? When I walk into a city, I like to walk around the old town of the city. It has the smell of fireworks and local warmth. This is true whether in Nanjing or Taizhou. Let’s talk about Nanjing first. In its thousands of years of history, Nanjing has left behind many cultural heritages that contain the imprint of the times. Old City South is the birthplace of Nanjing culture and a living fossil that can represent Nanjing’s local culture.
The troops are stationed in Wengjiaying, Nanjing, not far from the south of the old city of Confucius Temple. Therefore, it has become a daily routine to go out to visit the south of the old city on weekends. As the saying goes, "Beijing hutongs, Nanjing alleys", from Gaoligang, Xiaoshunli, Yinma Lane, Yingao Lane, to Hehuatang, Wufuli, Xie Gong Temple, alleys are closely connected, quietly telling the story of Nanjing's old life Thousands of years of spring and autumn in the south of the city.
? The south of Nanjing’s old city is a place with a special atmosphere of fireworks. The south of the old city represents the past of Nanjing’s old city, the past of the Six Dynasties, and the customs of the Republic of China. Old stories from the south of the city are gathered here. Many times on weekends, children would be taken to wander around Laomendong, which is full of wisteria flowers. Tourists all stop and happily take photos with them. My friend, you are among those waiting in a long line under the Lingxiao Flowers for plum blossom cakes and Xiao Zhengsu sesame cakes, right? The streets and alleys in Laomendong are closely connected to the city wall, and you can wander between the Confucius Temple and the Zhonghua Gate. In the sense of the traditional Nanjing city, this is the epitome of Nanjing's old times. The recent TV series "Human World" has become popular. You can probably see the shadow of the past here in the south of the city, looking for a holy place to check in the old days of the Cultural Revolution.
? As the wheels of history roll over, Nanjing’s Old Town has experienced the baptism of war. Every brick and tile here has experienced vicissitudes of life, and every street and alley has experienced impermanence and great changes.
? “Blue bricks with small tiles and horse-headed walls, and hanging lattice windows in the cloister.” In early spring, walking in the south of the old city, walking through the streets and alleys, you can feel the ancient charm and the hustle and bustle of the city without words. It is rare to have such a spiritual experience in China. This is the charm of history and the tension of culture, and you can't help but be moved. The legend of Taoye Ferry in the south of the city is that the calligrapher Wang Xianzhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty had a concubine named "Taoye". When she traveled between the Qinhuai and Huaihe Rivers, Wang Xianzhi was worried about it and often greeted her at the ferry in person, and wrote "Peach Leaf Song" for her: "Peach leaves are peach leaves, and you don't need a peach to cross the river; but there is no pain in crossing, and I will welcome you." From then on, the ferry became famous and over time, Nanpu Ferry was also called Taoye Ferry.
? There are countless place names in the south of the old city that can be seen in novels, operas, and notes of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as Anpin Street, Sanshan Street, Xiafuqiao, Cangxiang... Wu Jingzi, a writer in the Qing Dynasty, lived in the south of the old city for the second half of his life. His famous book "The Scholars" mentioned dozens of streets and alleys in the south of the city, and traces of each of them can be found. Liu Yuxi wrote in his poem: "There are wild grasses and flowers beside the Suzaku Bridge, and the setting sun is setting at the entrance of Wuyi Lane. In the old days, the swallows in front of Wang Xietang flew into the homes of ordinary people."
Speaking of the old city of Nanjing, What cannot be left out is Old Pukou, where there is Pukou Pier. The ferry crosses the Yangtze River between Pukou Pier and Zhongshan Pier, connecting Nanjing Pukou Railway Station in the Republic of China. Pukou Railway Station is the filming location of Deep Love in the Rain and the place where Zhu Ziqing’s father buys oranges. Nowadays, many young people come here with SLRs on weekends, and I often ride a bicycle here. Here is the largest railway station in the Republic of China and a group of villas in the Republic of China. The main road seems to be a very small road now. The reason why it is called the main road is that you can imagine how wide and prosperous it was back then.
? Pukou in Laodongmen is also a place with a rustic atmosphere. It is a place I often go to when buying groceries on weekends. Hidden here is a section of the Pukou Ming City Wall built by Zhu Yuanzhang. When the bus passes by now, there is still a platform for the Ming City Wall ruins, but only a few relics remain. Due to the rapid development of urban construction, the old houses in the old east gate have been almost demolished. Now every time I go to Nanjing and walk among the ruins, I can't help but sigh with emotion: It seems that there is still that ancient and beautiful plant in front of me. Tall toon trees that have just sprouted. On the trees are toon buds that old Nanjing people often taste and belong to this season. The scent of Fujian Qianlixiang wontons also hit my nostrils... The scene of several kittens lying lazily at the door of the old Dongmen house is still vivid in my mind. Sighing, feeling the great changes that the passage of time has brought to this world.
? Walking into the old city of Taizhou happened in the past few years. Only after Taizhou was separated from Yangzhou did we have the opportunity to learn about the city of Taizhou, because we had almost never been to Taizhou before.
The morning market in Shengxianqiao is full of dazzling things, including chicken, duck, fish and shrimp, pork shops, fried dough sticks, pancakes and dried tofu, and the fireworks of old Taizhou. For the old Hailing people, the narrow and long alleys should be their memories, engraved with fleeting stories mottled by time. This is why I began to find it difficult to understand why "Old Hailing" among my friends and colleagues bought a house in the north of the city. Because hidden deep in the bustling city, those old streets and alleys with mottled and peeling walls have always been a feeling of constant abandonment.
? As time goes by, walking in these old alleys to find the memories that belong here is what I do to capture the happiness in the world.
