Zheng Xiaofeng
Editor's note: In 2005, Zhejiang Suichang Gold Mine was listed as a key project of national mine environment and ecological governance, and began to carry out mine tourism development.
During the construction of the first phase of the project, the construction team must blast and discharge the water in the ancient mine caves of the Ming Dynasty. With the explosion of the sky, the water poured down, three days and three nights without exhaustion.
What stunned all the workers present even more was that a huge grotto appeared in front of them. The Land and Resources Department of Zhejiang Province immediately organized relevant experts to inspect this mysterious cave. Through carbon-14 sampling tests, experts found that the mine was an ancient gold mining site in the Tang Dynasty and even earlier, and more than 40 similar prospecting and mining sites and a large number of ancient slag and slag accumulations were found in the same mountain. A Tang Dynasty golden grotto that has been sleeping for more than a thousand years has thus reappeared in the sky.
What drove the author Zheng Xiaofeng to visit Suichang was not only the legend of this gold mine, but also because it was inextricably linked to a pivotal figure in the history of Chinese opera— Tang Xianzu, a famous opera composer and writer of the Ming Dynasty, and the creator of "Peony Pavilion".
Unlike his pride in the history of opera, Tang Xianzu's career path is very bumpy. Little is known, he worked as a zhixian in Suichang for five years. However, even though his political achievements were remarkable, he was angry with the powerful because of his suppression of the powerful, and finally resigned his official position and returned to his hometown in anger. Through his own visits, the author Zheng Xiaofeng unveiled the untold story of this legendary figure. Is it the riches of the world buried in the golden grotto of the millennium, or the bane of human greed?
Old Rivers and Lakes, by Zheng Xiaofeng; Guangxi Normal University Press
With the authorization of the publishing house, this article excerpts the chapter "Treasury Record" in "Old Rivers and Lakes" (due to limited space, some paragraphs have been slightly deleted). Follow the author's footsteps in the long river of history, and trace the stories of those rivers and lakes that have been sealed for a long time.
Treasury Notes
Suichang, located in the southwest of Zhejiang, once had an ancient name of "Pingchang", because the two mountains in the territory were flattened before and after, like a "Chang" character. Belonging to the xianxialing range, the mountainous area in the territory is nearly 3.4 million mu, accounting for about 90% of the county's area, known as "nine mountains, half water and half field", which is a typical mountain county.
Suichang Gold Mine National Mine Park
In the northeast of Suichang County, sixteen kilometers away from the county seat, in the midst of the Wanshan Mountains, there is a village called Qilintou, where mountain people work at sunrise and rest at sunset, and have lived a poor and peaceful life for generations. But unlike other places, on the top of the hill behind the village, there are many strange puddles, and the pit mouth is not very large, that is, twenty or thirty square meters, but it is not deep. Some people were curious, and hung the stone with a silk thread to sink down, and as a result, the line exhausted the stone and could not be explored to the end. Over time, these bottomless pits have spawned many mysterious legends.
My visit to the mines began with these strange potholes.
And my means of transportation is actually a train.
Downhole minecarts
I was riding in a real downhole minecart, and it was the most primitive of the 1960s — of course, the minecart has been converted into an electric drive. The space is extremely narrow, the body is mottled and old, and it is full of vicissitudes.
In the loud noise of the wheels hitting the tracks, our train slowly pulled away from the simple platform and headed straight ahead, in a dark, bottomless cave.
Little by little, the sun receded overhead. On these June summer days, a damp and cold, yin that resembles a grave or prison gradually engulfs us.
What I'm going to enter is the summit of Kirin Head, the largest of those mysterious pits, known locally as Huangyan Pit. In 2005, in order to blast the prospecting roadway, the crater labeled No. 4 was inadvertently blown up. Unexpectedly, after a loud noise, the torrent-like water column surged out and flowed for three days and three nights. When the water was finally poured out, everyone present was stunned: in front of them appeared a magnificent grotto, and what was even more terrifying to them was that the grotto was a mess, full of messy tools, oil lamps, broken porcelain, wooden barrels, and even a water wheel and several human bones of Bai Sensen!
