi-faceted cultural exploration, the most commendable of which is to explore the ancients, especially the exploration of Cao Xueqin's tracks. Qi Baishi is not the kind of painter who only knows the technique, although he came from a humble background, he has always been on the road of cultural pursuit. The poems he wrote were elegant in style, simple in words, and even ancient in style. In 1933, Zhang Cixi wrote and published "Baishi Poetry Grass" for Qi Baishi's poems, and invited several celebrities in Beijing to write inscriptions for the poetry collection, and the old man Baishi was very comforted.
When the old man of Baishi lived in Zhang Garden, he admired the famous monuments around him, such as Yuan Temple, Yuan Tomb, Nianhua Temple, Wanliu Hall, Reclining Buddha Temple, Fata Temple, Xizhao Temple and so on. One night in the summer of 1931, he and Zhang's father and son were cooling down in the courtyard, surrounded by silence, the two generations drank tea and chatted, talking about ancient and modern, talking about the anecdotes of Cao Xueqin's residence in the Reclining Buddha Temple, the old man of Baishi was very interested, and went to the Reclining Buddha Temple together to find a secret when the autumn turned cold. Later, a group of people came to the Reclining Buddha Temple, which is located in DonghuaShi Diagonal Street, just not far from Yuan's tomb, and asked the surrounding old residents if they knew some local legends about Cao Xueqin, but the answer was dazed. Although he did not return, Zhang Cixi still wrote 5 poems in a row to do his deeds. One of them is: "The grass in the cemetery is half-scattered, and the door of the Temple is cold." A thousand autumns of brilliant frost pen, left with tears to see. ”
Eyes foreground, next to the world sighed, for a moment into Zhang Cixi feelings. The old man of Baishi read it, Andihaichi said: "The wind branches and leaves are loose to the fence, and the dream breaks the moon in the red chamber." Raise a fire to call the strange residence cold lane, the temple gate is short and cold. And carefully painted a painting for Zhang Cixi, and the poem was inscribed on the canvas. The same painting also inscribed on the paragraph: "Xin Weiqiu, with Cixi Rendi, visited Cao Xueqin's former residence in the Reclining Buddha Temple inside the Guangqu Gate of Jingshi, and there is a sentence in Cixi: the grass in the cemetery is half-scattered, and the door of the Red Chamber Is Broken." Yu took his meaning and painted the "Broken Picture of the Dream of the Red Chamber" and inscribed it with an absolute title. Qi Huang Baishi. ”
But this painting, Zhang Cixi later accidentally lost. In 1948, another great painter in Beijing, Wang Shensheng, painted a painting for him, and later Chen Fengke, Yu Jianhua and Baishi's five sons Liangmi each painted another painting for him. On the canvas of Qi Liangwei, in addition to supplementing the original title of the old man of Baishi, another passage was added: "On the autumn day of Xin Weiqiu, the sixth brother of Cixi and the former son Cao Xueqin's former residence, the first son painted the "Dream of the Red Chamber", the second brother was lost in Nanzhong, hereby ordered to make up for it, and he should be taught." Shiraishi's fifth son, Ryōmi Shōjo(知). ”
Shiraishi is by no means just a man who paints behind closed doors, he is extremely interested in all aspects of classical literature and folk culture. When he painted this "Broken Picture of the Dream of the Red Chamber", he was more than sixty years old, but in order to explore the remains of Xueqin on the ground, he was still walking with young people. He had read the book "Dream of the Red Chamber" more than a dozen times. Regardless of the others, this alone shows that the old man has been eager to learn all his life.
The Reclining Buddha Temple visited by the elderly Baishi and Zhang Cixi and others, I went with my parents when I was a child, and I saw the Buddha statue lying horizontally. A few years ago, when Donghua Market was demolished, I went to that area to take the last photo of the Reclining Buddha Temple, the temple was built on a high platform, high and large, and the white jade carved dragon stele was very exquisite.
Although Zhang Yuan no longer exists, the land around Longtan Lake quietly floats with the cultural elegance of the past, which is unstoppable and does not go away for a long time. (Editor-in-charge: Sun Xiaoning)