All the aborigines who have lived in the old city of Shanghai, especially the residents of the northwest of the ancient city, may be familiar with the "nine acres of land" there, including me. Because my parents' home used to live near here, I went out of the alley after my own home, which was Tongqing Street and Qinglian Street. About a hundred steps to the north, there was once the "Dajing Road Vegetable Farm", but the folk also called it the "Nine Acres" Vegetable Farm.
At that time, because ordinary people didn't have refrigerators at all, they had to go to the market every morning to buy vegetables. The vegetable market of "nine acres of land" is the only large-scale vegetable market with more than 100,000 residents in this area.
First of all, let's take a look at where the "nine acres of land" in the ancient city of Shanghai is?
As far back as 150 years ago, during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty (1862-1874), in the "Shanghai County Chronicle" printed by the Shanghai County Government, we can all find the following "Map of Shanghai County" during the Qing Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, we can all see the old appearance of the city within the walls of the ancient city of Shanghai in the Qing Dynasty.
Map of Shanghai County during the Tongzhi Period of the Qing Dynasty
In the above map of Shanghai County in the Qing Dynasty, in the northwest of its city, there is a place name sign of "nine acres of land". Let's zoom in on the Northwest City section of this map to see a partially enlarged map below.
Map of the northwestern part of the city of Shanghai
In the center of the map above, above a small lake, the words "Nine Tables" are marked. It can be seen that in the Qing Dynasty, "nine acres of land" appeared in our field of vision with a place name.
In the 1982 edition of the Nancheng District Gazetteer, at the intersection of East Qinglian Street and Luxiangyuan Road, there are three landmarks in bold type "Nine Acres of Land" drawn on the map. See the center section of the map below:
The location of the "Nine Acres of Land" in the map of the "Geographical Names of the Southern City"
In the "Nancheng District Gazetteer", in addition to the enlarged "nine acres of land" area map, there is also a special introduction of "nine acres of land":
Nine acres of land: Xi called the place name. Located in the northwest of the old city, it was originally part of Gu's Luxiang Garden. After the collapse of the Luxiang Garden, the Green Lotus Seat in the garden was changed to the Green Lotus Temple. During the Qing Jiaqing period, the left front of the Qinglian Nunnery was set up as a small martial arts field, covering an area of about nine acres, commonly known as nine acres of land. In 1836 (Daoguang 16), a barn was built between the east Qinglian Street of the present-day old warehouse, which was destroyed by the gunpowder explosion in 1842, and the warehouse was abandoned, and later set up a nitrosulfact bureau on the old site. During the Tongzhi period, there was a gunpowder bureau and a reform bureau on the east side of the martial arts field, which people also used to call it nine acres of land. Later, the range of nine acres of land as customary was extended to the east to Jiucang Street, the south to shanghai primary school experimental primary school, the west to Qinglian Street, and the north to the south of Gaodun Street. In 1909 (the first year of Xuan unification), the actual land was 65.98 acres. After the Xinhai Revolution, the bureaus of gunpowder and sulphur were abolished, and the original site of the bureau was changed to a killing field. In 1915, a new stage was set up at the Luxiang Garden on present-day Dajing Road, and a few years later the new stage was destroyed by fire, and the Kaiming Company built a house here called Kaimingli. After the outbreak of the "August 13" war, Nanshi was occupied by the Japanese Kou, and the area around the nine acres of land was lined with gambling tables and tobacco houses, becoming a place where dirt and dirt were hidden. After liberation, the people's government swept away the dirt and grime, which made the nine acres of land appear new. At present, Jiumu land is a collective name for the area around Dajing Road and Luxiangyuan Road, which is mainly a residential area, with the famous Shanghai Experimental Primary School, more than ten retail stores and a vegetable farm.
The above sentence, perhaps written by an old gentleman, is a bit awkward to read, but to the effect that it is in it. In fact, the "nine acres of land" when I was a student was mainly an open-air vegetable market here. The vegetable farm of nine acres of land, also known as the "Dajing Road" vegetable farm. The most impressive thing is that on The Great Realm Road, there is also a photo studio. The photo on my graduation certificate when I graduated from elementary school was taken here.