An ancient underground gold mining site with a huge volume of nearly 100,000 cubic meters of space and a height drop of 150 meters has come to light. According to the identification of the corpse and its remnants, experts concluded that the Huangyan Pit of Qilin Head is the legendary Ming Dynasty Golden Grotto. On this basis, mining and smelting sites from the Tang Dynasty were also discovered. At the latest in the First Tang Dynasty (671-675), there were already gold and silver mining activities, and after the Song Dynasty entered the Yuan Ming, it even became the largest mineral silver producer in the country for a time - finally, people sorted out an orderly thousand-year mining history for this mine.
Huangyan Kanori
The impact hammer of the present man and the stone pickaxe of the ancients collided with each other in a strange way. What I am more concerned about is the end of this ancient history of mining.
According to the research, the latest written record of the mining activities of Huangyankeng appears in an inscription of the "Suichang Xinzuo Tucheng Stele" in the thirty-fifth year of the Wanli Calendar (1607): "Counting mines on the side of the border, nearly stopping mining." "The person who wrote the inscription was Tang Xianzu, the most famous opera composer in Chinese history.
In addition to Wenhao, he also had another special status: Suichang's predecessor Zhixian.
As soon as I arrived in Suichang, I found that Tang Xianzu was a name that could not be bypassed under any circumstances. This Jiangxi Linchuan native has more influence in this mountain city than almost any local. To this day, suichang city can still find his imprint everywhere: "Relic Love Pavilion", "Relic Love Ancestral Hall" and "Peony Pavilion", and even spare no effort to vacate a listed in the Wenbao, the best ancient mansion in the county, one by one according to the Tang Gongqu Italian words to decorate the pavilions and pavilions, carefully polished into a memorial. Few cities, hundreds of years later, can miss a parent official as sincerely as Suichang.
"The iron-clad official of the yamen flowing water." Tang Xianzu was in Suichang, but only stayed for five years. For a county that has been established for nearly two thousand years, the length of five years is almost negligible. However, in just five years, tang Xianzu's enthusiasm as an official of the Ming Dynasty was exhausted.
Portrait of Tang Xianzu
In the spring of 1593, the forty-three-year-old Tang Xianzu, as the new Zhi County, came to Suichang.
At the very least, this should be considered a promotion, or a pardon. For more than a year, he has been doing canonical history in Xuwen. The canonical history is the lowest rank among official officials, and belongs to the marginal role of playing soy sauce in the official court. What's more, Xu Wen is located on the Leizhou Peninsula, across the sea from Hainan Island, and serves in its office, named as an official, but in fact exiled.
It is impossible to know for sure how Tang Xianzu felt about this transfer, but, in my guess, this Jiangxi man who had just arrived at the mountainside from the sea should have been sadder than happy when he received the small Qipin official seal.
In fact, for the first half of his life, he lived in depression.
Unlike ordinary people, Tang Xianzu is not happy with himself. He was actually a teenager and famous very early, enlightened at the age of five, able to write poetry at the age of twelve, enrolled in school at the age of fourteen, and won the title at the age of twenty-one. If there were no accidents, a path of qingyun had already been unfolded in front of his eyes, and if he went further, he would be able to step into the Forbidden City with great enthusiasm.
But this last step he actually walked for thirteen years. It was not until the age of thirty-four that he was admitted to the rank of soldier at a very low level. It's just because he's offended people who shouldn't be offended. Or rather, he paid a heavy price for his ignorance.
Throughout Tang Xianzu's youth, the operator of the empire was not Emperor Shenzong on the dragon chair, but Zhang Juzheng, a Hubei man. After Tang Xianzu's literary name spread, Zhang Juzheng wanted to find him to accompany his son to the exam. Zaifu Gongzi's victory is self-determined, and all that is needed is the icing on the cake: if he can increase the gold content of the same list of jinshi, he can more and more set off the extraordinary strength of the Yuanlik. Zhang Juzheng entrusted the people to speak out, claiming that as long as Xianzu was willing to cooperate, he would take the lead of his family's inner horse and ensure that he would follow closely behind, and he would be in the top few places. This was a good thing that everyone was happy about, but Tang Xianzu refused with one mouthful, making Zhang Juzheng fall into a big mess.
