? Rugao City, Jiangsu Province, is bordered by the Yangtze River in the south and the Yellow Sea in the east. It used to be a swamp in history. Now it is also a veritable water city, with dense ports, rivers and lakes. The Toarey Yang Canal, such as the Sea Canal and the Rutai Canal run through the whole territory, and the river network density is extremely high.
? Rugao's economic strength is extraordinary, and it is one of the top 100 counties and cities in the country with comprehensive economic strength and competitiveness. But I like Rugao because of her water and her culture.
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? To understand a city, we must start with its old streets. Unfortunately, there are no old streets in many places, but fortunately there are still in Rugao. Visit Rugao and start from East Street.
? Location: the northeast corner of Rugao ancient city, more than 400 meters long.
? Birthday: Southern Song Dynasty. When water transportation was developed, East Street was the main commercial street of the city.
? Status quo: Rugao's only remaining old street area has always maintained its style in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China.
? Pattern and architecture: called street, in fact, it is only two or three meters wide. Most of the existing buildings are brick-and-wood blue brick houses, which are small and compact.
? There are many wooden doors on both sides of the street, followed by houses with three or four halls, and some have courtyards or gardens. The existing storefront houses and houses have the characteristics of Ming, Qing and Republic of China respectively, mainly in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, and of course there are also new antique buildings. At present, streets and lanes such as Baisui Lane, Nvxiu Lane, Wu Miao Lane, Daliu Lane, Xiaoliu Lane, Gaojia Lane, Shazhu Lane, Yiren Lane and Beiwangjia Lane centered on East Street have become the first batch of historical and cultural blocks in Jiangsu.
? Most of these alleys are narrow, and some are only 1 meter wide and winding. Strolling through it, you will find many places worth seeing, such as Yingchun Bridge, Puzhong Bridge, nuns, Champion Tomb (only tombstones are left now), Wang Yao Temple, Dongshuiguan, Gu Jing, House 1 on the East River of Yingchun Bridge (once Li Changyu Criminal Investigation Technology Museum), Champion Cultural Center, Li Yu Memorial Hall and so on.
? Time is like a runaway wild horse, but the old street around East Street is like an old man who has gone through vicissitudes and returned to peace. He lives alone in the corner of a small town and stubbornly sticks to it in the great transformation of the old city. The vicissitudes and heaviness are beyond words.
? Jixian Li Mansion in the southeast corner of Rugao City, now called Maojiaxiang, is also an existing old residence in Rugao, with 4 households with 45th floor in Ming Dynasty.
? It was named after the royal family lived here in the Northern Song Dynasty. From the first year of Jingyou in the Northern Song Dynasty to Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, the Wang family produced 1 No.1 scholar and 17 scholar. The villagers are proud of it, and it is called Jixian Li, and it is called "The golden turtle presses the button and produces great people". The famous Song Dynasty poem "Water is beautiful, and mountains gather eyebrows" was written by Wang Yin, whose former residence is in Jixian County.
? After the King, the Mao Shi family settled here, and celebrities came forth in large numbers.
? In the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan made nine sons king of Zhennan, sealed the land as Rugao, and built a house in Jixian County. After entering the Ming Dynasty, the descendants of Zhennan Wang changed their surname to Mao and lived here for generations, renamed Maojiaxiang. Mao Bijiang is the most famous person, and his love story with Dong Xiaowan, a famous prostitute in Qinhuai, has been sung for hundreds of years. Brush Jiang was a writer in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and one of the four sons in the late Ming Dynasty. After the Qing soldiers entered the customs, he lived in seclusion in the mountains, not in the Qing court, but in the whole festival.
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? Different from other cities, there are two moats in Rugao, which are shaped like ancient coins, forming a strange landscape of "water around the city and water in the city". This kind of setting of inner and outer city rivers is unique in the history of domestic urban construction.
? The moat in Rugao was dug in the Ming Dynasty. During Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, Juan, a magistrate of a county, chiseled the Jade Belt River (now the Inner City River) according to the city system. During the Jiajing period, Chen Yong, the magistrate of a county, was responsible for planning and expanding the new city, cutting the outer river, and forming a pattern of double rivers inside and outside.
? The 6-kilometer-long Shuanghuan River is surrounded by lush greenery and weeping willows, providing the public with spacious and diverse leisure and entertainment places.
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? The Shuanghuan River runs through Rugao's cultural landscape, and many scenic spots such as Dinghui Temple, Shuihui Garden, Fangongyuan, Ling Wei Temple, Wenchang Pavilion, Dongjie Ancient Town and Jixian Lane are all near the water.
? Where there is water, there is a bridge. Yingchun Bridge, which spans the Inner City River in Dongjie Street, was built in the 13th year of Jiajing in Ming Dynasty (1534) and is a wooden bridge. In the third year of Chongzhen in Ming Dynasty (1630), it was changed into a high stone bridge, rebuilt in the ninth year of Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty (1870), and 1925 was changed into a brick flat bridge. Although it is a cultural relic, it does not prevent local people from selling vegetables on the bridge with vegetable baskets. This is life.