? Bell Tower Lane is in Taizhou City, starting from Hailing North Road in the west, passing through Guandimiao Lane, and ending at Funan Street in the east. It is named after an ancient bell tower in the lane. The ancient bronze bell on the clock tower in Zhonglou Lane was seriously injured by the war. The nose and lips of a dragon on the handle were blown off, and there were many machine gun bullet marks left on the bell. Taizhou ancient bronze bells are listed as the four major bronze bells in Jiangsu together with the Danyang Tang Zhonghe Bell, Huai'an Jin Dynasty Bell, and Nanjing Drum Tower Ming Hongwu Bell due to their large size and ancient shape.
? Handong and Hanxi streets are located in the north of Taizhou City. They are an old neighborhood that is relatively well preserved in Taizhou. As early as the Western Han Dynasty, this was Taizhou's local commercial center focusing on the salt industry. During the Republic of China, it gradually evolved into a distribution center for logistics transactions between the north and the south, with many large families. This block is a collection of Ming, Qing and Republic of China buildings, with a traditional water town layout of two streets and a river. The traditional deep house courtyards are simple, sturdy, elegant and low-key, preserving the unique architectural styles of "black tiles, gray walls and blue brick floors", "Peace Peak" and "left and right" folk houses.
When entering Handong Street, you must go to Bei Wachang Lane, whose old name is also Puer Lane. In the seemingly inconspicuous lanes, you can see buildings from the Qing Dynasty or the Republic of China era everywhere. Although they have been eroded by hundreds of years of wind and rain, they can still see their majestic appearance. There are ancient Qing Dynasty buildings such as Wang Zhai, Gu Zhai, and Gao Zhai in the alley. They have mottled blue brick walls, moss-covered gray roofs, elegant brick-carved lintels, and exquisite wood-carved screens. When you get closer, you will feel the real world. Feel its historical charm and ancient charm.
In addition to Bei Wachang Lane, Handong Block also has a large number of well-preserved ancient streets and lanes such as Lingjiayuan, Shitou Lane, Wanzihui, Xujiaqiao, and Gujia Lane. When you walk into the ancient lanes here, you are tracing and repeating the footsteps of ancient people thousands of years ago, and feeling the ancient charm of the past.
There is a Yue Temple in Taishan Park in the old city. In the ninth year of Zhengtong in the Ming Dynasty (1444), Taizhou Tongzhi Wang Simin built an ancestral hall, named Taishan Temple. The Taishan Temple did not last long. In the tenth year of Wanli (1582), Shu Dayou, who was a soldier in Taizhou, built the Yue Wu Mu Temple on the top of the mountain to commemorate Yue Fei because Yue Fei had served as the magistrate of Taizhou. Wonders" plaque. In the thirty-fourth year of Wanli, another Taizhou soldier, Zhang Ming'e, built three more temples for King Yue Zhongwu on the top of Mount Tai to enshrine the portrait of King Yue. They also placed stone statues of Qin Hui and his wife Wang kneeling in front of them.
In the eleventh year of Yongzheng’s reign in the Qing Dynasty (1733), Li Bicheng, an official from Fengzhi, came to Taizhou to serve as magistrate. He climbed to the top of Mount Tai and saw that the ancestral temple built by Shu Dayou to commemorate King Yue was in ruins. "It didn't suit the people's desire to miss the king, so we specially worked with the people of the state to repair it." It took less than a year to rebuild it. Yue Wu Mu Temple, personally wrote the "Inscription on Rebuilding the Temple of King Yue Zhongwu in Mount Tai". It can be seen from the existing inscriptions that the reconstruction upgraded the building level from three small bungalow-style ancestral houses to a large temple with raised corners, and added verandas and climbing stone steps, forming the highest and tallest building in Taizhou City. It is a standard palace with a single eaves on the roof, a hill behind and a corridor behind it.
According to Yue Fei's "Shen Fusi Begging for Soldiers, Horses, Money and Food" and other documents, in the fourth year of Jianyan in the Southern Song Dynasty, the imperial court appointed Yue Fei as the envoy of Tongtai Town and the governor of the state. On August 18 of that year, he was only 28 years old. Yue Fei, who was 20 years old, led his troops from Yixing to Taizhou to take up his post in accordance with the imperial decree. He traveled day and night and arrived outside Taizhou City at two o'clock at night on the 26th. In order to aid Chuzhou, Yue Fei led his army and fought three battles with the Jin soldiers in Sanduo, Gaoyou. After returning to Taizhou from Sanduo, Yue Fei saw that the Taizhou city at that time was very small, with weak defense functions, easy to attack and difficult to defend, and no danger to rely on. Previously, the emperor had made a decree that Taizhou could be defended, and if it could not be defended, it would be withdrawn from Taizhou to the south. So in November, Yue Fei used 200 elite troops to cut off the rear and cover the Taizhou people's retreat to the sand dunes in the middle of the river (near today's Jingjiang Sheng Temple).
? In the war-torn era, for the people of Taizhou, Yue Fei's appointment as magistrate was a guarantee of their safety. In February of the year before Yue Fei came to Taizhou, Jin soldiers came to Taizhou and the whole city was looted. So, when he decided to retreat south, Yue Fei let the common people go in front, protected them with his elite troops, and retreated to a safe area with the army. Yue Fei showed kindness to the people of Taizhou, and the people of Taizhou repaid his kindness. When the ancestral hall dedicated to Yue Fei was built on Mount Tai, incense continued all year round. The deeds and legends of Yue Fei's fight against the Jin Dynasty in Taizhou, and the life and death dependence between Taizhou people and Yue Fei, have become more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, becoming a household name and being passed down from generation to generation.
? Nanjing was called Jinling in ancient times, and Taizhou was called Hailing in ancient times. It was probably fate. But who would have thought that in this life, they would be hand in hand with these two cities with the word "ling" in them. One is my hometown, and the other is my former dream.