▲ The Ming Dynasty bell tower and Huipai building at the Water Pavilion Gate in Quzhou, and the two-story attic of the heavy eaves on the left side is the bell tower. Photo by Xu Jun
"Control the elbow of Poyang, strangle the throat of Ou Min, and even declare the momentum of the voice." Located in the west of Zhejiang, the upper reaches of the Qiantang River, it is the gateway of the four provinces of Zhejiang, Anhui, Fujian and Gansu, and she is a written record of the ancient land of the Spring and Autumn "Gu Contempt City".
▲ Quzhou, south of Fujian Nanping, west of Jiangxi Shangrao, Jingdezhen, north of Anhui Huangshan, east of Jinhua, Lishui, Hangzhou three cities intersect. Painted /Paprika
Quzhou, a city that attracted xu xiake, a great traveler of the Ming Dynasty, traveled three times. In the tome "Xu Xia's Travels", he recorded a large number of famous places in Quzhou.
Speaking of Quzhou, the first thing that jumps into the mind must be the "etiquette" culture. "Nankong Holy Land, Quzhou has courtesy", this seems to have become a secret code for Quzhou people on the Internet, as long as the first half of the sentence is typed, there must be a series of recognition scenes at the bottom.
@Quzhou Research Society
And "spicy hegemony" is another label in Quzhou. It is said that the inter-provincial junctions are all food paradises, and Quzhou is typical. She integrates the tastes of Zhejiang, Anhui and Gansu provinces, and the locals are born with spicy attributes, which is very unique in Zhejiang, which is very unique.
If the world's eyes of Zhejiang, like the Xizi Lakeside style of the palace dress ladies, exquisite and elegant, gentle and generous; then Quzhou, which is at the westernmost end of Zhejiang, adds a little more liveliness and vividness of the neighbor's maid, just like the Quzhou girl Zhou Xun, who is full of spirit and innocence.
Her existence is the strength to break people's stereotypes about Zhejiang, or all relevant regions.
▲ Quzhou Rotten Keshan Autumn Color. Photo by Xu Jun
Nankong Holy Land, Quzhou is polite
Kecheng District is the main urban area of Quzhou City, is the economic, political, cultural, commercial and other centers of Quzhou, located in the west of Zhejiang Province, the upper reaches of the Qiantang River, is one of the national historical and cultural cities approved by the State Council.
Kecheng District has a total area of 609 square kilometers and a population of 486,600. With more than 6,000 years of civilization history and more than 1,800 histories of city building, it is a famous historical and cultural city in China, and the "Nankong Holy Land" Kong's Nanzong Family Temple, the "Go Holy Land" Rotten Ke Mountain, and the "Buddhist Holy Land" Ling Vulture Mountain in western Zhejiang are all located here.
/Confucius Temple/
The Confucius Family Temple is "the only two in the world", in addition to the famous Qufu Confucius Temple, another famous Confucius Temple in China is located in Quzhou. "Emperor Kong, who belongs to Zou Lu. The difficulties of Jing Kang, the great emperor came south, the Song and Jin confronted each other, and the Kong people began to divide the north and south into two sects. "At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Jin army invaded the south, and Emperor Gaozong of the Song Dynasty built the capital in Lin'an.
Confucius's 48th-generation grandson and third-generation Yansheng Gong Kong Duanyou, bearing the wooden statue of Confucius and his wife, moved from Qufu South, Shandong Province, to Quzhou to establish the Confucius Family Temple, known as Nanzong. Quzhou is also known as the "Second Holy Land" by Kong.
▲ Quzhou Nanzong Confucius Temple. Photo by Xu Jun
As one of the only two remaining Confucius family temples in the country, after three relocations and three constructions, the current Quzhou Confucius Temple is located on Xinqiao Street in the center of Quzhou, and is connected with the Confucius Cultural Park (Fushan Park), the Chinese Confucian Museum, and the Quzhou Museum, drawing the core circle of Quzhou Confucian culture.
(Photo: Figureworm @ Werewolf)
(Photo: @Quzhou Radio and Television Media)
/Rotten Keshan/
If you want to explore the "chess culture", you can't miss the "holy land of Go" - Rotten Keshan. Go originated in China, and the roots of Go are in Rotten Keshan.
Rotten KeShan was called Empty Stone Mountain in the Spring and Autumn Period more than 2,000 years ago, and later because of the myth and story of the Jin Dynasty", "The King Meets the Immortal, Guan Yi Rotten Ke" was circulated, and it was originally called Rotten Ke Mountain.