Tangtang Zaifu, under one person, above ten thousand people, the hot face actually pasted a cold ass, and the chagrin in his heart can be imagined, and Tang Xianzu's examination luck can also be imagined. Three years of a scientific expedition, three years of a boring stick, the connection of several subjects failed, and a young boy with white teeth and red lips boiled his head white - fortunately, Zhang Juzheng had already died of illness when he was in that subject, and he was able to get away with it.
Although Zhang Juzheng's era has ended, Tang Xianzu's career is still not smooth. The year after he entered the army, he was sent to Nanjing as a doctor of Taichang Temple with seven grades. After Yongle moved the capital, Nanjing became the capital of retention, and the official positions set up were idle posts, mostly used to place idle officials who were demoted or excluded from Beijing, and the Taichang Temple was particularly idle. And Tang Xianzu's cold bench sat for seven years. Seven years later, a fierce impeachment of the current political writer finally sent himself to the very edge of the empire.
From Beijing to Nanjing, it immediately fell from Nanjing to Xuwen, and then went north from Xuwen Wanli. Now, he was driven to Suichang by his chosen fate.
A train tunnel converted from a mine tunnel
Along the low and narrow tunnels converted from the mine tunnels, the train bumps forward deep into the belly of the mountain. The temperature dropped sharply, and the metal part of the carriage touched by the skin of the hands and feet even began to cool a little. The tunnel was winding and deep, and the lenses of my glasses were chaotic because of the mist of water in the cave. I had no idea where these two rusty rails would take me.
This is probably also how Tang Xianzu felt when he first arrived in Suichang.
Although he was the best opera composer in China, during his five years in Suichang, Tang Xianzu paid more attention to me, not in his creation, but in his political achievements as an official of the imperial court.
Unlike in Nanjing, which was incompatible with the officialdom, Tang Xianzu's Suichangzhi County did a very good job, and even according to the han Dynasty standards that required the strictest requirements for grass-roots officials, he could be classified as a circular official. Fair treatment of prison, persuasion of nongsang, reward of students, a competent parent official should do, he naturally does not talk. However, in detail, Tang Xianzu is in charge of the government, but he has a romantic poetic temperament.
Tang Xianzu said more than once that although he had also been punished when he tried the case, he was very measured and never killed a prisoner; he never borrowed government projects such as building school buildings and city walls to get oil and water; he never even collected a ransom of a penny; he particularly emphasized that in the past five years, Suichang County had never arrested a single woman.
During Suichang's tenure, Tang Xianzu was most happy about three things. The first is that as a civilian official, he personally led soldiers into the mountains to hunt tigers, and actually "killed seventeen tigers" in one fell swoop. The other two are related to prisoners: one year, Chinese New Year's Eve, he actually released prisoners from prison back at home for the New Year, and then returned to prison to serve their sentences after the Spring Festival; in the New Year, it was the Lantern Festival, and Tang Xianzu released prisoners from prison, so that they could go to the north river bridge of the city to watch the lanterns and experience a festival.
Later generations usually attribute Tang Xianzu's move to his benevolence to the people. True. But beyond that, I'd like to understand it as a yearning for freedom to go deep into the marrow. The poet's heart is soft. As long as the authority permits, he wants to let all people live as stretched and live with dignity as much as possible.
Suichang finally gave him such a chance. The Heavenly Emperor is far away, this remote mountain city in the "Ten Thousand Mountains and Streams", he can say the final word.
Inside the gold mine
According to the rules of the imperial court, Zhixian moved once every three years, and with his evaluation, he was fully qualified to climb up one or two steps. In fact, some of his superiors have recommended him, and even have candidate positions: either enter Nanjing to pave the way for his return to Beijing; or he can be promoted one level in situ and continue to accumulate political capital. However, all these bright prospects are always shattered at the last minute.