? There are two temples in Rugao's water network.
? Ling Wei Temple on the north bank of Rugao Ancient Salt Transportation is one of the three Taoist temples in Jiangsu (the other two are Jurong Maoshan Taoist Temple and Suzhou Xuanmiao Temple). Founded in the Han Dynasty, it experienced the ups and downs of Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were still ten halls, more than 200 palaces, temples, huts, warehouses, medical rooms, pharmacies, porridge factories and other houses, and there are still many buildings.
Dinghui Temple was built in the 11th year of Emperor Kai of Sui Dynasty (59 1). In the thirty-fifth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1607), the Ursa Major Hall and the King Kong Hall were rebuilt, and the mountain gate was changed to face north. Later, the Bell and Drum Tower, Sutra Pavilion, Zen Hall, Ancestral Hall and Zhaitang were built one after another. The existing main building was rebuilt during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. The 45-meter-high octagonal seven-story Guanyin Pagoda (above) in the temple was rebuilt in recent years.
? A group of buildings opposite Dinghui Temple also have a lot of origins. In the 28th year of Guangxu reign in Qing Dynasty (1902), Shayuan, edited by imperial academy in Qing Dynasty, founded a simple normal school in Rugao, which was the first public normal school in China, and its former site has been selected as the national key cultural relics protection unit.
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? There is water to have a garden. The most famous tourist attraction in Rugao is Shuihui Garden.
? Shuihui Garden, founded in the Wanli period of Ming Dynasty, is the ancestor of a writer in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties and one of the four sons in the late Ming Dynasty. He rearranged the old garden, and made use of the geographical characteristics of frequent rivers and seas and vertical and horizontal water networks in Rugao to make gardens along the stream, stringing up washbasins, moon pools and large areas of water, but terraces became embellishments.
? Water network is the natural barrier of water painting garden, which saves the cost of building fence and is a rare waterscape. The lake under the moon is extraordinary, killing two birds with one stone. In the harvest season, the fish are fat and the lotus is strong, and there is a harvest scene. The north of the park is surrounded by a wall, with the city as the scenery and half of the park surrounded by the city. After the winter snow, the north city is sunny and it is also a scene.
? Waterscape in the garden, empty land, vast clear water; Narrow places, such as strings of pearls.
? Pioneering Xinjiang is brilliant, capable of poetry and painting. He built more than ten scenic spots in the garden, such as Xianglin, Yimozhai, Pillow Smoke Pavilion, White marble pawn pavilion, Jade Pavilion, Xiangzhong Pavilion, Selangpo and Biluolou, which became the famous gardens in China at that time. "Painters must know each other", make friends in the garden, express their feelings in the garden, and collect poems, essays, piano, chess, books and paintings in one garden, making the ink painting garden a scholarly "literati garden" and a secluded place for Dong Xiaowan, one of the "Eight Colours of Qinhuai".
? During the reign of Emperor Qianlong of Qing Dynasty, a local scholar Wang Zhiheng built a building in Shuihui Garden, and named it Shuiming Building after Du Fu's poem "Shuiming Building on a Remnant Night". Wang Zhiheng, a salt merchant from generation to generation, is very rich. He can write poetry, does not seek fame, and likes to make friends with literati. Shuiminglou is just what he needs.
? There are many classical gardens in China, and the ink garden is undoubtedly the best. On the inside story, the water painting garden enjoys the name of crossing the border; On the characteristics, the ink painting garden is very unique in setting up a garden with water. Among many classical gardens in the south, the water painting garden is called "the unique book of ancient garden architecture in China" by landscape experts, and it is unique.
? Now Shuihuiyuan is a big park, covering an area of 300,000 square meters. It consists of old water painting garden, Shuiminglou ancient architecture complex, China Confucian bonsai garden (Gulian Garden), Road, Yiyuan Garden, Rugao Changshou Museum, Zoo, amusement park and other scenic spots.
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? With water, the city has aura. In the old alley, it's not romantic to find a restaurant by the water for morning tea.
? Rugao morning tea is very famous. There are many morning tea shops near East Street. The most famous shop is Sihailou. If you go late, there will be no seats. Different from Cantonese-style morning tea, Rugao morning tea is dominated by a variety of staple foods, including steamed buns, meat steamed buns, vegetable steamed buns, fried buns, crab yellow steamed buns, small wonton, egg cakes, biscuits, fried dough sticks, noodles, tofu brain, etc ... It is said that even eating for a month is different.
? Rugao is also a famous hometown of longevity. It was once rated as one of the six longevity towns in the world by the International Association of Natural Medicine. Among the population of 1 100,000, there are more than1100,000 elderly people over 90 years old.
? Good feng shui.