There are many old bridges here, all of which are very short and span narrow rivers, which are practical. Most of these stone bridges are similar in appearance, but the stories behind them are different. Let's pick some to talk about first.
Taiping Bridge built on Xiaoxi River is the most conspicuous bridge in the new town, and its age is also the oldest, almost as long as the organizational history of the new town. It was built in the Jin Dynasty and firmly established in the Song Dynasty. The design of single hole and stone pillar is very beautiful. Seen from the side, the half stone arch and the reflection in the water form a big circle.
According to new townspeople, this Taiping Bridge has been protected as a historic site since the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Today, the state has basically maintained the appearance of the last renovation of 120 years ago, and the stone lion on the bridge is also a historical relic of the same era. People in the town are often unstable when sailing for business. With this lion town, what they want is peace of mind and peace.
Taiping Bridge is also a "custom bridge".
In the past, men and women in new towns had to solemnly cross the bridge on their wedding day, which symbolized "a peaceful life". Later, taking the Taiping Bridge became an established ceremony, and everyone's daughter-in-law's birth, children's full moon, old people's birthdays and other big and small things would take the bridge for good luck.
Of course, tourists will also go for a walk. But remember, don't look back when you leave, so you can leave all your troubles and worries on the other side of the bridge.
As mentioned in the previous travel notes, the nickname "Xiantan" of the new town originated from the story of Lu, the founder of Taoism, and the culture derived from it influenced the naming of the buildings and bridges in the new town. For example, the champion bridge in Beizha also has a name called Xuanwu Bridge. If you go back a thousand years along the origin of this bridge, you will find that the regional planning of the new town in history itself has obvious gossip meaning. There are four images of Qinglong Bridge, Baihu Bridge, Suzaku Bridge and Xuanwu Bridge. ...
In fact, both roads and bridges belong to the category of "Feng Shui" in Taoist culture. "People who circulate in the five elements have a rich life", and the bridge rises and falls, which has the function of communication. Bridges that are good at geomantic omen all have auspicious meanings of "promotion" and "nobility".
Pictured: Architectural scenery under the new bridge.
This champion bridge is a bridge with stories.
It is said that there was a famous man named Janice in the Southern Song Dynasty. He was a famous official of that era. In feudal times, the imperial examination was the first step for a person to be promoted to a higher position, and Janice won this "step" in his life-he was admitted to the top scholar in his early twenties, and the official sea rose and fell all the way, becoming the pride of his family and even the whole town.
Janice was charitable, attached importance to talents, helped the imperial court to build water conservancy projects, and was well versed in strategy. He is not only prosperous in official career, but also brilliant. He was a famous poet at that time and left a lot of works for later generations. But I went to look at his words and found that although Janice was a prime minister, his works were full of depression:
"Serve the country, understandable. Who can you spit from when you have a plan? "
"Go all over Jiangnan Jiangbei, where do you want to go?"
Reading Janice's Ci seems to be ups and downs, but in fact it is full of frustration and depression.
During his life, Janice devoted most of his time to the imperial court. However, in the special historical environment of the Southern Song Dynasty, he had to rely on his own poems to serve the country, but he could do nothing to worry about the country and the people. Although he is a typical representative of a small town in the south of the Yangtze River, he did not end well for various reasons.
According to historical records, Janice was dismissed from office in his later years because of jealousy and guilt. Although the evening scene is bleak, Janice is generous and does not forget his roots. After "retirement", he opened an academy in Wujiayuan, an ancient town in the new city, aiming at training successors for the country. Unfortunately, in the end, he did not escape the fate of being a victim of the power struggle and was poisoned.
Zhuangyuan Bridge in Xinshi ancient town is near his home, named after his story. As the only way for Janice to embark on his career, Zhuangyuan Bridge has become one of the best "auspicious bridges" among the "72 Bridges" in the new city. Who has a student, will also take a walk on it, seek a champion, "through" the ups and downs of Janice's life experience. Together with Taiping Bridge, Zhuangyuan Bridge is a bridge that "successfully reaches the other side".
Speaking of it, his contribution to the history of the new city is inextricably linked with Lu, the Taoist "founder" mentioned in his previous travel notes: when Lu lived in seclusion in the ancient town of the new city, he lived in a small house near Dongzha Shuitan. According to legend, whenever the immortals land in the pool to bathe, there is "Daoguang" in the sky, so it is called "Xiantan". 800 years later, Janice personally wrote the word "Xiantan", which became a legend in the south of the Yangtze River and once overshadowed the name of "New City". And:
There are also bridges related to Lu Xiujing in Xinshi Ancient Town:
After Lu's "Driving a Crane to the West", people built a fairy bridge next to this Wang Xiantan. In the Southern Song Dynasty, a fairy pagoda was built in Dongzha, which has been protected as a cultural relic since the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Influenced by Lu, so far, many buildings and bridges in new towns have kept the word "fairy" in their names.
