Everyone who has a high mountain is an upright person.
The Baiguotang mountain is high, just like a single stone. When you enter the mountain, it is also a stone, when you come out of the mountain, it is also a stone, and under your feet, it is also a stone. Everything you can see from your perspective is stone. Of course there are also trees and grass growing, but they only grow in the folds of the stone. The field is dark and thin, sandwiched between rocks. When you dig with a hoe, sparks will pop out. I think the thin layer of soil was left behind because the wind hadn't blown it away or the rain hadn't washed it away.
A year's work of people in Baiguotang is to work around the soil, play with it, till, harrow, dig, turn over, plant the seeds in the spring, and plant more in the autumn. The seeds are recovered. So there are corns, potatoes, soybeans, and vegetables. They are the crystallization of black soil and cultivation. Enter text Enter text
The Baiguotang people who live on the stone mountain are destined to be companions of stones, eat from the cracks in the stones, and are as hard as the stones. Their lives are a record in stone.
The stones of Baiguoliu are good, they are stacked layer by layer, just like a bundle of heavy rough-edged paper books, otherwise they would not use them to build houses. The stone is green and dark, with fine texture and sharp edges and corners. The stone is pure and not mixed in color. The quarrying produces less waste and can be sorted out at the mercy of others. When making stones, you can start them layer by layer according to the thickness and length. To make bricks, you need to make the thickness of the bricks, and to make the tiles, you need to make the weight of the tiles. The walls are built with one stone to the top, with stone at the base, stone at the top of the roof, stone at the threshold, stone at the doorposts, stone at the door and window lintels, and even the tiles on the roof.
Straight across is a slate house.
A slate house does not require any mud joints, and there is no cement or lime adhesion. Except for one smooth side, the wall masonry is irregular. Bai Guotang people use flat stones of different sizes and lengths, which are connected to each other and the overall force is applied to form a two-story house. Of course, the smooth side must face the face and the inside. From the face point of view, the finished stone wall is a painting, an impressionistic stone engraving with seemingly irregular but actually regular geometric figures. The inner wall is denser, tighter and smoother than the front wall. I thought, wouldn’t a wall that doesn’t have mud joints be a penetration wall? But this kind of worry is unnecessary. Looking out from the house along the cracks in the wall, it is really not white, but the wind can still penetrate. What is important is the door frame and threshold stone. The width, thickness and height of the stone determine the style; the orientation angle of the door determines the feng shui; the words "dragon and phoenix show auspiciousness" and "Fu Lu Shou Xi" on the door frame determine the customs. Stone drums are indispensable. The auspicious stone patterns on the drum surface also indicate beauty and hope.
Using stone slabs as roofing tiles is truly unique. Old Man Li claimed to be a descendant of Li Chun (it is said that Zhaozhou Bridge was Li Chunxiu). When I met him, he was preparing to replace the slate tiles.
I was curious about the slate roof and explained my purpose. He said, I don’t tell most people. Old Man Li's slate house is a century old. Some of the slate tiles are damaged and some new slates need to be replaced. He is already 70 years old and still conservative. Stone cutting is a technical job, the key is the thickness of the stone, the smoothness of the stone surface, and the size of the stone slab. With a steel drill, an eight-pound hammer, strength and skill, you can create the desired stone slab. I saw Old Man Li and his assistant nailing a steel drill into the stone. Along a straight line, they nailed another steel drill at a certain distance. The depth of penetration was the thickness of the stone slab. When the steel drill continued to nail, pry There is a "squeaking" sound when the tension is high, otherwise the stone slab will break suddenly, and one side of the stone slab will break free. The thickness of the stone slab is uniform, about one finger thick. The stone surface is smooth and flat. The sizes vary, some are as big as a small square table top, some are as big as a bucket, and some are as small as a shengzi.