In addition, in the book "Shanghai Palm Dictionary" edited by Mr. Xue Liyong and published by Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, the interpretation of the place name of the "Nine Acres of Land" in the ancient city of Shanghai is written like this:
Nine acres of land: place names. Refers to the area near present-day Luxiangyuan Road. The origin of the place names is not well documented. The site was originally the "Wanzhu Mountain House" of Taishou Gu mingru in Mingdao Prefecture (present-day Dao County, Hunan), and the "Luxiang Garden" of Shangbao Sicheng Gu Mingshi. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, the descendants of the Gu family declined, and here "the terrace gradually fell, and the garden was abandoned", and some of the garden properties were purchased by Shanghai County in the Qing Jiaqing and built as a "small school field". It is said that the small school yard covers an area of nine acres, so it is called "nine acres of land". Before the end of the Qing Dynasty, these small roads were all small dirt roads, and during the reign of The Xuan Dynasty, these small roads were converted into stone roads, one of which was named "Nine Acres Of Land Road" (now Dafang Lane). Therefore, the name of the place of "nine acres of land" is not limited to the original primary school yard, but generally refers to the lot near here. Around 1916, the "New Stage" originally opened in 16 Shops was moved, which became the most lively area in Shanghai, where small traders and hawkers concentrated to set up stalls. For example, the owner of Guansheng Garden, Wash Guansheng, is here to produce and sell beef jerky and make his mark; the famous "Emerald Gambling Table" on the sea during the Wang pseudo period is also located here. Later, due to the demolition of the new stage, the place began to decline.
From the "Nancheng District Gazetteer" and the "Shanghai Palm Dictionary", their interpretation of "nine acres of land", we should have a general concept of "nine acres of land" in the ancient city of Shanghai, and I will not repeat it here.
After the liberation, the "nine acres of land" is more familiar to me, it is a large open-air vegetable market. Unfortunately, I didn't record it with my camera. The two photos found on the Internet today should be photos of the road at the end of the last century. It is basically the same as the nine-acre vegetable farm in the 1950s and 1960s.
The intersection of Dajing Road and Luxiangyuan Road more than 20 years ago (found on the Internet)
The photo above should be the eastern section of Dajing Road, from Luxiangyuan Road to Henan South Road. There is no trace of any open-air vegetable market here.
The roadscape of the eastern section of Dajing Road more than 20 years ago (found on the Internet)
The first shop on the right side of the photo above (the one signed by the green shop) is very familiar after seeing it. It was when I was a student, and before the holidays, I went with my mother to the vegetable market to buy vegetables and help her carry baskets. The shops here are large, state-run, and there are many goods, and my mother often comes here to buy meat. Decades have passed, but today you can still recognize it at a glance.
When I was a child, when the sky was dark, nearby residents went to the "Nine Acres" vegetable market to buy vegetables one after another. There are probably more than 100,000 residents in this area, and it is conceivable that there must be a very large number of people who start to buy vegetables every morning. Maybe an ordinary county town every day, it may not have hundreds of thousands of residents. You can imagine how spectacular the lively scene of the "Nine Acres" vegetable farm in the past was. At six or seven o'clock in the morning, it was really crowded.
In the vegetable market in the western section of Dajing Road, there is a large tofu shop opened by the parents of my elementary school classmates. We often call him "tofu shop small open", slightly fat and a little dark.
However, after nine or ten o'clock, the open-air vegetable market closed its stalls, and the original tranquility was suddenly restored here, and all that remained was sporadic elderly vendors selling green onions and ginger.
The "nine acres of land" that had been deserted was suddenly transformed into the "Luxiang Garden" or "Qinglian Nunnery" in the ancient city of Shanghai.
In the map of Shanghai County during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty earlier, the three words "Qinglian Nunnery" are marked on the "Nine Acres of Land". In fact, whether it is "nine acres of land" or "Qinglian Nunnery", in fact, during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, this is the place where the Gu Mingshi family and their private residence Luxiang Garden are located. It is said that the Luxiang Garden at that time, covering an area of about forty acres, was indeed a very large private garden yard.
In the Ming Dynasty, there were three famous gardens in Shanghai: one was the Luxiang Garden of the Gu family, one was the Yu Garden of the Pan Yunduan Family, and the last was the Rishi Garden of the Chen Suoyun Family.
Beautiful scenery in Shanghai Yu Garden
Of the three famous gardens of the Ming Dynasty in Shanghai, only Yu Garden still exists after restorative restoration. The Nichiren Garden of the Chen Family, it is said that the "Shuyin Building" that is under renovation today was once the original library building in the Rishi Garden. On the surface, as the luxiang garden of the family name is concerned, the ending should be the most tragic, and now no old building site has been left behind. It was only the good villains who left a road name "Luxiangyuan Road", where they told posterity that this was once the location of the Ming Dynasty "Luxiangyuan".
