Gu Ying/Wen
Lianyuan Street is a more famous street in the center of Wuxi City. In 1956, after the public-private partnership, Wang Xingji Wonton Shop was located at the intersection of Zhongshan Road in Lianyuan Street, and what made Lianyuan Street popular for a long time was a famous primary school in the alley---- Lianyuan Street Primary School, whose predecessor was the earliest new-style school in Wuxi's history. In 1897, Yang Mo, a gentleman of Xiyi, chose lianyuan street to set up a school, which is closely related to the history of Lianyuan street.
In the old days, the gate of Lianyuan Street Primary School can be seen on the left side of the picture
Lianyuan Street is located in the northwest of the center of Wuxi Old County, east-west direction, 199 meters long, 3-4 meters wide, north is Dacheng Lane, Lianyuan Street East Lane in Huqiao North Wall, where there was originally a well named "惺堍" Spring; the west end of the lane is the long lane mouth, to the south by the Station Bridge and Fuxing Road, straight to Guanjie Lane, Guanjie Lane West Wall is Wuxi County. In the 1950s, the number of Lianyuan Street was arranged from 1 to 46.
LianYuan Street House (from Guo Weimin)
The name of Lianyuan Street comes from legend, and it is said that this street once had Gu surname Zhuangyuan, Wu surname Huiyuan and Wang surname Xie Yuan, commonly known as Lianzhong Sanyuan. It is also known as Lianyuan Street, but this legend is not supported by local historical documents. However, there was indeed a person named Gu who had lived here, and he was Gu Zhenguan, the great-grandson of Gu Xiancheng, the leader of Donglin in the late Ming Dynasty. Gu Zhenguan was a famous lyricist in the Qing Dynasty, and in the fifth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1666), he participated in the second place in the Shuntianfu Township Examination, and the second place in the Shuntianfu Township Examination was called "Nan yuan", so Gu Zhenguan was not a champion and a Xie yuan, but a southern yuan. Gu Zhenguan's ancestors lived in Jingli (present-day Zhangjing), and later moved to Lianyuan Street in the city. After Gu Zhenguan was promoted to cabinet secretary, his residence in Lianyuan Street was called "Neishidi". Gu Zhenguan presided over the dredging of the "Fountain of Sorrow" at the mouth of the alley. The Guangxu Sikkim County Chronicle records that there was once a "NeishiDi Fang" in Lianyuan Street. Around the time of Jiaqing, due to various reasons, Gu Zhenguan's descendants gradually moved away from Lianyuan Street and opened new homes in Huaishu Lane and Cangqiao, and by the end, There was no longer Gu Zhenguan's descendants living in Lianyuan Street.
Lian Yuan Street House No. 2 (from Guo Weimin)
Compared with the small river, the big river, the big lou lane and other places, Lianyuan Street basically did not have a family family settlement later, the residents' surnames are more diverse, and the relatively large-scale hereditary families mainly include the Cai family, the Yang family, the Wang family and the Fan family. The Cai family lives in the east of Lianyuan Street, the west next door is the Yang family, in the middle of the last century, the Yang family man operated an oil business in Shanghai, the family economic situation is good, but the family source has been unknown, and the local Hongshan Yang clan in Wuxi, xishan Yang clan, Jiangpi Yang clan, etc. are not on the spectrum, so in recent years, the family members have repaired a small-scale family tree, and some of the old appearance of Lianyuan Street has also been recorded in the genealogy. The west of yangjia is a nunnery, the neighborhood is commonly known as "monk's hall", this nunnery has a bit of history, the correct name is "Shangshou An", according to the county records, this nunnery was built by the monk Linruo during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty. Around 1949, the head monk was Daoran, and the common name of Daoran was Chen Guigen, a Changshu person, who moved here from Dongting Jiuli Nunnery. During the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Wuxi County was destroyed by war, after the war, the county government building was not repaired, just in the west of Shangshou'an left a large number of empty houses, so the use of these empty houses as temporary office space, Lianyuan Street once became the seat of the county office, located in the west of the temporary county office next door Fan family, also known as the Department of the West Branch Fan Family, this Fan family is Fan Zhongyan's collateral descendants, belongs to the "LangZhongfang" system. Later, the original county government building was restored, the county government moved back to the office, and the house in the west of Shangshou'an was vacant again, so Yang Mo's school took a fancy to this place, and the Zhenshi Academy took root in Lianyuan Street.
In the 1950s, Lianyuan Street Primary School, which was inherited from the Zhenshi School, expanded the playground and demolished the Fan House, and the residents were scattered in other houses on Lianyuan Street. Most of the Fan family members continued to live in Lianyuan Street until the end of the last century, when the area was completely renovated.
Judging from the "Fan Family Tree", the ancestors of the Fan clan in the West Branch of Lianyuan Street generally served as a kind of work such as the county government staff, so they generally only had false titles and no real positions. In 1948, Fan Mingqin (1878-1957), who was the president of the Tianyun Society, belonged to this Fan clan. His father, Fan Ditai, was such an identity, so his family was well-off, Fan Mingqin could live idly at home, collect rent for a living, and donate the status of a national student and a gentleman in the same state as a candidate state. As a member of the Tianyun Society, Fan Mingqin was known for his proficiency in drum boards. Today, his grandchildren can still recall the drumming and beating the board in his later years.
In his later years, Fan Mingqin
At the flick of a finger, today's Lianyuan Street has no indigenous people, but for more than a hundred years, the sound of reading still reverberates in the alley, but the sound of Fan Lao's dusk drum board has long been gone forever.