Many years later, Tang Xianzu still failed to learn Xu Wen's lessons, and commented on the current politics in the official documents, repeatedly stabbing the pain point of the then first assistant Wang Xijue. Before there was Zhang Juzheng, and then there was Wang Xijue, throughout Tang Xianzu's life, being good at offending people is really a major feature, and those who offend are also the highest-level members.
Soon, the superiors at all levels made more and more accusations against Suichang's political affairs, and their requirements became more and more stringent, and even the indulgent prisoners who were rumored to be good stories also gave extremely severe criticism, saying that this was a novel and reckless reputation fishing for fame and reputation without king law. Shu Kai's eyebrows tightened again and again, and Tang Xianzu's mood became worse and worse. In the letter, he once lamented to a friend: "Douda County, facing the wall for several years, is not available for two or three provinces, and the public is also valuable." Sometimes after drinking a little wine, the more I feel that the prospect is dark, and the poem is even more complaining: "Only the surname is written in the world, then it has to be inscribed to the royal screen!" ”
Model of an ancient mining site
Tang Xianzu never expected that, like the straw on the back of a camel, what would eventually crush him would be gold.
Since the Tang Dynasty at the latest, Suichang has been an important gold and silver producer registered in the imperial court. However, just as elephants died of their teeth and musk died of incense, this wealth was destined to bear an ominous curse, and it was even more a curse in the time of Tang Xianzu, that is, Emperor Mingshenzong, who used the Wanli calendar as the era name.
"I only know the amount of wealth and profit, and I don't ask about the life and death of Li Min" and "good goods become addictive." Among the emperors of the previous dynasties, the greed of the Myōjin Sect was quite famous. In particular, his enthusiasm for gold and silver is even more rare. After Zhang Juzheng died and Emperor Shenzong took over the government, he soon sent a group of eunuchs to serve as mining supervisors and tax inspectors, mining gold and treasure everywhere.
The train finally stopped.
Pulling the car door open, a wet and cold wind whizzed in, and I felt an indescribable stale breath between my breaths.
With the help of the cold cyan wall lamps, I saw that this was a mine intersection similar to a traffic hub. In almost every direction, there are openings that extend into the depths of darkness — from which generation and which mouth did the wind that had just blown toward me come from?
There was ice on his forehead, and water droplets fell quietly from the rock wall. Looking up at the cave, the rocks are hanging upside down, the teeth are crisscrossed, and each piece seems to fall at any time – I remember that this Ming Dynasty golden cave was the lowest level of all the dynastic mines, 148 meters from the top of the mountain.
I suddenly remembered the mining disasters in various historical records, and the bones that had been washed out of this grotto by the water. When I looked around again, I had the illusion that there were countless pairs of venomous eyes, hidden between the cracks in the rocks, staring at me coldly.
I couldn't help but shiver, trying to transfer my imagination to Tang Xianzu: How did this poet, who was soft and sensitive in his heart and admired freedom and light, feel when he entered this mine? Will his eyes transform into a living hell on earth?
A burning pit in a gold mine
In the spring of the fourth year of Tang Xianzu's reign in Suichang, cao Jin, a mining envoy appointed by the imperial court, finally came to Suichang. As soon as he arrived, he demanded that the Huangyan Pit mine be reopened.
At that time, the old mine in Huangyan Pit had been abandoned for many years, and the water was very deep, and it could even be sailed, but the mining supervisor ignored it and stipulated that the deadline must be completed. Under his persecution, Tang Xianzu had to organize mining, but at that time, there were only more than 13,000 people in Suichang County, and there were less than 5,000 young adults, and it would take at least a few hundred elite laborers to work hard for three consecutive years just to eliminate the water in the Huangyan Pit.