According to the Northern Wei Li Daoyuan's "Notes on the Water Classics", Yun said: During the Jin Dynasty, a woodcutter named Wang Qian went to Shimu Mountain to cut firewood, and when he saw the second boy playing Go, he sat down to watch. At the end of the round, the boy said to him, Your axe handle is rotten. Wang Qiao returned to the village only to realize that decades had passed.
Later generations called Ishimuro Mountain Rotten Keshan and Rotten Ke as another name for Go. To this day, the word rotten Ke is still common in domestic and foreign journals. Japanese high-dan chess players also often use the word "rotten ke" on the fan surface to give gifts to relatives and friends.
▲ Since 2006, every two years, the "Quzhou Rotten Ke Cup Chinese Go Championship" will be held here, and all kinds of Go masters gather at the feet of Rotten Ke, and in this comparison, they will compose a continuously updated "Rotten KeTu". The picture shows Ding Guanpeng's rotten Ke Immortal Traces.
Photo: Artron Auctions
@Wang Kang/Photo
Although it is a mountain, in fact, rotten Keshan is not high. Climb the stairs, all the way to the shadows of the trees, and in a short time you will reach the top of the mountain. At the top of the mountain, a stone beam hangs in the air, like a large stone bridge hewn by the mountain, and it is like a rainbow in the middle of the sky, which is a spectacle. Climbing up the stone beam and looking around, the Green Mountain stretches, the Wuxi River meanders like a jade belt towards the Qu River, and the exquisite beauty unique to the south is at your feet.
/Water Pavilion Gate/
Standing on Beimen Street, the flexible and fresh Huipai buildings, the old street of the bluestone slab road, carrying the old customs and ancient legends, come with money. Old Quzhou people make pots of tea, rub mahjong, and chat about homely things, just like the old street - peaceful and vivid, comfortable and orderly.
▲ Emblem-style building adjacent to water. Figure/Figureworm Creative
Stepping up to the bell tower, the scenery of Quzhou's old town can be seen. Looking down to the north is the ancient street of Beimen, which is a leisurely and ancient rhyme, and looking west is the symbol of Quzhou's regional historical context - the Shuiting Gate City Tower.
▲ Night view of the water pavilion gate on the other side of the Qu River. Photo/Visual China
As the most complete and most emblematic internet red block in Quzhou, The Shuitingmen Ancient Block has preserved three streets and seven alleys, temples, ancestral halls, guild halls, city towers, monuments, pieces of traditional houses, and emerging creative restaurants and shops scattered in it, where tradition and fashion coexist, and is a "museum without walls".
▲ Water Pavilion Gate with Confucian cultural background. Photography / Liu Jiao
"First there is the Heavenly King Pagoda, and then there is Quzhou City." As soon as I approached the Tianwang Pagoda at the entrance of the Water Pavilion Gate, the entire block could hear the brass bells on the tower ringing with the wind, worrying about the nostalgia of the Quzhou people.
▲ Shuiting Street Tianwang Pagoda, first there is tianwang pagoda, and then there is Quzhou City. Photography / Zhou Weiqing
▲ "I don't know the water pavilion door, but I am a Quzhou person." The picture shows the Quzhou Water Pavilion Gate Building. Photography / Lu Wen
In addition, the Tianhou Temple, the Zhao Ancestral Hall, the Dayuan Qianzhuang, the Zhou Xuanling King Temple, the germ warfare drop-off point, and the ancient city wall... The ruins of various periods and types are like different sections of history, carefully embedded in the fabric of the city, piecing together a cultural map of Quzhou.
Quzhou spicy
Add a little spicy and "on top"
If there is one thing that can pass unimpeded in various areas of Quzhou, it must be spicy.
Quzhou's spicy is a unique spicy, it is not as hot as the Sichuan-Chongqing region, most of the gourmet snacks are more inclined to "slightly drunk", in the local dialect, that is, "weixian fresh rice", which is a magical taste, Quzhou flavor.
If you want to come to Quzhou to eat spicy, the first stop is Kecheng, which monopolizes the main urban area of Quzhou.
/Three Heads and One Slap/
When it comes to Quzhou flavor, it must first talk about "three heads and one palm", rabbit head, duck head, fish head, duck palm. In Kecheng, every street and alley and every small restaurant will have "three heads and one palm", especially duck heads.
