What secrets are hidden behind "Suzhou" on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau?

Anshun is located in the central and western part of Guizhou and is world-famous for Huangguoshu Waterfall. However, what few people know is that Anshun, as the place where the Ming army marched into Yunnan, is known as the "belly of Guizhou, the throat of Yunnan, and the lips and teeth of Guangdong and Shu".

In the twenty-eighth year of the Yuan Dynasty (1368), Zhu Yuanzhang officially proclaimed himself emperor. At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the whole country was in turmoil, especially Basara Valmi, the king of Liang in the old Yuan Dynasty of Yunnan, who supported the army. 100,000 to fight against the imperial court.

In August of the fourteenth year of Hongwu (1381), Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the southern general Yingchuan Hou Fu Youde to lead a Ming army of 300,000 troops to attack Yunnan. On December 11, Fu Youde entered Guizhou. In the fifteenth year of Hongwu (1382), the Ming army attacked Dali, destroyed the Duan regime and pacified the entire territory of Yunnan. In order to prevent the disaster from happening again, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered 200,000 southern troops to be stationed on the spot and garrisoned troops to intimidate all parties. As a result, elite troops from the south of the Yangtze River and the Central Plains deployed their defenses along the choke points across the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, established garrison posts, and stationed themselves in accordance with the Ming army's organization.

However, the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau is vast and sparsely populated, and it is difficult to transport food in a remote location. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang listened to the suggestion of "preparing the border with foot soldiers and foot soldiers in farming" and ordered farming. At the same time, the Ming Dynasty government moved more than 1 million Han descendants from Jiangnan and Huguang areas to various parts of Guizhou for long-term development through the immigration policy of "widening rural areas" and the "three-third-one-one-out" method.

After six hundred years of ups and downs, the Jiangnan children who were used as "chess pieces" in the hands of Zhu Yuanzhang and the generals who conquered the south were forced to move to the mountains of Qianzhou to reclaim wasteland, build villages, forts, bridges and houses. , Jiangnan small towns were built on this barren land. It’s still the Central Plains accent, the Fengyang costumes, and the Jiangnan architecture. Even though they have been away from home for more than six hundred years, they still stubbornly retain everything in their hometown.

I am accustomed to researching the local history and culture before going to a place. Like Mr. Yu Qiuyu, the places I particularly want to visit are always places where ancient culture and literati have left deep footprints. ?Compared with the world-famous Huangguoshu Waterfall, I am more looking forward to Tunpu, which is known as the "living fossil of Ming Dynasty history".

On the second day after visiting Huangguoshu Waterfall, I said goodbye to my friends and headed alone to Yunfeng Tunbao, located fifteen kilometers east of Anshun City. We took an old-fashioned shuttle bus and took a country road. People got on the bus one after another along the way, and most of them were elderly women over sixty years old, all dressed in the same way. If they hadn't known about it in advance, they would have thought they were another ethnic minority in Guizhou.

I was bored and took a closer look. I saw a cyan or blue long-sleeved robe, knee-length, with flowing embroidery patterns on the collar, cuffs, and edges of the front, and a green and black piece tied in front of the waist. The apron is ankle-length and has a black wide band around the waist. Their hair accessories are unprecedented. They are all in buns, their ears are covered with small pieces of hair, and they are wrapped in black bandanas with silver or jade crosses.

Sit until you get off at the end, which is Yunfeng Tunbao. Looking across a field of farmland, the buildings are indeed different from those in other places in Guizhou, more like a small town in the south of the Yangtze River, with tall watchtowers. At this time, the sky, which was still scorching hot, began to darken again, strong winds began to blow, and dark clouds pressed in. The rain in Guizhou is always coming, and a heavy rain seemed unavoidable, so I hurriedly walked into the village.

