Laozhuang, sitting north to south, surrounded by water on three sides, a Longxi River from east to west, flowing slowly around it, since the ancients called "Surrounded by Golden City". The curved water surrounds a rice field in front of the house, surrounded by bushes.
In the selection of urban sites, the ancients attached importance to flood prevention and disaster reduction, and showed great wisdom; when building residential houses, they considered meticulously, paid attention to the pattern, and reflected the living concept of "the unity of nature and man". Choose more places to rely on the mountains and waters, leeward wind to avoid danger, sit north and south, have sufficient light, and the water level is suitable. It is convenient for water use and is conducive to flood control. It contains a lot of wisdom and knowledge, which makes future generations admire and admire.
A mountain range slowly extended from west to east for more than two miles, it seemed to feel tired, invisibly stretched out a mountain range across the neck, the mountain body suddenly shrunk, appeared very narrow, the mountain formed a depression, from high to low, plunged into the river. Nature is more magical than human imagination.
Listening to my grandfather, on a rising morning, my great-grandfather took a feng shui master with a white beard and climbed up to the highest point of the mountain beam on the other side with great interest, and looked around, and the ridge of the ridge was like a coiled dragon, surrounded by green water, and the waves were calm. It turned out that this feng shui master was the brother of his great-grandfather, and he had always had a good relationship with his great-grandfather and was in love with his brother, so his great-grandfather asked him to help build a house. Brother Shi suggested that a levee be built here, and a curved culvert built under the embankment is wide enough, and this culvert will take on the role of discharging the flood, and no matter how big the flood can only flow away quickly, conform to nature, and prosper for generations, where there is no reason not to choose.
My great-grandfather also valued the fertile dam field in this bay, imagining the undulating rice waves in the dam field, the beauty of Jingu nodding, and it seemed to smell the smell of rice wafting in waves.
In this way, the river bend, which has been unnoticed for thousands of years, was chosen by his great-grandfather to build a foundation and build a house here, which is the origin of "Lao Zhuang".
As the saying goes: "Rely on the mountain to eat the mountain, rely on the water to draft water." In the embrace of the mountains, Lao Zhuang lives by the water, with the mountains behind him, and is born with a small plain with an area of nearly 100 acres, with firewood and water, livable and suitable for farming.
Nature's ingenuity has caused the valleys deep in the mountains to silt up into a flat land, and the river water surrounds and suddenly falls down the mountain at the neck of the mountain. People can not be separated from the mountain, but also inseparable from the river, this river of life has been nourishing the old Zhuang people for generations to live and live in peace, but left a lot of sad past.
Grandfather led Lao Zhuang's fathers and villagers to finally turn this flat land into a rice field, they worked in the rice field all day, living on the rice field, pursuing the life journey of a grain of rice, tasting the long-standing farming culture, and appreciating the beauty of the deep mountain rice field.
When the rice is golden, the breeze blows through the rice waves, rustles, and the whole river bay is filled with a strong smell of rice. The strings of full and full rice ears carry the sustenance and dreams of the old villagers for a year.
In the twentieth year of the Republic of China, a torrential rain fell from the sky, causing the flooding of ditches, the rice grain was gone, the rice field was destroyed, and only five large bluestones were left lying still, motionless, and the back of the stone was washed by the flood.
The flood was raging and roaring, but the water level was still more than three meters away from Lao Zhuang, whose foundation was deeply built on a solid rock, and there was no danger at all.
After the flood, my grandfather led the whole village to repair the land and restore production, and in the early summer of the following year, the rice was still green and full of rivers and bays, showing a scene of a bumper harvest.
In the following decades, the wind and rain were smooth, the harvest was stable, everything was normal as before, and the days of Lao Zhuang were full of taste and taste.
In the autumn of 1983, the torrential rain came again, the great-grandfather and grandfather had passed away, the father said that the rainstorm was fierce, the river was rising strangely, not like there was a warning from it, in the blink of an eye, the rice that was about to ripen in the river bay was looted, the flood went on a rampage, continued to rise, and when it was still one meter high from the old village, the rain stopped, the flood gradually receded, and the old village escaped a disaster.
