Xiang Travel Diary The second boat passed the Liulin Branch and arrived at Wuqiang Creek

When Shen Congwen wrote about Willow Branch, he spared no effort in praising: "This is the first time in my life that I have seen such a beautiful place. It is grand and beautiful, it is really a strange place. Thousands of houses are covered with snow, and the mountains are all covered. The color is purple, the sparse forest stretches for three or four miles, and the forest is full of white roofs...it can't be compared to any paintings of the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty. "However, after 1976, I saw the willow forest. The river has lost the charming appearance that Mr. Shen saw, and the houses on the shore are decadent. Although I have not gone ashore, I can still feel the deserted and lifeless scenery. Only a section of bamboo trees not far away is still green, which comforts my longing for the past. Times change, but our memory of someone remains the same.

----Wanderer, follow nature

According to days, November 24th was still late autumn in Hunan, but in fact, in the narrow town near the river, the scenery at night The temperature was already around freezing, and coupled with the humidity, the cold feeling was quite uncomfortable. In this situation, a hot bed should be the most attractive place in the world - getting up at five in the morning is really impossible without enough perseverance.

At 5:40, I crossed the Yuanjiang Dam from Niaorong to the boat dock on the other side. It was exactly six o'clock. It was still dark, and the river wind was so strong that it hurt my face, but I couldn't see the shadows of the trees blown by the wind. Vaguely, I could see the boat moving on the dock, but there was no light.

Waiting until 6:18, I finally heard a noise on the boat, and then a flashlight turned on. I shouted as if I was being saved: Ship boss, when will the ship sail? The boss didn't tell me the time, he just said: "Why don't you get on the boat?"

I didn’t know that after arriving at the pier, passengers can actually board the ship directly and wait. The cabin door is open, which protects them from the cold wind. This is no small matter. The 18 minutes I just stood on the pier felt no shorter than 80 minutes. There was deathly silence all around, not even a barking dog, the cold wind seemed to be going in and out of my body, the darkness in the world was like a monster, and I was as helpless as an ant. I felt a little unreasonably annoyed, so I asked again when the boat would sail. The boss finally answered accurately that the boat would sail at 6:40. It was five minutes before leaving the ship.

A motor boat can accommodate about 30 people. Such boats are now very common on the Yuanshui River. They are neither the Yayang boat called "Loach Fish Head" or "Wuchangzi" that Shen Congwen said, nor the "Taoyuan Boat" that Shen Congwen took. They are medium-sized passenger boats among slow boats, such as The "big flight" from the Clippers is much slower.

When we set off from Lingjintan, there were only three guests on the boat, and I was a little worried that the boss of the boat would lose money on this trip. What happened next swept away this worry. This boat is just like the agricultural buses on land. When it meets the village stop, it collects all the way there. Generally, there are only overloaded ones and no missed ones. This is a depressing thing for me. Time has become a rubber band that can be pulled at will. It can be longer or shorter, and there is no precise number.

At the first stop, the boat was delayed for ten minutes at a place called Yexi because of waiting for someone. After that, villages continued to appear along the way, and people kept getting on the boat, in twos and threes, and the boat was almost full. The pleasantries were interrupted, the parents were in conflict, a child was passed around in the hands of several women, and they were talking about breast milk, and some people took out poker cards to play. The boat couldn't help but become lively, and the sky was bright at this time, as if it was being controlled by these people. Wake up.

I couldn’t participate in the rough and vivid things in front of me, so I could only write the following lines of poetry on my phone’s notepad:

“Before seven o’clock, the river surface was still an ink-colored abyss.

I can’t see the movement of the water

The boat is definitely moving forward even though it’s against the current

I can’t feel the movement of the boat

Only the movement on both sides of the bank The hillsides and woods

change their silhouettes when you look closely

There are clips of dogs barking and figures walking in the shadows of lights."

"The people in the cabin were silent Sitting

Getting up too early and continuing to take a nap

If you look closely, you can see the light in the pupils

There is a cigarette butt that is dazzlingly red

< p> You can clearly see the deformation of each tobacco pipe during the burning

It reflects the brightness of the lower jaw deeply"

"Black, dimmed

White, on the river Steaming up

The black coals of the night turn into white ashes in the morning light

You can see the Yuan Shui fogging up

Hazy in the fairy-like gauze

Autumn morning in the land of Furong

Yuan water is the blue of virgin veins"

"I walked to the boatman to talk

At this time, I can see his face clearly

See the boulder-like material on the river beach in his eyes

I want to tell him that I am not the same as the scenery Shen Congwen has seen

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I want to tell him about those unrecoverable years

In fact, I can’t say it all

The boatman changed his dialect and broken Mandarin

Tell me to arrive at Wuqiang Creek soon

Because the left bank is the Liulin Branch at this time"

Liulin Branch was written as "Liu Lincha" in Shen Congwen's pen, There is only one word difference, but there is a difference between water and land. Without careful consideration, I agree with the word "branch" marked on today's map.

When Shen Congwen wrote about Willow Forest Branch, he spared no effort in praising: "This is the first time in my life that I have seen such a beautiful place. It is grand and beautiful. It is really a strange place. Thousands of houses are covered with snow, the mountains are all purple, and the sparse forests stretch for three miles. For four miles, the forest is full of white roofs...Nothing can match the paintings of the Tang Dynasty and the Song Dynasty. I won't hate it even if I look at it for a year. "However, after 1976, Mr. Shen has lost sight of the willow trees. The charming appearance, the decadent houses on the shore, and the deserted and lifeless feeling even without going ashore. Only a stretch of bamboo trees not far away is still green, which comforts my longing for the past.