As I got closer, I realized that the houses were all built of stone, with stone roofs and stone roofs, stone streets and stone walls, stone mills and mills, and stone pots and jars. The tile roof is the most peculiar, with square stone slabs stacked one on top of the other, with the bottom stone slab covering the eaves with its edges pointed downwards. It is well-proportioned and very beautiful. There is a small, low stone gate that can only accommodate three or four people abreast. It is against the wall of the alley. Many of the walls have peeled off, exposing the bricks inside. Most of the walls have smaller windows, and the wooden window frames are still in the ancient grid system, with perfect symmetry. He was several feet taller than a human being. Looking inside, it was dark, like deep bullet holes all over the alley. It was impossible for anyone to open it.

The rain began to fall, and there were not many tourists. Occasionally, small groups of people walked slowly and watched. They are all enclosed courtyards with a very different architectural style from Guizhou. There are houses on three sides, leaving only one side as the main entrance. The yard is small, and some of it is no longer occupied, but many things are still there. Various worn bamboo farm tools are hung on the walls, and the red couplets on the door frames have also peeled off.

Suddenly there was a heavy rain, thunder rumbled, and white lightning rolled over from a distance.

I walked into a nearby house to take shelter from the rain. It turned out to be the Tunpu Residential Exhibition Hall. There are already many tourists hiding from the rain inside. Some are sitting on the old wooden chairs in the room chatting, and some are walking slowly and looking around. The display in the main room deliberately preserves the original appearance of the ancient times. Opposite the door is a shrine and a Buddhist altar, with wooden tables and chairs arranged symmetrically on both sides. There are small doors leading to the side rooms on both sides and the back room. The rooms are not large, but the items displayed in each room are different. There are carved wooden beds, wood and stone farm tools, and tables and chairs for resting. There is also a back door in the back room, and there is a small courtyard when you walk out. The other side is against the mountain. Looking up, you can see a watchtower sitting on the mountainside. It is said that this was once a defensive stronghold in the village.

The rain gradually stopped and everyone started to take action again. Walking together with a young couple who came from Xi'an, they cautiously entered the courtyard of a house where people lived. The owner was sitting at the door chatting, a middle school-looking child was sitting next to him doing homework, and the aroma of food wafted from the kitchen.

Seeing that we were here to visit the old house, the owner warmly welcomed us in and introduced us, "You can see this, the old wooden windows with hand-carved patterns are hard to see now." ? She pointed to the two pillars in front of the main house and said, ? The stone piers under the pillars are also carved, which is very exquisite. ?I can hear the deep pride in her voice, which is exactly the same as the pride when the owner of the Fu Family Courtyard in Zhenyuan introduced the old house to us last year. It is the pride of her own culture. Because of her pride, I also became happy. I walked over and knelt down to look at the stone pier. There were six neat sides, each with different patterns carved on them. They were badly weathered and I couldn't see the details clearly. , guessed to be several kinds of exotic birds and animals.

The ancients advocated wood carvings and stone carvings. Generally, those with a wealthy family would have carvings on their homes and buildings, including exotic flowers, plants, birds and animals. On the one hand, they could protect the house from evil spirits, and on the other hand, they would also be beautiful and pleasing to the eye. Compared with the sameness of modern steel and concrete, the aesthetics of the ancients is really more than a little bit higher. However, every era has its own aesthetic standards, which ultimately depend on the level of productivity at that time. Maybe people in the future thousands of years from now will lament that the beauty of architecture in the 21st century cannot be achieved.

As I was thinking about it, I turned around and saw a small willow branch stuck on the owner's head and on the door. I curiously asked what it was for. She smiled and replied, "Putting willows during the Qingming Festival. Our custom here can ward off evil spirits." "Inserting willow branches during the Qingming Festival is probably not just a custom here. It has been recorded in "Qi Min Yao Shu" as early as "Qi Min Yao Shu". "Putting willow branches on the door will keep all ghosts away from the house." ?It’s just that I haven’t really seen this custom with my own eyes until now. In my hometown, the custom of planting wormwood on the Dragon Boat Festival is becoming less and less. So I often think that the fact that Guizhou’s rich national culture has been well preserved is closely related to its long-term isolation and underdevelopment.