That afternoon, my father and a few young people in the village put on a hat, picked up a long bamboo basket and a fishing hook, and came to the bend of the mountain concave neck embankment, where people stood on a stone dam almost a foot or two above the water to catch corn, pumpkins, wood, and other things. The water that day hit more than when the usual flood came, the young and strong father fished a lot, there was really no place behind him, the father wanted to change places to continue fishing, just at this time, the father had a premonition that something was not good, the father found that there was a strong black water head roaring like a beast in the upper reaches, the father was quick, one turned and climbed up the high place, while beckoning the people who were fishing for things to quickly go up the mountain. A wave swooped up and washed away three of the six people who were being salvaged. When something happened to a human life, my father couldn't bear it, and several other people used the light of lightning to go along the embankment to catch people. At this time, another black wave roared upstream, and they had to give up and flee for their lives, and one of them said, "This time Lao Zhuang is finished." The father comforted him and said, "Rest assured, your ancestors once said that Lao Zhuang will always be safe and sound." ”
Looking at the river bay is a monstrous ocean, one-third of the villages along the river are swallowed up by the flood, even a treetop has disappeared, and the next day, the rain has passed and the old village is still beautiful.
At the end of the summer of 2005, there was a heavy rainfall in many parts of southern Shaanxi, and there was a particularly heavy rainstorm in laozhuang sixty miles, which flooded many villages and farmlands with continuous heavy rains, causing serious losses to the people.
Half of the trees along the river were blown down by strong winds, and even the roots were uprooted or broken. Surprisingly, in addition to the destruction of the rice in the river bay, the house and the trees around the house were safe and sound.
In the mid-autumn of 2021, it was originally a cool autumn weather, but it became a gloomy and rainy world. Rarely, heavy rainfall lasted more than a month. By the end of September, the Han River had risen eight times, and the Longxi River was no exception, flooding each time. The flood washed the cornerstone, standing on the Laozhuang embankment to watch, I felt very nervous in my heart, the rushing flood roared in the river bay, unstoppable, can't help but add infinite worry and fear to people's hearts.
The flood was capricious, rising and falling, retreating and rising, the waves were turbulent, and it was unscrupulously besieging Lao zhuang, but the flood never spread through the cornerstone of Lao Zhuang, and Lao Zhuang was safe and sound.
At this point, I admire the wisdom of the ancients in selecting a site.
Father said that the construction form of this house is the same as other houses, the difference is that the water place of the old zhuang site contains great wisdom, the zhuang infrastructure is built on a solid mountain stone, and there are many green bricks inside, the waterways and yard floor in the courtyard are mostly paved with green bricks, there are vegetable gardens and gardens around the yard, and the rainwater on the green brick ground will automatically flow to the soil of the vegetable garden or garden after the rain, and the water on the ground in the yard after the general heavy rain can hardly see the water. If there is a heavy rainstorm, there are four waterways in the yard that can play its due role.
Father explained to us the special drainage facilities of the old zhuang house, there are waterway culverts in the southeast, southwest, and northwest, all the way down to the river, that is, the rain for a continuous week, can be discharged smoothly, even the exceptionally heavy rain will not be a problem, the rainproof facilities summarized by the ancestors with experience and wisdom can stand the test. Hundreds of years have passed, and the facts have confirmed this.
In that year, after the old village was built, the ancestors were in the right place behind the house, planting four osmanthus trees and four locust trees, which symbolized the eight immortals celebrating life. In addition to being a wind-enclosed tree in Laozhuang, it plays a role in shielding the wind and rain and protecting soil erosion, and it is also a precious wealth left by the ancestors to future generations. Each tree is individual and concave and protruding from its own unique shape. Curiously, two of the trees had a dark brown ganoderma lucidum growing on it, which was irregularly fan-shaped and had a ring-like ribbed surface, which was relatively thick. After many investigations, it turned out to be a kind of tree tongue ganoderma lucidum, which is a fungus in the natural ecology, and not all ancient trees grow. Reishi is a scarce Chinese medicine for fighting cancer, which is valuable and famous.
The two trees behind the house are very peculiar, the lower half has withered, but the upper half is still leafy and vigorous.
Folk ancient architecture is a kind of cultural heritage, is a precious wealth of society, it records the pace of human civilization forward, carries the common emotions of mankind, should strengthen protection.
Writer Profile
Cheng Genzi is a member of the Shaanxi Writers Association and a certified writer in the China Rural Talent Pool. His works have appeared in many newspapers and magazines, the essay "Sunrise Mujiashan" was selected and edited by the 2020 "Selected Contemporary Chinese Essays", the novel collection "True Feelings on Earth", the essay collection "Golden Homeland" novel "Golden Sun", the works have won many awards, "Golden Sun" is collected by Shaanxi Library and Xi'an Beilin District Library.
Excerpt from: Literature Shaanxi Army, copyright belongs to the author.