MiaoGang past (8)

Hutang Road is an ancient post road on the south bank of Taihu Lake, which still exists today.

From the horizontal fan to Wudu, the capital of Qidu, along the "36 mouths and 72 mouths" of Taihu Lake, there are actually small rivers in the north and south direction. There are villages on both sides of every river. Hutang Road connects large and small villages in series and becomes a traffic artery. Every river along Hutang Road has a stone bridge called "Tangqiao", mostly a single-hole bridge or a three-hole stone arch bridge with different styles.

My old house is next to Miaogang Old Street, which is Hutang Road. I still vaguely remember that the temple port is just outside my home, the river is clear and ships come and go. Lion Bridge is less than 100 meters away from home. The bridge is very old and small, and the mottled cement particles are conspicuous. Only a pair of little stone lions stand proudly on the railing of the bridge, full of energy. There used to be an aquatic product line by the bridge. The ground inside is wet all the year round, and people inside wear rain boots and leather jackets all the year round. Walking in front of the door is always a bit disgusting fish smell. There is a red brick tile house in the south of Lion Bridge, where a group of middle-aged men in black are gathered. They are porters and stevedores, all of whom are strong. In addition to loading and unloading goods for supply and marketing cooperatives, grain management offices and other units, people around the town have to pay for building houses and transporting bricks and sand for them. In cold and hot weather, it's easy to walk on a long and narrow springboard with it on your back. Sometimes the hull is low, the river bank is high and the springboard is steep. Every time they walk, it is a high-risk action. They often shout boring songs, keep pace with each other and walk step by step to the shore. ...

The east and west ends of the narrow old street are connected with the narrow Hutang Road. I started from home, crossed half Miaogang Street, and then walked a few miles of Hutang Road, and my grandmother's house was not far away.

A pond bridge to the west of Lion Bridge is called "Lixian Harbor Bridge". According to legend, Taihu Lake is a secluded boating place in Heshi, hence the name Lixian County. Hutang Road made several more turns at Lixian Port, because it is a big village. Farmers along the road have a threshing floor (paddy field), and many families have also opened up a little farmland around the threshing floor, planted onions and garlic, made tofu in the back room, and went out to pick garlic leaves, which did not delay the production of a simple grain at all. It is made of brick with a smooth cement board on it, which is a washboard for every household. A well is often dug at the edge of the board. When washing clothes and quilts, the bucket went down and the rope was lifted. The bucket somersaults in the well water and is full of water. Then the left and right hands alternately pull up a bucket of water. Some women scrub with a washboard, some scrub on a cement board, and some wash their feet in a basin. Some women have great strength, and the water splashed on the cement board can also splash on pedestrians walking on the lake pond road. ...

In the summer evening, there are people enjoying the cool on both sides of Hutang Road. People spilled well water all the way early, and the water was quickly sucked up by the hot ground. In a few hours, the ground will get cold. At that time, a bamboo bed could accommodate the whole family, old and young, and some people sat on folding stool and low stools to see where to sit cool. Everyone is chatting at home, shaking the cattail leaf fan, chatting about new things and greeting acquaintances passing by Hutang Road. In the air, there are wisps of flowers floating from the front and back of the house, floating on the long lake pond road.

There will be a grocery store every once in a while on Hutang Road, serving farmers within a few miles of Fiona Fang. On Hutang Road, children my age can often be seen skipping to the store in three steps and two steps, holding an empty bottle in their hands. Children like to help make soy sauce and sell rice wine at home. Small change is their own money, so they can buy snacks to eat, even if it rains. The little man, with a big umbrella for adults and a pair of exaggerated rain boots, walked on the Hutang Road and looked lonely and interesting from a distance.

"How much is it?"

Fifteen cents, and the remaining fifty cents to buy purple sour cakes. The rain stopped, and the little man ran home contentedly along Hutang Road, holding a soy sauce bottle and licking the purple sour cake.

Walking along Hutang Road, you can also meet popsicles sellers, pear candy changers, sheepskin rabbit hair collectors, and craftsmen ... All popsicles sellers ride a heavy bicycle with a huge wooden box in the back seat, wrapped in cotton cloth. You can hear voices from the front or the back:

"A red bean popsicle?"

Popsicle sellers will stand in the shade of the pond bridge, prop up their cars and beat the box with wooden blocks. Before the sound of the board fell, a group of children kept jumping out of the village and surrounded the popsicle box. Several people who bought popsicles, holding high popsicles that had not been peeled off, slowly squeezed out of the crowd and ushered in envious eyes. Most of them have no money to buy, blinking and watching others drool. If the relationship is very tight, you can also find a corner suddenly, or let him lick it a few times to solve the problem.

Occasionally, you can buy a popsicle on the road. Eat slowly, but quickly, so that when I get to my grandmother's house, I can still eat half a piece, which will make my friends in the village envy me for a while, and I will also have the superiority of the city people going to the countryside. It's really that the popsicle melts too fast, so you must eat it in time, and the rest of the popsicle stick should be bitten in your mouth. "Bite, bite, bite the bridge."

When I go to Wuwei Port, I often sit on the stones by the bridge. Every time, I can always hear the broadcast on the lintel of a family's hall, with songs and weather forecasts, sometimes interspersed with notices from some brigades. Others are agricultural reminders such as transplanting rice seedlings and fertilizing, as well as radio dramas broadcast regularly every day. After listening for a while, you can reach grandma's house by crossing a vegetable field on the roadside of Hutang. The vegetable fields are vast, with mulberry forests on three sides, traffic and ditches. Walking on the ridge covered with weeds, the breeze brushed the face, and the foot tube rubbed against the unknown wild flowers and weeds, making a subtle "wooshing" sound. A bed of vegetable fields is strewn at random, with Chinese cabbage, coriander, spinach, leek, kohlrabi, cucumber, wax gourd and pumpkin ... all kinds of vegetables rotate in four seasons, and cyan, emerald and yellow blend in shades. Several farmers are scattered in the fields, fertilizing, watering and weeding ... From a distance, everyone's movements are so simple and beautiful.

Hutang Road, which lasts for half an hour, meets different people and things every time, which is fresh and interesting. In that era of underdeveloped information, going out was an experience, and Hutang Road became my childhood "social encyclopedia".

Now parallel to Hutang Road, there are extension lines along Hutang Road and Provincial Highway 230. The road is spacious and flat, with heavy traffic. With the change of people's travel mode, fewer and fewer people take Hutang Road. The long Hutang Road, like an actor who quits the noisy stage, is quietly watching the changes of the brand-new stage with a lot of stories being interpreted.

Hutang Road is long, Hutang Road is long, and it has always been in my memory. ...