Travel Notes on Ancient Towns in Xinshi: Bridge Culture and “Celebrity Effect”

When I came to Xinshi Ancient Town, what impressed me most was the stone bridge here.

There are many ancient old bridges here, all of which are short, span narrow rivers and are practical. Most of these stone bridges have similar shapes, but the stories behind them are different. Let’s pick up a few and talk about them first.

Among the bridges in Xinshi Ancient Town, the Taiping Bridge built on the Xiaoxi River is the most conspicuous and the oldest. It is almost as old as the founding history of Xinshi Ancient Town. It was built in the Jin Dynasty and stabilized in the Song Dynasty. The design of single hole + stone pillar is very beautiful. Viewed from the side, half of the stone arch and its reflection in the water form a large circle.

Xinshi people say that the Taiping Bridge has been protected as a historic site during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and its current state has basically maintained its appearance when it was last renovated 120 years ago. The stone lions are also historical relics from the same era. People in the town are often unstable when running boats and doing business. With this lion "controlling" them, they want to have peace of mind and peace.

Taiping Bridge is also a "custom bridge".

In the old days, men and women in the new town had to walk grandly across this bridge on their wedding day, which heralded "a peaceful life." Later, walking on the Taiping Bridge became a customary ritual. Anyone who has a daughter-in-law giving birth, a child who is one month old, an old man celebrating his birthday, etc. will walk on this bridge to seek good luck.

Of course, tourists will also take a walk. But remember, don't look back when you leave, so that you can leave all your worries and sorrows on the other side of the bridge.

As we mentioned in our previous travel notes, the nickname "Xiantan" of the ancient town of Xinshi is derived from the story of Lu Xiujing, the "ancestral master" of Taoism, and the culture derived from this has affected Xinshi The naming of buildings and bridges. For example, the Zhuangyuan Bridge in Beizha also has a name called "Xuanwu Bridge". If you follow the history of this bridge and go back a thousand or eight hundred years, you will find that the regional planning of new cities in history itself has obvious differences. Bagua means that Qinglong Bridge, White Tiger Bridge, Suzaku Bridge and Xuanwu Bridge have all four elements...

In fact, roads and bridges both belong to the category of "Feng Shui" in Taoist culture. "Those who have five elements in circulation are destined to be rich and prosperous." Bridges are undulating objects and have the function of communication. Bridges with good Feng Shui have auspicious meanings of "promotion" and "noble people".

Pictured: The architectural scenery under the Xinshi Bridge

This Zhuangyuan Bridge is a bridge with a story.

It is said that there was a famous figure in the town in the Southern Song Dynasty named Wu Qian, who was a famous official of that period. In the feudal era, passing the imperial examination was the first step for a person to rise to the top, and Wu Qian succeeded in this "step" in his life - he was admitted to the first place in the imperial examination in his early 20s, and rose through the ups and downs of the official career, becoming a The pride of the whole clan and even the whole town.

Wu Qian was a philanthropist and valued talents. He helped the court develop water conservancy and was also knowledgeable about strategy. Not only did he have a prosperous official career, he was also very talented. He was a famous poet of that dynasty and left a lot of achievements for later generations. works. But when I went to look through his lyrics, I found that although Wu Qian was once a prime minister, his works were full of depressive emotions:

"There is no way to serve the country without complaining; Who can I tell you when I have advice? "

"Where do you want to go when you travel to the south and north of the Yangtze River?"

Reading Wu Qian's words seems to be full of ups and downs, but in fact it is full of frustration. of depression.

Throughout Wu Qian's life, he contributed most of his life to the imperial court. However, in the special historical environment of the Southern Song Dynasty, when he was "shameful and disgraceful", he had no choice but to express his desire to serve the country and find no way to serve the country. All of them were pinned in his poems, but he was worried about the country and the people but could do nothing about it; although for a small town in the south of the Yangtze River, he could be called a typical representative of "one person achieves enlightenment, and chickens and dogs ascend to heaven", but in the end he failed due to various reasons. Didn't end well.

Historical records indicate that Wu Qian was dismissed from office in his later years due to jealousy and frame-up. Although his old age was miserable, Wu Qian was a generous man and never forgot his roots. After his "retirement", he opened an academy in Wu's home in the ancient town of Xinshi, aiming to cultivate future talents for the country. Unfortunately, in the end, he did not escape the fate of becoming a victim of the power struggle and was poisoned to death.

The Zhuangyuan Bridge in the ancient town of Xinshi is near his house and is named after his story. As Wu Qian's "only way" to embark on his official career, Zhuangyuan Bridge has become one of the best "auspicious bridges" among the "seventy-two bridges" in the ancient town of Xinshi. Any student who has a family will also walk on it, ask for a title on the gold list, and "cross" the ups and downs Wu Qian has experienced in his life. Zhuangyuan Bridge and Taiping Bridge together form the bridge to "successfully reach the other shore".

Speaking of which, Wu Qian’s contribution to the history of Xinshi is closely related to the Taoist “leader” Lu Xiujing mentioned in his previous travel notes: When Lu Xiujing lived in seclusion in the ancient town of Xinshi, he lived in In a small house next to the Dongzha Water Pool, it is said that whenever Lu Xianren bathes in the pool, "Taoguang" will appear in the sky, so it is called "Xiantan". 800 years later, Wu Qian wrote the word "Xiantan" in his own handwriting, which has since become a "Jiangnan legend" and once overshadowed the name of "New City".