Old man Li is an old mason. He had a good business in the past. He built houses, picked up tiles, made rollers, washed and polished, carved pictures and lettering, and was skilled in all kinds of skills. But now he is almost unemployed. Some stone houses have been torn down and replaced with cooked brick houses, some slate tiles have been replaced with machine tiles, and mills and rollers have been replaced with machines. But as a stonemason, Mr. Li was determined not to afford a new house or replace it with new tiles. He said that this stone house is the only thing left by his ancestors. The stone house is strong, not afraid of earthquakes, warm in winter and cool in summer. He picked up the tiles, still as he did when he was young, carrying a basket on his back. The slates he carried were high and heavy. He climbed step by step along the ladder until he climbed up to the ridge of the roof. Looking from below, in the sunlight, his shoulders and arms glowed black and red, the stone slab glowed with blue light, his body was as straight as the stone slab, and the stone slab was as high as the blue sky.
Covering slate tiles is of course also a technical job. They say they are tiles, but they are actually stone flakes with no grooves or curves. I asked why they don’t leak. Old man Li said that there is no luck in building roof tiles, it all depends on the joints. He is pious about how to match the size of the tiles, how to connect the upper and lower parts, how to integrate yin and yang, how to speak and behave, how to behave, and how to use taboo words. He has a full grasp and can use them freely. It seems that you can't learn it without studying with a teacher.
Walking into Old Man Li’s stone house cannot be said to have entered the Stone Age, but it is true that there are many stone tools and the ingenuity of the stone tools is rare. The table is made of stone, the stove is made of stone, the stew bowl is made of stone, the water jar is made of stone, the fire ridge is made of stone, the pig trough and the dog basin are made of stone, and there are also stone mills and toilets. Of course, some stones are no longer used. A slate is hung on the wall as a blackboard for writing; a piece of stone roller is scattered beside the drying yard, which makes it feel even more desolate.
I was walking on the earliest tractor road in Beguotang, and the sound of road construction seemed to be ringing in my ears. The sound was muddy and sweet at times. It was the steel drill used by people in Beguotang. The sound of chisels cutting into stone. The road is a stone road. One side of the road uses mountain foundation stones and is washed smooth with steel chisels. The other side of the road is paved with stones, with large stones inlaid with small stones. The road goes uphill for a while, downhill for a while, left for a while, right for a while. There were no machines when building the stone road. It was all built with steel drills and eight-pound hammers, carried on shoulders and on backs. Fortunately, there are many masons in Bai Guoliang. Walking on the stone road, I was in awe. Those stumbling blocks and stumbling blocks have turned into stepping stones through the hard work of a generation of people from Bai Guotang.
There are terraces layer by layer on the roadside. The outside of the terraces is also made of stone, like a wall. The wall is of course used to retain soil. The fields are covered with green crotches.
There was another "dinging" sound on the roadside, as well as the "stinging" sound of the machine. An old man and a young man were working in a stone house on the roadside. The boy used an electric disc saw to cut the stone. An irregular square of rough stone went in, and neat stone bricks came out. The old man was knocking on the monument, hammering and chiseling, causing stone chips to fly. The old man's surname is Gao. They are father and son, and the son inherits his father's business. But the stone bricks made by the young man were specially used for paving roads in the city. The stone bricks were piled up into a hill and transported out one by one. The old man only made monuments and carved words, hammering and hammering, stroke by stroke. It seems that the carving must be done by hand to be worthy of the deceased. It seems that only by doing it in person can it show the tradition of the old stonemason. A pair of stone coffins with a very high head caught my attention. The old man said that they were made for himself, and he also made stone rims to buckle the tomb and stone tablets with inscriptions. I heard that the old man was born on a stone slab after his mother had a sudden attack in the fields, and his mother picked the food herself. Therefore, he was named Gao Shisheng.
I understand, the people of Bai Guotang are born for the stone, and their life is the fire emitted by the collision of the solder stone, shining on the land of their hometown. After death, they return to the stone, which is a sarcophagus. There is a stone tomb, and a stone tablet is erected in front of the tomb. The stone tablet is majestic, smooth and clear.
About the author
Yiling Lao Peng: whose real name is Peng Dingxin, is the vice chairman of Yichang Federation of Trade Unions and a member of Yichang Writers Association. He has been engaged in policy research, party affairs and administrative work for a long time. I am fond of writing and photography. A flower, a leaf, a world, a picture, an article, a state of mind. My words and pictures are often published in newspapers, periodicals and on the Internet.