Xu Xiake: Look at how hard-core outdoor travel bloggers are in the Ming Dynasty!

Nowadays, many people who love outdoor travel open accounts on social media, share the scenery and mood along the way, and interact with netizens. But as early as more than 400 years ago, there was a hardcore outdoor blogger who walked for more than 30 years, inspected the mountains and rivers of the motherland and wrote more than 600,000 words of travel notes. He is called "the miracle of the times", and even a fault in the mid-ocean ridge is named after him. He is Xu Xiake.

After high fitness, I yearn for smoke and clouds.

1587 65438+1On October 5th, a child named "Xu Hongzu" was born in the local Xu family in Jiangyin County (now Jiangyin City, Jiangsu Province).

It is said that Xu Hongzu's great-grandfather was named Xu Jing. After winning the first place in the rural examination, Xu Jing made some friends to go to Beijing to catch the exam. As a result, he was told to bribe the examiner in the high school exam and know the exam questions in advance. This is the famous "cheating case for taking the exam" during Hongzhi's reign. Whether the case was wrong or not is still inconclusive, but at that time, Xu Jing was deprived of fame and qualification for future examinations, and died young at the age of 35. Since then, the Xu family seems to be disheartened about scientific research all the way. In Xu Hongzu's parents' generation, they were even more reluctant to be an official.

Xu Ping's favorite things are traveling and enjoying the scenery. Soon, the father's hobby infected his growing son. When he was young, Xu Hongzu widely read books such as history, geography, adventure and travel notes, and when he grew up, he decided to travel all over the country.

Xu's father is very pure, and Xu's mother is also very open-minded and supports her son's ambition. Xu Hongzu 19 years old, Xu's father died. After mourning for his father for three years, Xu Hongzu began his long-distance travel career with the encouragement of his mother. Xu's mother sewed a "traveling crown" for Xu Hongzu, and accompanied her to visit twice when she was old. During Xu Hongzu's perennial absence, Xu's mother kept everything in order at home, which relieved Xu Hongzu's worries to a great extent.

At the age of 39, Xu Hongzu met Chen Jiru, a great scholar. After listening to his many years' travel experience, Chen Jiru nicknamed him "Chivalrous Man" and said that he was "bent on misty clouds", which won Xu Hongzu's love. From then on, he called himself "Jiang Zuo Xia Ke" and began to make a name for himself.

Not afraid of hardship, up and down.

For more than 30 years, Xu Xiake has traveled to Mount Tai, Yandang Mountain, Huashan Mountain, Huangshan Mountain and other famous mountains 1200. More than 30 major rivers such as the Yangtze River, Jinsha River, Lancang River and Dadu River; Hengyang, Nanning, Lijiang and other cities above 100; There are more than 500 caves, such as Tonggu Cave in Guizhou and Qixing Cave in Guangxi. Guilin alone has 138 caves. Beautiful mountains and rivers and beautiful landforms have cultivated Xu Xiake's lofty spirit of "every time the sun and the moon pass over his shoulders, the mountains and rivers are in the palm of his hand", which can be described as reading the beauty of the world. However, this heroism is based on his wandering career of eating wild vegetables and fruits, sleeping in caves and jungles for more than 30 years, with no smooth road, lying on his couch and living without a fixed place.

According to historical records, Xu Xiake came to Yandang Mountain to look for the salt lake at the top of Yandang Mountain recorded in ancient books. The local guide was frightened by the mountain, pointing to "the three peaks in front are the Wild Goose Lake" and ran away. According to the direction, Xu Xiake crossed the first peak and climbed to the second peak. When the mountain is steep, he can hardly stand on his feet, and the abyss is at his feet. Seeing that there was no way to go, Xu Xiake tied the cloth belt to a rock and hung it down. Suddenly, the cloth belt was broken by a stone. Fortunately, Xu Xiake was very clever and caught a prominent rock. ...

During the journey, he also suffered the death of his companion and escaped twice. On the way of my friend Wenjing's death, a servant took away Xu Xiake's travelling expenses hidden in the salt jar. Later, a servant was so miserable that he fled to western Yunnan without a master. It is conceivable that in the Ming Dynasty, when there were no boats and communications, and when there were no basic equipment such as safety belts, crawling claws, tents, sleeping bags and mountaineering clothes, what kind of life risks he had to take and what kind of hardships he experienced.

For a long time, Xu Xiake lived a life of "dirty feet and clothes" and "lying without food", which often caused him to have symptoms of "weakness of cold sores" and "swelling and pain in his knees". He even suffered from skin poisoning when crossing the land. After years of fatigue, his leg joints were worn out and rheumatism was serious, which led to his "two feet being ruined" and he came to the end of his life only half a year after returning to China.

Pursue science and be brave in criticism.

