Proverbs, idioms, folk stories, legends, folk songs and ballads about the Great Wall

Proverb: "If you don't come to the Nine Gates, your trip to the Great Wall will be in vain."

"There are hometowns both inside and outside the Great Wall"

Legends of the Great Wall

After Qin Shihuang unified China, he recruited hundreds of thousands of civilians to connect and repair the northern city walls of Qin, Yan, and Zhao in 214 BC. This became the world-famous Great Wall. The legend that Meng Jiangnu traveled thousands of miles to find her husband and gave her cold clothes, and cried down the Great Wall for 800 miles, happened at that time.

In ancient times, Old Man Meng and Old Man Jiang were neighbors, separated only by a wall. One spring, Old Man Meng planted a gourd seed in his yard. After careful cultivation by watering and fertilizing, the gourd seed grew tall and fat. It climbed over the wall and formed a large gourd seed in Old Man Jiang's yard. The gourd weighs dozens of kilograms. When the gourd was ripe, Old Man Jiang took a knife to cut it open. Suddenly he saw a white, fat, and very cute girl lying inside. Old Man Jiang looked out with joy and ran to tell others. After hearing about it, the villagers came to watch one after another. This was new, but the two old men Meng and Jiang had conflicts because of it, and they had a heated argument. Old Man Meng said very firmly: "I planted this gourd myself, and the fat girl should be mine." But Old Man Jiang said stubbornly: "This gourd was planted in my yard, and this girl should be mine." After three days and three nights of quarreling, there was no solution, and no results were achieved. Later, the villagers mediated and concluded that the baby girl belonged to the two families, and they lived in turns and were raised by both families, and they were given the name of "Meng Jiangnu". name.

Time flies, the sun and the moon fly by, and more than ten years have passed in the blink of an eye. The elders of the Meng and Jiang families have chosen a son-in-law named Fan Qiliang for their grown-up daughter Meng Jiang. They have chosen a good and auspicious day to get married. . Something unexpected happened. On the wedding day, the bridegroom and the bride were about to pay their respects. Suddenly, several government servants burst in from outside the door. They swarmed up and took the groom Fan Qiliang away as a civil servant.

It turns out that at that time, Qin Shihuang dispatched a large number of civilians across the country to build the Great Wall and worked hard day and night. Countless civilians were exhausted and starved to death. In order to speed up the project, they arrested people everywhere. The civilian husband added that Fan Qiliang was also assigned to serve as a civilian husband to build the Great Wall.

A year passed in the blink of an eye, and there was no news from Fan Zaliang. Meng Jiangnu was so anxious that she couldn’t eat or sleep. She didn’t know what to do. After discussing with the elderly from the two families, she decided to find her husband and vowed to find her husband. She will never go home without her husband. She packed up dry food and special warm clothes for her husband and hit the road. Along the way, we were exposed to wind, rain, sun, wind and cold, suffered from hunger and cold, and walked with difficulty. After traveling thousands of miles with great difficulties and dangers, we finally found the place where the Great Wall was built. After asking about it, we found out that many people died in building the Great Wall, including her husband Fan Qiliang. He died of exhaustion long ago and was buried under the Great Wall, and his bones were never found. This news was like a bolt from the blue. Meng Jiangnu immediately began to cry sadly. Her tears were like springs and her voice was like thunder. She cried so loudly that the sky was dark and the earth was dark. She watched sections of the Great Wall collapse. She cried wherever she went, covering a distance of eight hundred miles. long. The project manager was so anxious that he hurriedly reported to Qin Shihuang, who was here to inspect the progress of the project. Qin Shihuang hurriedly went to see Meng Jiangnu to find out the reason. As soon as he saw her, he was fascinated by her beauty and insisted on naming her "the Empress of the Palace". Although Meng Jiangnu was full of anger, she still suppressed the hatred in her heart. She had an idea and decided to make Qin Shihuang agree to her three conditions in order to become the "main palace empress". First, the body of her husband Fan Zhaliang must be found; secondly, a state funeral must be held for her husband; thirdly, Qin Shihuang must bury Fan Qiliang in mourning and with flags. After listening to the three conditions Meng Jiangnu put forward, Qin Shihuang thought for a moment, and in order to get the beautiful Meng Jiangnu, he agreed bravely. After Meng Jiangnu wore a filial piety and paid homage to the tomb of Fan Zhaliang, who died for building the city, her long-cherished wish was fulfilled and she faced the rolling tide. of the Bohai Sea, jumped into the sea and committed suicide.

The story of Meng Jiangnu crying at the Great Wall was soon spread by people. To commemorate her, people built a tomb and a temple for her on a hill near Shanhaiguan, named it "Jiangnu Temple" ". The story of Meng Jiangnu searching for her husband for thousands of miles and bringing him cold clothes and tearing down the Great Wall for 800 miles is a well-known story that has been passed down to this day.