The style of ancient buildings and folk culture preserved in the new town have combined the spirit of "celebrity effect" in different times, which has far-reaching influence and is fascinating. When I visited the Xincheng Museum of Literature and History, I was surprised to find that there were so many celebrities in this unknown Jiangnan water town in history. One of them, Chen Ting, is worth mentioning.
Chen Ting, a scholar in Ming Dynasty, was born and raised in Deqing. His life is somewhat similar to that of Janice: both of them have ups and downs in their official careers. However, Chen Ting was lucky to be rehabilitated in middle age and immediately told Lao to return to China.
Perhaps this kind of down-to-earth and trade-off temperament has been specially favored by God, and Chen Ting's real "brilliant" life started from being far away from the imperial court.
Back home, Chen Ting began to concentrate on writing books. In the following decades, he successively created and sorted out works such as The Story of Fairy Pond, Two Mountains of Mo Tan, Zhushantang Flower Thorn, and left precious records such as Three Ponds in jathyapple and Ten Scenes of Fairy Pond, which provided a lot of precious documents for future generations to study the history, humanities and landscape of new towns and ancient towns, and also provided detailed materials for my travel notes.
Contrary to the bitterness of Janice, the prime minister, the temperament between the lines of Chen Ting's poems is much more relaxed and indifferent: "Fine grass is fragrant, and the east wind is more welcoming. The new bamboo shoots of bamboo leaves are tea material, and the trees cover countless shadows. " Look, what this sentence reveals is a pessimistic and transparent mentality of "letting go".
If the contribution to the new city lies in "Wen", then Zhu Si lies in "Wu".
In fact, there are few historical materials about Zhu Si's life. I only found a brief description of him in Tan Zhi, Xi 'an: Zhu Xu, a native of Sizhou, Fengyang, was stranded in the new city with the army and gave birth to Zhu Si. Zhu Si's grandfather and uncle were both generals of Wu during the Three Kingdoms period, and his father was a "town general" (Zhu Si himself). Zhu Si was born in a famous family and became the "founder" of the new ancient town with the word "Si" as his ancestral home.
In the Jin Dynasty in 308 AD, the Lushi people next door moved to the new city because of the flood in their hometown. It was this general Zhu Si who led the people to dig through the Jiangnan Canal and the channels in this area. In addition, the "Ten Scenes of Xiantan" was initially formed with Zhu Si's participation in the "planning". Later generations built a temple in memory of Zhu Si, and every time they went to Tomb-Sweeping Day, they would burn incense and worship, praying that he would bless people in the coming year. With the prosperity of people along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and the new sericulture trade, this custom has developed into a "fragrant market"-that is, the predecessor of the famous annual folk activity "Silkworm Flower Temple Fair" mentioned in the previous travel notes.
There is also a famous artist named Shen Quan in the history of Xincheng.
Shen Quan, a court painter appointed by the Qing court, is also the first painter in history to go abroad to teach Chinese painting skills, and he has a high reputation. At that time, people with such "identity" usually had either a noble family background or a scholarly family background, which Shen Quan did not have. He was born in poverty and had a small business in his family when he was young.
Growing up, Shen Quan's closest moment to art was watching his father fiddle with those small handicrafts, and every time he was in the "fragrance market", he went to the town to see the painter paint on the spot. Over time, Shen Quan learned a little pen and ink talent, and the road to art was suddenly enlightened.
At the age of twenty, Shen Quan finally had the opportunity to "dominate" his life, and then he officially began to learn painting. Because the two teachers he visited successively were good at flowers and birds, which laid a solid foundation for him to establish the "Nanping Painting School".
The biggest feature of Shen Quan's paintings is excellent composition, which distinguishes the levels of everything in the plane and has no "leapfrog". In the exquisite pen, the things on the paper are particularly vivid and vivid, which makes him quite different in the Jiangnan painting school that advocated color at that time.
There is a saying: In the Jiangnan painting circle at that time, if Shen Quan was the second, no one dared to say that he was the first. Shenquan's former residence is still in the new ancient town, and Shenquan Research Association has sorted out his works, polishing the artistic skills for future generations.
The ancient town of Xinshi has a history of 1200 years. It was actually "shaped" 500 years ago-in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, when the ancient canal was the most prosperous, the new town already existed, with a strong commercial atmosphere, but now it has "faded" a lot, or precipitated.
The ancient town of the new town has settled down, hiding a long story, and no one misses the dead. The tinkling of copper and silver trading is intertwined with the paddle paddling under the veranda, the short sound of parents on the shore, and the sound of drinking tea and eating melon seeds under the veranda-they have a long history, you can develop them and I will inherit them.
I'm Sister Dahong, the anchor of the audio radio travel channel, a professional traveler, focusing on minority games and sharing unpopular destinations. Travel is not an attitude, but life itself.