Xu Xiake's trip is not just a tour, but an investigation with scientific spirit. No matter how difficult the journey is, Xu Xiake will light a bonfire and write down all the experiences of the journey under the flickering dim light, day after day, year after year, uninterrupted, and finally form a precious geographical document, Xu Xiake's Travels.

Xu Xiake's travel notes cover many fields such as culture, history, geography, geology, meteorology, hydrology, customs and economy. , and the distribution of volcanoes, animals and plants, the formation and changes of villages, etc. Its academic and social value is precious.

Xu Xiake thoroughly investigated the causes, characteristics, types and distribution of karst landforms, and told us that caves were formed by mechanical impact and erosion of water, and those grotesque stalactites in caves were formed by evaporation and condensation of water droplets with high calcium content. His research, investigation and writings on karst landforms were one or two hundred years earlier than those of Europeans, and he became a pioneer in the study of karst landforms in the world.

Xu Xiake visited Huangshan twice in 16 16 and 16 18 respectively. At that time, Huangshan was still inaccessible, and the scenic spots we are familiar with now, such as "Guangmingding" and "crucian carp back", were first discovered and recorded by him. After climbing Tiandu Peak, he felt that Lotus Peak was higher, so he climbed Lotus Peak again, which proved that it was the first peak in Huangshan Mountain. According to modern scientific and technological measurements, the elevation of Lotus Peak is indeed 54 meters higher than that of Tiandu Peak, but the distance between them is 1. 1 km. In Xu Xiake's time, it was really not easy to measure with vision and then verify with the most primitive foot strength.

Besides, the most admirable thing about Xu Xiake is that he respects the classics, but he is not superstitious about them. Respect authority, but dare to correct mistakes. Xu Xiake corrected many river mistakes recorded in history books. Gong Yu, a geography book in the Warring States Period, recorded the saying that "the Minjiang River leads the Yangtze River". For a long time, everyone thought that the Minjiang River was the source of the Yangtze River, but Xu Xiake "has Sanqin in the north, Wuling in the south and Shimen Jinsha in the west". Finally, he found that the Jinsha River originated in the southern foot of Kunlun Mountain and was more than 1,000 miles longer than the Minjiang River, so he thought that the Jinsha River was the source of the Yangtze River. 1978, the government of China sent an investigation team to confirm that the proper source of the Yangtze River is Tuotuo River in Gladin Cave, the main peak of Tanggula.

This scientific spirit of correcting mistakes needed courage and confidence at that time, which embodied Xu Xiake's personality cultivation and academic quality of seeking truth and knowledge, and was worthy of admiration by future generations.

Stick to your goals and don't get distracted.

Xu Xiake has a strong sense of direction. He is good at distinguishing the southeast from the northwest in thorns, rocky piles and wind and rain, but his life is more directional. Although the exploration is full of temptations and difficulties, he always has the same goal, firm and tenacious.

Looking back at the history of China, it is not uncommon for people to visit Wan Li, and many of them love mountains and rivers. In the Western Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian went to the Western Regions for thirteen years and made three trips to Fandori. He shouldered the political and military mission, went through hardships and made great contributions to the opening of the Silk Road to the western countries in the Han Dynasty. Sima Qian's three trips to Wan Li in Han Dynasty lasted for 10 years, and his footprints were almost all over the country. His rich travel helped him to write historical records later, and accumulated a solid life foundation and rich social experience.

Li Bai, a great poet in the Tang Dynasty, expressed his deep affection for famous mountains and rivers, sang while walking, expressed his ambition with poems, and spit pearls and sprayed jade, all of which became brilliant treasures in the laurels of China literature. However, he is a literati with political ambitions, and he often sings while walking, waiting for the "call of the son of heaven" step by step. There are also some frustrated bureaucrats. Although it is also hidden in the rivers and lakes, people are in the rivers and lakes, attached to the temple, and eager to be in the Golden Temple.

In contrast, Xu Xiake, who has no political task, has never been mixed with a little political ambition and attempt. He has a clear interest, accurate positioning, sincere writing, and every word and deed. He washed his literary brilliance crystal clear in the holy mountain and holy water, and became one of the intellectuals in China who preserved the traditional literati's character most completely and removed the utilitarian color most thoroughly. Only with such firmness and no other distractions, did he concentrate on traveling and left a noble masterpiece for future generations.

In the late Ming society, dark clouds rolled. Xu Xiake weighed the hot land with his hands and measured Kyushu with his feet. He realized his ambition of "facing the blue sea and facing the sky" all his life. "Bamboo poles and sandals are lighter than horses. Who's scared? A misty rain lasts for a lifetime, like a vigorous grass, weaving a beautiful landscape painting for future generations!

References:

1. Liu Hanjun, the back of AD 1607-commemorating the 400th anniversary of Xu Xiake's scientific research;

2. Zhou Zhongliang's "Xu Xiake, a strange man through the ages";