Nodeng, a famous historical and cultural village in China
Norden Trail
Author Xu Wenzhou text/photo
For a long time in history, salt existed as a state of hard currency, and its importance in ancient times was comparable to today's oil. Salt wells are the source of every salt horse trail. The salt horse ancient road in Yunnan is different from the start and end time of the tea horse ancient road, first salt and then tea, all overlapped at the historical level, intertwined, interconnected, and even have roughly the same mileage and radiation radius. The Yunnan Yanma Ancient Road originated in the Han Dynasty, flourished in the Tang Dynasty, and flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Roughly speaking, there are two main routes of the Yanma Ancient Road: one is the Yunnan-Tibet Line. That is, from Pu'er in Yunnan in the south, through Dali, Lijiang, Zhongdian and Deqin, it reaches Zuogong, Bunda, Qamdo, Luolongzong, Lhasa in Tibet, and then radiates to Myanmar, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, India and other countries; the other is the Sichuan-Tibet Line. That is, from Ya'an, Sichuan, through Luding, Kangding, Batang, Qamdo, Lhasa, and then radiated to Nepal, India and other countries. In ancient times, salt-rich places were often easily developed into regional commercial centers, and there were countless important towns for salt on the Yunnan-Tibet Line of the Yanma Ancient Road.
Like the place where Yunnan once produced salt, the ancient village of Nodeng, which is 3 kilometers away from the county seat of Yunlong County, can still see the faint smoke of boiling salt rising every morning. The horseshoe print on the stone slab of the ancient road is the oldest text about Norden, recording the joys and sorrows of the salt. Since the Nanzhao of the Tang Dynasty and the Dali State of the Song Dynasty, the Salt Horse Ancient Road of Nodeng has passed through Tubo in the north, Jinya and Tengyue in the south. During the Ming Dynasty, the imperial court set up the "Five Wells Salt Class Lifting Division" in Nuodeng, which is one of the seven major salt lifting divisions in the country and the axis of the ancient salt horse road leading to all parts of western Yunnan.
Norden's wealth is leached with salt, and the days are salty, not necessarily bitter. The salt road is very salty, but it has finally faded into the folds of history. When the sea salt is produced in large quantities, the Norden salt fades out of the "salty evil" rivers and lakes, and only a salt horse ancient road with seven breaks and eight connections remains in the millennium, which is soaked alternately by drought and rain. Today's Norden people still pump brine under the ancestral house, put it into an iron pot, and boil a pot of water to make fine salt in the morning and dusk of light smoke. This is a continuation of the shangshang. In Norden, every facade of the road has been turned into a shop, and the salt of Norden is always placed in the most prominent position.
Who was the first to pick up the waters of the No river and smell the delicate gossamer of salt? Only the ancestors who came from the source scooped out the brine in the unfathomable cave. How humble and stoic it was for those ragged provincials to win the acceptance of the locals and become the early inhabitants of Norden. Throughout the Chinese dynasties, salt has always been related to the silver of white flowers, and the checkpoints and salt divisions set up for salt have managed the wealth that flows because of salt, and salt has been an important source of tax revenue for the imperial court for a long period of history. The road to selling salt is full of dangers and variables, and some salt-carrying people have never returned after leaving Norden. Some salt merchants, of course, became rich, built land, built houses, married wives and children, added mules and horses, and continued to expand their financial roads.
The salt well in Norden Village is located at the bottom of the village by the No river, and the newly built protected house 5 years ago covers the somewhat decadent old salt well. Every visitor to Norden will learn an important lesson in the thousand-year history of Norden here, that is, the inextricable connection between well salt and a village. In the past, there were about 80 stove households (people who boiled salt) in Norden, engaged in technical work such as boiling salt and firing salt. In 1995, the salt well in Norden Village officially stopped production, and a small number of people close to the brine house used their free time to make cylinder salt, which was sold as a tourist commodity to supplement the family. Compared with the winches to lift the brine, modern people only need to close the electric gate at home, and the electricity drives the pumping equipment to pump the brine from the deep well to the iron pot.
"Ten thousand horses salt ba thousand stone rice, merchants sit on Jia to exchange secrets." Department store circulation ten earth qi, when the bell rings in the road. Reading Norden's ancient poem that has survived to this day, you can still imagine the prosperity of The salt industry in Norden.
(Author Affilications:Fengqing County Market Supervision and Administration Bureau)