Shen Congwen mentioned Liu Lincha in his "Xiangxing Slips" to Zhang Zhaohe. At that time, they had just been married for four months. I have read this thin little book several times, and every time I can feel the willful sincerity in it, as well as the care and obsession for the person I love. Mr. Shen was 32 years old at that time. Thinking about it, when he was 32 years old, he seemed to be still a big kid. He felt that life was really fun. Although he had suffered many losses, he did not hold grudges and looked forward to the future with a smile. Mr. Shen, 32, is extremely cute in my eyes.

When Shen Congwen mentioned the Liulin branch, he also mentioned gold - "There is gold in the place, and there are people panning for gold in the water in winter!" The Yuanjiang river bed produces gold. It is said that the gold rush boat from Taoyuan to Yuanling takes Counting thousands of boats, the damage to the river bed and water quality pollution is not minor. I don't know whether what Shen Congwen saw was purely human or semi-mechanical operation. Today's gold mining boats have huge horsepower and can easily dig out and tear the river bed full of holes. Human desire, his fearless performances in different forms can be seen in every corner of the world.

From Lingjin Beach to Wuqiang Creek, in addition to the kind of mobile gold mining boats that can be seen everywhere, I also saw several motor shafts, which are composed of huge bases and several barges. The red flag was waving, very impressive. It is said that many gold mining boats are illegal mining, so what is this kind of red flag waving about?

At 8 o'clock in the morning, the boat arrived at Xinglong Street, and there were only three people left in the boat. Xinglong Street is a big town in this area, and it feels like a big market where people from rural areas in their hometown go. Five or six new boat passengers came from Xinglong Street, and then continued towards Wuqiang River. When Shen Congwen's ship docked at Xinglong Street 76 years ago, it was his birthday. Judging from his account, he seemed to be in a panic. It was cold and lonely, and he cut his flesh to please the boatmen and sailors, but he could not understand it. There was no other way but to rub his frozen fingers and borrow a pen to write coquettishly to his Sansan on paper.

On Xinglong Street, I saw the kind of tourist ferry that is common on the southeast coast. It is much more fashionable than the motor boat I took. I heard from the boat boss that the charter fee for this boat is only 400 yuan, which is much better than the one I took yesterday. The 600 I heard about the narrow cap is still 200 less, which makes me feel that the banknotes here are more valuable than those in Beijing. However, whether due to operating license or technical reasons, this type of cruise ship currently only operates short-distance voyages from Lingjin Beach to Xinglong Street.

Another gold mining boat passed by, and a young man jumped on it, holding a few newspapers in his hand. As soon as he sat down, the newspaper was picked up by the people next to him. This made my heart move, but I was embarrassed to reach out. . Information is really tempting. My phone first became mute on the Z17. After I arrived in Taoyuan, even my Google registration failed. I couldn’t access the Internet, and my Weibo account was turned off and I couldn’t log in. I really became completely outside the world, but I didn't feel as frightened as I did in the big city. It’s good to cut it off. Isn’t what I want from this trip just to be relaxed and simple in my heart and mind?

At 10:50, the boat arrived at Wuqiang Creek. The flight that was said to take 3 hours actually took 4 hours. If you count from when I got up, it took nearly 6 hours. I complained to the boss of the ship that it was too slow, and somehow he mentioned the construction process of Wuqiangxi Hydropower Station, which sounded even slower—it took 44 years from survey to use. According to public information, the hydropower station began surveying in 1952. Construction started and stopped twice in 1956 and 1980. Construction resumed in April 1986. The first unit generated electricity in December 1994, and all units were put into operation at the end of 1996.

The ship owner also complained to me that because the Wuqiang River Dam is currently unnavigable, it has cut off their business on longer voyages. This means that his boat could have sailed directly to Yuanling County, or even further waterways. Because of this, I had to get off the boat here, walk for a quarter of an hour from the pier to the center of Wuqiangxi Town, and transfer to the "Xiaomian" in front of a "Dongsheng Hotel" to go to the Wuqiangxi Hydropower Station Dam. I also took the bus again. The boat goes to the dock in Yuanling County. The speed of the shuttle boat varies. The fast boat takes 100 minutes and costs 40 yuan; the slow boat takes about 4 hours and costs 25 yuan.

Along the way, the sky has been cloudy, and at this time, it is pouring autumn rain. The last boat I caught was at 12:30. The boat owner said that this trip was an overtime boat and would cost ten yuan more. It also took 20 minutes longer to arrive at the Yuanling County Pier. This was my "Hunan Travel Diary" plan. A large pier that is rarely encountered during the trip.

The rain was getting heavier, and the water was endless. I wiped off the wet rain and mist on my forehead, and looked around. The river was majestic, like a bold man with his arms open, and the water was flowing west to east. I was in a vast and vast country, and in a flash I completely understood Shen Congwen's loneliness, which was ups and downs along the way. I asked in the dock dispatching room that there is a shuttle boat to Luxi from Yuanling to the south, but the route to Fengtan from the north has been blocked due to the dam construction of the hydropower station. I traveled all the way south from Beijing and wandered here. Before I could take a good breather, I decided to rest in Yuanling for two days before heading west.

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With the desire to follow nature from afar,

the connection between truth and goodness can be found in the unique natural protection and nourishment

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