There are also:

There are also bridges related to Lu Xiujing in the ancient town of Xinshi:

After Lu Xiujing "drove the crane to the west", people built a bridge to drive the immortal beside this Wangxiantan. , in the Southern Song Dynasty, another Luxian Tower was built in Dongzha, which was protected as a cultural relic in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Influenced by Lu Xiujing, many buildings and bridges in the ancient town of Xinshi still have the word "Xian" in their names.

The ancient architectural styles and folk culture preserved in the new city are all integrated with the spirit of "celebrity effect" from different eras, and their influence is far-reaching and fascinating. When I visited the Xinshi Cultural and History Museum, I was surprised to find that this unknown water town in the south of the Yangtze River had so many famous people in its history. Among them is one named Chen Ting, who is worth mentioning.

Chen Ting was a Jinshi and scholar in the Ming Dynasty and a native of Deqing. His life was somewhat similar to that of Wu Qian: both had ups and downs in their official careers. But Chen Ting was lucky enough to be rehabilitated in middle age, and then he wisely told his "old age" and returned home.

Perhaps because of his plain-minded nature and ability to make choices, Chen Ting's truly "brilliant" life began when he was far away from the court.

After returning to his hometown, Chen Ting began to concentrate on writing books. In the remaining decades of his life, he successively created and compiled "Xiantan Zhi", "Two Mountains Mo Tan", and "Zhu Shan Tang Ci Hua" and other works, leaving behind precious records such as "Three Ponds at Night" and "Ten Scenes of Immortal Ponds", which provide a large number of valuable documents for future generations to study the history, humanity and landscape of Xinshi Ancient Town, and also provide a basis for this article I wrote. The travel notes provide detailed and testable materials. Anyway, thank you to him (manually put my palms together).

Contrary to the resentment and self-repression written by Prime Minister Wu Qian, the temperament between the lines of Chen Ting's poems is much more leisurely and indifferent: "The delicate fragrance of the grass is touched by the traces of footsteps, and the east wind opens the door to more guests. The bamboos are left with new shoots for tea. Material, the tree uses its abundant shade to cover the wine statue." Look, these sentences reveal the transparent mood of being bearish and "letting go".

If Chen Ting's contribution to the ancient town of Xinshi lies in "literary", then Zhu Si lies in "martial arts".

There are actually very few historical materials about Zhu Si's life. I only found a short description of him from "Xiantan Zhi" compiled by Chen Ting: Zhu Xu and his wife from Fengyang Sizhou stayed in Xinjiang with the army. City, birthday Zhu Si. Zhu Si's (uncle) grandfather and uncle were both generals of the Wu State during the Three Kingdoms period, and his father was the "general who controlled the country" of that dynasty (some say it was Zhu Si himself). Zhu Si was born into a family of generals, and took the character "Si" from his ancestral home as his ancestral home, and became the "founder" of the ancient town of Xinshi.

In the Jin Dynasty in 308 AD, people from Lu Shi next door moved to the new city because of flooding in their hometown. It was General Zhu Si who led a group of people to dig the Jiangnan Canal and the local section of the channel. In addition, the "Ten Scenic Spots of Fairy Lake" were initially formed with Zhu Si's participation in the "planning". In order to commemorate Zhu Si, later generations built a temple for him, and they would offer incense and worship every Qingming Festival, praying that his "spirit" in heaven would bless the people of the place and have good weather in the coming year. With the prosperity of the population along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the prosperity of the new sericulture trade, this custom developed into the "Fragrant Market" - the famous annual folk event "Silkworm Fair" in the ancient town of Xinshi mentioned in the previous travel notes. The predecessor of the Flower Temple Fair.

There was also a famous artist named Shen Quan in the history of Xinshi.

Shen Quan was a court painter appointed by the Qing Dynasty. He was also the first painter in history to travel overseas to teach Chinese painting techniques. He has a high reputation. At that time, people with such "identity" usually either had a foundation from a famous family or a scholarly family background, but Shen Quan had neither of these. He was originally from a poor family, and his family ran a small business when he was young.

Growing up, Shen Quan’s closest contact with art was watching the small handicrafts his father played with, and going to the town to watch painters painting live during the "Fragrant Market". Over time, Shen Quan acquired some talents in pen and ink, and his artistic path was enlightened.

At the age of twenty, Shen Quan finally had the opportunity to "take control" of his own life, and that's when he officially began to learn painting. Since the two teachers he studied successively were both good at flowers and birds, they laid a solid foundation for him to establish the "Nanping School of Painting".

The biggest feature of Shen Quan's paintings is the exquisite composition, which distinguishes the levels of everything on the plane without "transgressing". With his exquisite brushwork, the objects on the paper are particularly flexible and vivid. In Jiangnan, where colors were highly valued at that time, Among the painters, he appears quite different.

There is this saying: In the Jiangnan painting circle at that time, if Shen Quan thought he was second, no one would dare to say that he was first. The former residence of Shen Quan still remains in the ancient town of Xinshi, and there is also the "Shen Quan Research Society" to gather his works and hone his artistic skills for future generations.

The ancient town of Xinshi has a history of 1,200 years. In fact, it was "finalized" 500 years ago. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties when the ancient canal was most prosperous, Xinshi had already been a commercialized existence. , but now it has become a lot "lighter", or in other words: precipitated.

The ancient town of Xinshi has settled down, hiding long-lasting stories and forgotten people. The ding-dong of copper and silver trading is intertwined with the sound of oars paddling under the eaves, the chatter of parents on the shore, and the sounds of drinking tea and cracking melon seeds under the eaves - they have a long history, and they can be developed by you and passed down by me.

I am Sister Dahong, the anchor of the audio radio travel channel, a professional travel player, focusing on niche gameplay and sharing unpopular destinations.

Travel is not an attitude, it is life itself.