Tang Xianzu was extremely indignant about the imperial court's mining tax policy, which was tantamount to killing chickens and taking eggs. He referred to the mine envoy as the "messenger of searching the mountain" who knocked on the bone and sucked the marrow, and wrote a poem satirizing: "In the middle of the trickle, the empty mountains and rivers are exhausted, and the Holy Lord asks for gold day and night." Lai is a rare bone, and the gold should be as high as the platform. The spearhead pointed directly at the Forbidden City. But as a low-level official, in a remote county of Zhi County, what can Tang Xianzu do with these dog legs that represent the emperor himself? Moreover, he himself was also beaten into another book of the officialdom, countless pairs of small shoes that had been prepared long ago, and he was still waiting for him to wear a pair of pairs...
Ancient mineral processing facility – hydraulic mashing of ore
The gold was used in medicine to calm the nerves, but it made Tang Xianzu upset and had a headache.
"There are shallots on the top and silver on the bottom; there is a grass on the top and gold on the bottom." ”
Finally, one day, this folk recipe for finding gold and silver veins made him suddenly penetrate the absurd world in front of him: the onion was originally a smelly thing, Buddhism attributed it to a foul smell, and the converts had to cut it off.
It turns out that the so-called wealth in the world is essentially nothing more than all kinds of stink?
One pass and belden. The images of the past few decades flowed sharply in front of Tang Xianzu's eyes. He had seen the excavation of gold and silver, seen the death of a fierce tiger; seen the inscription of the golden list, seen Sun Shanluodi; seen the ocean, seen the deep mountains; seen Nanjing, seen Beijing; had seen the prime minister, had seen the emperor; had seen the blue clouds, had seen the yellow flower land; had seen the beauty of the flowers, had seen the years like water flowing; had seen the red of the purple and red, and seen the ruins and broken walls...
Unconsciously, Tang Xianzu's whole body was in cold sweat. It turned out that all this was just a low sigh on the red dragon.
Tang Xianzu returned to his hometown and immersed himself in the creation of drama and poetry, and never came out again.
In 1598, Tang Xianzu submitted his resignation to the imperial court. Without waiting for approval, on an early winter morning, he hung up his official seal high, and after praying for three prayers, he turned around and slowly paced out of the county court.
Suichang was the only truly independent eunuch in Tang Xianzu's life.
After abandoning his official position, Tang Xianzu returned to his hometown, called himself "a langshi of the state, a relict of the prosperous world", called himself a "cocoon", immersed himself in the creation of drama and poetry, and never came out again. In his later years, Tang Xianzu's family was poor, but he was as willing as a glutton, and he would never accept gifts from county officials, and even closed the door to thank guests and did not negotiate with them. In 1616, Tang Xianzu died of poverty in his family in Linchuan at the age of sixty-seven.
After Tang Xianzu resigned, mining continued. In order to get as much gold as possible, the mining supervisor forced the miners to chisel down the rock pillars left over from generations to support the mine. In the twenty-seventh year of the Wanli Calendar, the year after Tang Xianzu returned to Linchuan, a serious landslide occurred at the Suichang gold mine, causing heavy casualties.
The mine opened the mine site of that year's mine. The messy boulders piled up into a mountain in the mountains, and it is not difficult to imagine the terrible scene of the sky collapsing and falling like rain. According to reports, under these stones, there are still hundreds of miners' remains.
In an instant, I felt that every stone of this mountain emitted a cold and bone-chilling resentment. In the deepest part of the Golden Mountain, I couldn't help but shudder slightly.
After the mining disaster, the surviving miners were no longer willing to drive, and began to make trouble, and production was difficult to restore, and Emperor Shenzong had to agree to the scrapping of the mine, and thus had Tang Xianzu's summative monument.
The cave closes and the dust settles. Within a few spring rains, weeds and weeds covered up all the traces of the chisel. A mountain of gold, rapidly retreating from people's memories, returned to the reckless sky. Except for a few deep puddles, everything is muddy and quiet, like an ancient flood. A big dream, clear and unscathed.
Editor-in-Charge: Wang Yu
Proofreader: Liu Wei