With the recent announcement of the results of the seventh census in Hunan, a "secret" of Xiangtan has also been exposed, and the original per capita GDP of Xiangtan is the second largest in the province, only lagging behind Changsha.
Xiangtan, which has honorary titles such as "the world's first zhuang county", "Jinxiangtan" and "Little Nanjing", should not care about the ranking, and the pride it once had is difficult to have anywhere else.
Xiangtan, a thousand miles of Xiangjiang River. Photo/ Zhou Lichun
The song is not sung correctly Xiangtan County was indeed once on the banks of the Liuyang River
"Liuyang River, how many bays have you bent over?" Dozens of miles of waterway to the Xiang River? What county is there by the river... Liuyang River, bending across Jiudao Bay, fifty miles of waterway to Xiangjiang, there is a Xiangtan County on the riverside..." Many people who know something about Hunan but don't know much about it will wonder when they sing or hear this song: "How can there be a Xiangtan County on the edge of the Liuyang River?" ”
As is well known today, after the Liuyang River enters Changsha County from Liuyang City, it bends downstream from east to west through the so-called Jiudao Bay, and finally flows into the Xiang River through Yuhua District, Furong District and Kaifu District. Everyone knows that "Jiudao Bay" is an approximate number, in fact, no matter how many bays there are, they can't bend Xiangtan County, and the lyrics are written wrong?
The lyricist of "Liuyang River" is Xu Shuhua, a native of Changsha. When he wrote this song, he and his colleagues in the Xiangjiang Cultural and Labor Troupe were collecting wind in the fields, and he was infected by the labor and life enthusiasm of the new Chinese people, and wrote the flower drum play "Double Delivery of Grain", "Liuyang River" is one of the sections. As a Changsha native, Xu Shuhua could not have known the direction of the Liuyang River, in fact, when he composed this song, Xiangtan County was indeed on the Liuyang River. However, at that time, Xiangtan County was larger than the current Xiangtan City, and the current Liuyang City belonged to Xiangtan in the early 1950s when the song "Liuyang River" was composed. It was not until 1983 that Liuyang was transferred from the territory of Xiangtan to Changsha.
Not only did Liuyang once belong to Xiangtan, in 1952, because the Changsha Special Office was officially renamed the Xiangtan Special Office, Changsha County, Wangcheng County, Xiangtan, Pingjiang, Yueyang, Linxiang, Liuyang, Liling, Xiangyin, YouXian, Chaling, Ningxiang and other 14 (counties and cities) were theoretically under the jurisdiction of Xiangtan. These counties and cities gradually separated from Xiangtan from 1958 until 1983. Counting Zhuzhou and Shuangfeng, which had long been stripped from Xiangtan, the territory of Xiangtan, from Juma to 1983, had shrunk to the smallest area in Hunan, with a total area of 5,045 square kilometers, and only three counties (cities) under the jurisdiction of Shaoshan City, Xiangtan County and Xiangxiang City.
Xiangtan is the real Furong country
Xiangtan is also known as Liancheng, lotus in Xiangtan, has a history of more than 3,000 years of cultivation.
The word "Xianglian" was first seen in the Southern Dynasty River Flood's "Lotus Fu": "With the miaoling out of the waves, the Xianglian Xi Yingzhu, the beautiful people Xi Beiyan, and the guest Xi Nanchu".
It is a perennial aquatic herb of the family Water Lily that prefers warm, humid climates. From April to September, when Xianglian is fertile, Xiangtan has abundant rainfall, and the Xiangjiang River, Lianshui, Trickle Water and scattered reservoirs and dams make Xianglian rarely threatened by drought. In addition, most of the farmland in Xiangtan is fertile paddy soil, the soil is loose and fertile, the mud depth is about 20 cm, the bottom is flat, and the pH is neutral, which is most suitable for the growth of Xianglian. In the early 1980s, in the Dongting Lake Area of Hunan Province, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui and other parts of the province, the traditional and excellent original varieties of Xianglian were planted in large areas, but they were not as superior as Xiangtan due to the basic conditions such as climate and soil, and within two years, they began to degenerate the varieties.
Lotus and Xiangtan have been associated for thousands of years, and by the time of the Sui Dynasty, Xianglian cultivation was very common. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the cultivation of Xianglian was more prosperous, and Xianglian was not only planted in Large Quantities in Xiangtan. During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court officially stipulated that the Xianglian of that year must pay tribute on time, and used the holy will to inform the world: "Xianglian is purely a tribute, and the common people are not allowed to eat it."
Because it has always been a treasure of the tribute court, Xianglian is also known as "Gonglian", and once specifically referred to the lotus seeds produced in Xiangtan, Hunan, and the "Xiangtan County Chronicle" during the Qianlong and Guangxu years of the Qing Dynasty recorded: "There are two kinds of lotus seeds, and the officials who buy white pay tribute (the white species is Xianglian), "Tugong has lotus fruits, and the county West Yangtang" is produced."