Luxiangyuan Road in the ancient city of Shanghai
However, what is completely unexpected is that when we deeply understand and study the "three famous gardens" of Shanghai in the Ming Dynasty. It is precisely the Luxiang Garden, which has no garden heritage left, but it has left us with the richest intangible cultural heritage. Personally, I really like to explore and study the history, geography and culture of the old city of Shanghai. At that time, my special job position really created very good conditions for me to study and explore.
In the spring of 2005, China ushered in the earliest declaration of the "Intangible Cultural Heritage List". The most outstanding "Luxiangyuan Gu embroidery" intangible cultural heritage in the ancient city of Shanghai, which is well-known at home and abroad, was declared by me in the name of "Shanghai Luxiangyuan Guxiu Research Institute". As a result, they encountered songjiang county in Shanghai, which had just been transferred from Songjiang County in Suzhou City at the end of 1958 to Songjiang County, a suburb of Shanghai, and tampered with the Su embroidery of their ancestors as "Songjiang Gu embroidery", and also came to pretend to declare a national intangible cultural heritage project. Finally, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Declaration Office of the Shanghai Bureau of Culture and Broadcasting sent a written letter to tell me that after research, Shanghai Municipality used "Gu Xiu" to apply for the National Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Of course, the last batch was also the national intangible cultural heritage list of the word "Gu Xiu".
It should be known that the historical "Gu Xiu" has spread throughout the country for hundreds of years, but its real birthplace is in the Luxiang Garden in the county town of Shanghai in the Ming Dynasty, that is, in the boudoir of the Gu ming family.
Gu embroidery, as the name suggests, is embroidery from the Gu family. How many Gu families are there in China? Maybe thousands of them. But the Luxiangyuan Gu family, there is really only one in history. Therefore, "Luxiangyuan Gu Embroidery" is the most appropriate and more complete name of the Intangible Cultural Heritage List in China.
In the face of such a practical situation, it has naturally become my wish to complete the declaration of Shanghai's intangible cultural heritage list in the land of its hometown. Nowadays, in addition to the so-called "Gu embroidery" in the national intangible cultural heritage list, Shanghai's "Luxiangyuan Gu embroidery" intangible cultural heritage list has finally become a reality in the land of its own hometown.
China's "Luxiangyuan Gu embroidery intangible cultural heritage" remained on the land of its hometown
In 2007, the "Luxiang Garden Gu Embroidery" intangible cultural heritage list was returned to its hometown. The above is a certificate published by the Huangpu District People's Government and issued by the Huangpu District Cultural Bureau.
A corner of the "Luxiang Garden Gu Embroidery Practice Hall" in the hometown of Huangpu, Shanghai
In fact, the intangible cultural heritage left by "Luxiang Garden" to the hometown is only "Luxiang Garden Gu Embroidery". Many "Luxiangyuan Intangible Cultural Legends", I will tell you one by one in the future. It is only because the ancient "farming society" is actually farther and farther away from us today, and the survival of "intangible cultural heritage" is becoming more and more difficult. To be honest, how many girls today have embroidery or sewing skills? The boudoir embroidery skills of the former agrarian society are really getting farther and farther away from us. The prospect of "Luxiangyuan Gu embroidery" is not optimistic. The "Luxiang Garden Gu Embroidery Art Hall" in the ancient city of Shanghai has been insisting on it for more than ten years.
The "nine acres of land" of the past is no longer there. With the disappearance of the "nine acres of land" vegetable market at the end of the last century, the "nine acres of land" of the ancient city of Shanghai has also bid us farewell forever, but the historical memory can still be preserved.
The latest news tells us that the northwest of the ancient city of Shanghai has been all invested and built by shanghai city investment company as a residential area of Luxiangyuan. The first phase of work has now been completed and the construction of the second phase is about to begin.
Brand new Luxiangyuan residential building
Nevertheless, the history and culture of the old city of Shanghai, especially the "Luxiangyuan Intangible Cultural Heritage" in the northwest of the ancient city of Shanghai, will surely remain on the land of its own hometown forever.
The author himself will take root in the ancient city of his hometown of Shanghai, continue to excavate and carry forward the excellent history and culture of Shanghai's ancient city, and wish them to be passed on from generation to generation.
Historically, the place name of the ancient city of Shanghai was "nine acres of land", and with the final disappearance of the "nine acres" vegetable market, the construction scale of the Luxiangyuan residential area gradually expanded, and the place name of "nine acres of land" also withdrew from the historical stage of the place name of the ancient city of Shanghai.
Farewell, the "nine acres of land" of the ancient city of Shanghai!