Duck head, rabbit head, duck palm delicious secret, in the soup, a good pot of soup, fennel, orange peel, peppercorns, cinnamon, but also need to add a few flavors of Chinese herbs, washed ingredients in the old soup slowly stewed, the soup slowly soaked into the bone. A bite down, the meat is crisp, into the mouth, the meat and bones can be separated instantly, accompanied by a rich sauce, eat up, the stamina immediately on the head, is spicy, is fresh, that is called a cool.
/Taro dumplings, pickled dumplings/
Zongzi is available in many places, but the Zongzi in Kecheng is different, and the Zongzi here is spicy! Spicy rice dumplings are delicious enough! In Kecheng, almost every household will wrap rice dumplings, which are all tastes that supermarkets can't buy.
Fresh and spicy taro stuffing wrapped in rice dumplings, plus fat and lean meat, cooking time to a little longer to be delicious, glutinous rice is soft and sticky, a bite down, cut into small grains of taro and chili sauce has been completely integrated into the glutinous rice aroma.
/Orange Bar Sauce/
This is a dish, the bar sauce is generally found in kecheng restaurants, why is it unique? Because orange peel is used inside, and oranges are specialties of Kecheng, with shipping ports and stone beams as the most important.
Bar sauce will generally use orange peel, pork belly, dried, white or bamboo shoots, of course, but also green peppers, red peppers, dried peppers and ginger garlic. Because of the addition of orange peel, there will be a special taste, the first bite: this taste is a bit strange! Second bite: Not bad! Third bite: Delicious! Good meal!
/Dry mix spicy hot/
Kecheng spicy scalding is different from Sichuan and Chongqing, it is dry mixed!
Moreover, the more delicious the spicy hot, the harder it is to find, and some of them don't even have a door!! If there is no local friend to lead the way, it is really necessary to cry.
Dry mix spicy hot and many chains of spicy hot is not the same, is cooked with a broth pot bottom, with an iron plate, and then dipped in each family's exclusive sauce, each family's sauce is also different, forming a variety of different factions, each family has its own fixed fans, a hundred flowers bloom, its happy and harmonious.
/Burnt Cake Three Clips/
Kecheng's baked cake, everything can be clipped. The most famous are the three brothers of fritters, fried kon, and stinky tofu.
Burnt cake sandwich fritters, generally eaten as breakfast, you can add a little pepper to it, and then eat it with soy milk, the first bite is not particularly amazing, but the more you chew, the more flavorful.
The rest of the "two brothers" can be eaten together, and the shape of the fried fruit is also very distinctive, round table-shaped, and the filling is generally shredded radish, pickles, dried bamboo shoots, and lotus root.
Having said so many spicy snacks, what about the little friends who don't eat spicy? Look at it, these snacks can definitely make you happy.
/Scones/
As a snack that does not lose three heads and one slap - scones, scones occupy the other half of life in Kecheng and even the whole quzhou.
If the dry sauce spicy hot is a hundred flowers, then the scones are a fairy fight, they are a tricycle as a unit, and have a huge fan base of uncles and aunts, after decades of craftsmanship forging, their scones know the preferences of each of your oral cells.
Scones generally have plum vegetables, squeezed vegetables, mixed, pure meat, large and small, according to personal taste to choose spicy or not spicy. Large scones and small scones are not only the difference in size, but also have a very big difference in taste, and when the freshly baked small scones are bitten, the aroma and soup will overflow directly from the narrow opening, which is very enjoyable. And the big scone is another flavor, promise me, must come to Quzhou to taste, buy two, one big and one small!
/Dry cold powder/
Cold mix dried powder is a more common snack in Kecheng, but it is the most indispensable, hot summer, a bowl of cold mix dried powder, a bowl of crystal cake, is simply the standard of every local. No matter how much you don't have an appetite, come to a bowl of cold mix and dry powder, and immediately appetize.
/Steamed meat balls/
Meat balls are a very, very authentic home-cooked dish in Kecheng, and there are many methods, but it is especially recommended to steamed meat balls.
Eating steamed meat balls can not be less Kecheng special pepper sauce, generally selling steamed meat balls small shops will have their own exclusive secret chili sauce, each is different, but each will not be bad, in Kecheng to eat steamed meat balls is a kind of will not step on the existence of thunder.
/Crystal Cake/
Having said so many snacks, here's a drink – crystal cake.
Kecheng snacks, of course, to be associated with Kecheng's summer memory "cold drink", the most common and most characteristic in Kecheng is the crystal cake, in the summer, the street alleys will sell crystal cake, and then a drop of mint, the taste, a mouthful of cool, even soup with cake sent to the mouth, cool quickly occupy the entire mouth, a day's fatigue quickly disappeared.