Lotus is in Xiangtan and has a history of more than 3,000 years of cultivation. Photo/ Zhou Lichun
During the Republic of China period, Xianglian was a large export specialty of Hunan, and the output and export volume were the highest in the country, and during the War of Resistance Against Japan, Xianglian production declined. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Xianglian resumed exports. In 1946, the "Hunan Economy" said: The government advocated the production of Xianglian, "under the principle of not hindering grain production, we should strive to improve quality and increase quantity."
Many people think that Mao Zedong's poem "I want to dream of this is silhouette, and the Furong kingdom is full of chaohui", "Furong country" refers to Hunan, in fact, it is likely that it refers to only Xiangtan, and Xiangtan, which is rich in Xianglian, is the real Furong country.
The gourmand Liang Shiqiu also wrote about Xianglian in his "Yashe Talks About Eating": "Everyone recognizes that the lotus seeds in Hunan are the best, known as Xianglian. I had a 'tasteful' banquet in Chongqing one year, and there was Mr. Yang Mianzhong, a Xiangtan man, who was very good at eating. There is a honey lotus seed in the table, which is very standard. The lotus seeds are short and thick, white and pure, and very soft. Mianzhong ate a spoonful and said, "This must be Xianglian." ’”
Xianglian treasure "inch three lotus" grain is large and full, white and round, delicate texture, fresh and sweet, easy to stew, it is Liang Shiqiu's article wrote that "the lotus seed is short and thick, white and pure, and soft and abnormal". Now, Xiangtan has become the country's largest lotus processing center, the annual output value of Xianglian is nearly 4 billion yuan, the products are not only sold throughout the country, but also exported to Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, France, Indonesia and other countries. The status of Xiangtan in the lotus world is like the status of Yangcheng Lake in the crab world.
The production of Xiangtan, as famous as Xianglian, is also betel nut. Xiangtan does not produce betel nut, but the betel nut industry in Xiangtan determines the price of betel nut in Hainan, Vietnam and other places.
Jiang Tingdi, who was appointed China's first permanent representative to the United Nations in 1945, was a native of Shaoyang. In the spring of 1965, Columbia University asked him to dictate his life's academic and political experiences, and he recalled an incident when he was 11 years old and walked to Changsha with a distant relative. When passing through Xiangtan, relatives took him to an iron shop where he had business with his family to "make a courtesy meeting." After entering the door, the shopkeeper gave Jiang Tingdi and his relatives a cup of tea and a bag wrapped in red paper. This thing, the owner told him it was betel nut. Having never touched betel nut before, he felt very fresh, immediately opened it and chewed it in his mouth, "who knows it was hot and hot", almost 60 years later, he still remembers the feeling at that time.
Xiangtan people's consistent love for betel nut has made betel nut in Xiangtan from a single industry of local traditional food to an industrial "depression" with a complete range of products and a large number of employees. In 2016, Zhang Xinfa's traditional betel nut making technique was listed as an intangible cultural heritage project in Hunan Province, starting in 1905 with Zhang Xinfa, after being passed on by Zhang Xuelin, Zhang Rongsheng and Zhang Ying, and today's fourth generation of inheritors Zhang Gangqiang.
Xiangtan Shunkou slip "Dragon brand soy sauce cord wick cake, betel nut fruit floating on the water, ten miles of lotus pond thyme, the stone girl with you to pick", Xianglian, betel nut outside, dragon brand soy sauce, cord wick cake and the famous Mao's braised pork are all famous delicacies in Xiangtan in the country.
A 100-kilometer celebrity circle with Shaoshan as the center
Tang Haoming once said that if you draw a circle with Shaoshan Mountain as the center and a radius of one hundred kilometers, eighty or ninety percent of the modern characters in Hunan will be included.
Xiangtan's talent density is not only the highest in Hunan, but also difficult to match in other places in the whole country.
Tang Haoming called Xiangtan a large pier. This large pier has influenced the culture of the Lianshui River Basin and the Juanshui River Basin for many years, so although Zeng Guofan's hometown Lotus Pond was zoned to twin peaks in 1952, Tang Haoming still regarded Zeng Guofan as a Xiangtan person, believing that "the bloodline of regional culture will not change because of the change of name." He counted the characters in his works "Zeng Guofan" and "Yang Du", of which at least thirty or forty belonged to the Xiangtan cultural region.
The reason why this area is full of stars is that the area became Jinxiangtan. Before Jin Xiangtan, the talents in this area could only be said by Shu Xiang Jiang. And Jiang Wan's hometown of Tic-tac-toe town was later assigned to Twin Peaks. After Jiang Huan, although Xiangtan had retained Tao Kan of the Jin Dynasty and Chu Suiliang and Du Fu of the Tang Dynasty, there were no native figures.
After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, there were four peaks of talent in Xiangtan. Yin Tiefan, secretary general of the Xiangtan Federation of Social Sciences, once said bluntly that the emergence of a large number of talents in Xiangtan is directly related to Xiangtan's economic development and becoming Jinxiangtan, "First, the education and training of talents need money; second, the exchange and integration of various ideas and cultures brought about by Jinxiangtan's commercial and trade activities, so that Xiangtan people located in the inland can contact new ideas and new cultures outside." ”
The first talent peak appeared between the middle of the Ming Dynasty and the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty. During this period, most of the talents who were recruited into the official examination were Li Tengfang, Chen Pengnian, and other figures who are relatively unfamiliar to us today.
