I'm a self-driving tour of the world, planning to walk 50 to 100 attractions (historical monuments and beautiful places) and 12 classic self-driving routes every year, if you like these too, please pay attention to me.
I love ancient towns and ancient villages, so over the years I have successively walked to many such places, whether it is the ancient villages in Jiangxi, Anhui, or the ancient cities in Lijiang, Hunan, which are my favorite places to visit. It's just a pity that as a Jiangsu person, I rarely go to the ancient town of Jiangsu. Of course, the overly commercial ancient towns of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai have indeed made me lose a lot of motivation to move forward. But in Jiangsu, there are still many relatively niche and not so many people, and at the same time it is worth experiencing the ancient town. For example, today I want to tell you about the ancient town of Dangkou.
Dangkou Ancient Town is located in Ehu Town, Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, because it is not far from Suzhou and has a history of more than 3,000 years, so it has the reputation of "Little Suzhou". Dangkou Ancient Town is a very typical Jiangnan water town ancient town, quiet small bridges and flowing water people are the characteristics of here, and the cultural inheritance of the ancient town is also eye-catching.
Although there have been some misunderstandings about the ancient town on the Internet, I have the opposite view from them: the ancient town I love the most is not a place where the crowds are crowded and commercialized, nor is it the kind of dirty and messy ancient town that people are dilapidated and unable to integrate. What I like is the old town with some tourists and locals, and at the same time not so noisy.
Dangkou ancient town, to my feeling is exactly so. Swinging in the ancient town, looking at the quiet of the small bridge flowing water, there is not much noise, as if the whole ancient town belongs to me alone. There is the beauty of the ancient town, and there is no noisy atmosphere, is not the kind of ancient town that we expect in our hearts?
In addition to the small bridge flowing water, Dangkou Ancient Town also has a long history. Thousands of years ago, the ancients lived in the mouth and water, and they have multiplied to this day. In the Republic of China period, there was also a saying that "Wuxi Little Shanghai, Swing mouth Small Wuxi". From ancient times to the present, there have been many well-known figures here, and the Ming and Qing dynasties have walked out of 37 jinshi. Hua Qiuping, the author of the ancient song "Ten Faces Ambush", Hua Fu of copperplate movable type printing, Hua Junwu, the famous cartoonist Hua Junwu, the author of "Singing the Motherland", and Hua Cha, the prototype of Hua Taishi in Tang Bohu Dian Qiu Xiang, are all from here. The people are brilliant, and the ancient town of Dangkou can indeed afford it.
Every place that can produce many celebrities, most of them have a certain inner temperament. For example, Liukeng Ancient Village, the first village in Jiangxi, which also has more than 30 jinshi, has made the local reading atmosphere strong because of the family ancestral hall training. So, what exactly is the basis for this place in The Ancient Town of Dangkou to produce so many jinshi literati? After careful study, I learned that "righteousness" is the core factor that has been passed down to this day and is still prosperous in the ancient town of Dangkou. If you come to Dangkou Ancient Town, you will find that there were more than a dozen Yizhuang in the Qing Dynasty alone, and the largest of them, Huashi Yizhuang, is known as the first Yizhuang in Jiangnan.
Yizhuang, which originated from Fan Zhongyun, who was "worried about the world first", is similar to today's charities. In Dangkou Ancient Town, Huashi Yizhuang follows the family's "stressing loyalty and righteousness, and emphasizing filial piety". The existence of Yizhuang mainly has the following functions: The first is to save the "four poor", that is, widows, widows and lonely people. The second is the establishment of private schools for the purpose of indoctrination. The third is to sponsor the promising young people in the township to help them "carp jump the dragon gate".
It is precisely because of the influence of "stressing loyalty and righteousness, emphasizing filial piety" and the culture of Yizhuang, the ancient town of Dangkou has been prosperous to this day and has not decayed. If you want to understand the history and cultural heritage of Dangkou Ancient Town, going to Huashi Yizhuang to understand the local Yizhuang culture is what you must do when you come to Dangkou Ancient Town.
If you like the quiet and noisy ancient town, then you can come to Dangkou Ancient Town for a turn. It is a good choice to walk on the quiet paths of the ancient town, listen to the local opera, or taste the most famous oily meat and innocent dumplings in the ancient town, or enjoy the grand scene of the locals catching the blue fish at the Blue Fish Festival.
Finally, if you come to Dangkou Ancient Town and don't want to spend tickets, you can arrive at Dangkou Ancient Town before 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning. At that time, not only were there few tourists, but there was no one at the ticket gate, and you could "evade the ticket" in a fair and upright manner.