The second talent peak appeared during the Years of Qing Xianfeng and Tongzhi. This gush of talent is closely related to the rise of the Xiang Army. Jin Xiangtan not only provided a large number of military salaries for the Xiang Army, but also sent a large number of soldiers -- the Xiang Army army was mainly Composed of Xiangxiang people, and although the commander of the Xiang Army's marine division was Peng Yulin of Hengyang, most of the middle and lower-level officers and men were Xiangtan people. Interestingly, the first great victory of the Xiang Army was the Great Victory of Xiangtan. After the defeat of the Taiping Army, there was a grand situation in China that "the Xiang army went all over China and supervised the half-Xiang people". At that time, in the eighteen provinces of China, the Xiang people successively produced 20 governors and inspectors, 12 envoys and envoys, and more than a thousand other admirals, general soldiers, and deputy generals. Among these people, most of them are Xiangtan people or Xiangxiang people.
The third talent peak appeared in the early 19th century. Among these talents were Liu Daoyi, a revolutionary hero and the first person among the members of the China League Association to die for the revolution; There was Xiangtan's daughter-in-law and Jianhu woman Qiu Jin; there was Yang Du, an industrialist; there was the painter Qi Baishi; and the famous Li Bajun.
The fourth peak of talent appeared in the period of the new democratic revolution, which was the climax of the peak of talent in Xiangtan, where a large number of politicians, military experts, and cultural celebrities such as Mao Zedong, Peng Dehuai, Huang Gongluo, Luo Yinong, Chen Geng, Tan Zheng, and Xiao San emerged.
What is less known is that Pingjiang Busheng, the founding father of modern martial arts novels, although he is widely considered to be a Pingjiang native because of his ancestral home in Pingjiang, in fact, his real name is Xiang Kairan, who was born in Xiangtan, and his grandfather ran an umbrella factory called "Xiang Longtai" in Xiangtan County's Oil Press Lane. Similar to him, although the actor Xu Jinglei's ancestral home on the household registration book is Twin Peaks, her ancestors have always lived in Xiangtan Eighteen, and her father was also born in Eighteen.
From "steel" Xiangtan to "intelligent manufacturing" Xiangtan
In 1936, the National Government Resources Committee implemented the policy of "developing heavy industry and consolidating national defense", and took into account the possible insecurity factories in North and Central China, and came to Hunan to find a site for setting up a factory. They finally chose a piece of land of nearly 10,000 acres near the lower regency of the Xiangtan River. Preparations will be made to establish the Central Electrical Equipment Factory, the Central Iron and Steel Factory, and the Central Machinery Factory.
Although, later, due to the imminent war, only several large-scale heavy industry factories in the plan were built into electrical equipment factories, but the area selected at that time, after 1949, successively built Xiangtan Motor Factory, Xiangtan Iron and Steel Factory, Xiangtan Textile Printing and Dyeing Factory and other large enterprises, Xiangtan also became one of the 23 industrial cities that the state focused on in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. In addition to Xianggang and Xiangdian, a number of large state-owned enterprises such as Jianglu and Jiangnan have also been laid out, and the industrial system is complete.
What makes Xiangtan feel more beautiful is Xiangtan University, the only university in the fourteen cities and prefectures in the province, which is named after the city and state. Professors such as Jiang Shuge, who served as director of the National Taxation Administration of the National Government and parliamentary secretary of the Ministry of Finance, Yang Chunqiu, a famous historian, Peng Yanjiao, a famous poet, and Li Shoufo, who undertook four national high-tech 863 projects in a row, have successively taught at Xiangtan University.
In the past 10 years, especially in the past 5 years, Xiangtan has a great trend of bottoming out. The total economic volume continues to rise, and the GDP increases from 176.20 billion yuan in 2016 to 234.310 billion yuan in 2020; Xiangtan County has advanced into the top 100 counties (cities) in China's county economy and basic competitiveness of counties, and Xiangxiang has been selected as one of the top ten counties in Hunan; equipment manufacturing, auto parts, and military-civilian integration of 100 billion industries are accelerating their formation; Xianggang, Xiangdian, Geely, and Bubugao enterprises with tens of billions of output value have emerged. What makes the people of Xiangtan especially proud is that the steel of Xianggang steel supported the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, the chariots of Jianglu appeared in the national military parade, and the Valin cable sent the Shenzhou spaceship to the sky.
Xiangtan Geely Automobile. Photo/ Mo Zhengde
In this process, Xiangtan people also got benefits, in 2010, the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents in Xiangtan was 18,059 yuan, and in 2020, it increased to 34,360 yuan per capita, nearly doubling. With the advancement of the integration of Changzhutan, many resources of the provincial capital can also be shared by Xiangtan people. After Xiangtan painstakingly divided out a number of counties and cities, although the total economic volume no longer dominated, the people of Xiangtan were happy to "make a fortune in a muffled voice.".
Written by Liu Jianyong, reporter of Xiaoxiang Morning News
【Source: Xiaoxiang Morning News】
Copyright belongs to the original author, a tribute to the original