Kuancheng in Memory (Prose)

2020-04- 14

Kuancheng is not wide, Pingquan has no spring. Kuancheng County is located in the deep mountains in the southeast of Chengde City, Hebei Province. The county industrial and commercial bureau here is my first work unit after graduating from college.

1July, 1987, I took a long-distance bus from Chengde to Kuancheng with my work dispatch card. At that time, this 85-kilometer mountain road was still a rugged dirt road. Along the way, there are forests and ravines that cover the sun, as well as countless small mountain villages and market towns. When I got the dispatch card, I had never heard of Kuancheng. I think it must be a square town with walls, surrounded by rivers and flowers.

Finally, along the bumpy road, near the east exit of the county seat, the first thing you see is a huge mountain pass, which feels like the castle entrance in the movie "Knight of Shuangqi Town". After crossing the mountain pass, I saw a small town with scattered shops and houses, which was quite different from my guess. There is no wall in the county, but it is long and narrow and sandwiched between the north and south mountains, about two kilometers from east to west and about 1.5 kilometers from north to south. After working there for a long time, I heard a local joke: a road, a building, a policeman and a monkey. Many years ago, there was a mountainous prefecture-level city with only one main road running through the city, only one tall building, only one traffic policeman on the road and only one monkey in the zoo. This joke describes a small mountain city in a backward era, which is really similar.

? At that time, there was no building higher than five floors in the county where I was about to work, and the county government office building was only four floors. The county department store has three floors, and the county government guest house has only three floors. I can't remember the buildings in other places, and the families of residents are mainly small courtyard bungalows.

? Kuanchengde gourmet

? Although the small county is small in scale, it also has its own characteristics. Let's talk about the food in Kuancheng again. The first course is mutton hotpot, which is different from mutton hotpot in other places. The black goats and mutton produced in the local mountains are very delicious. I think it must be this sheep that climbs the hillside, drinks spring water and accumulates delicious food in Shan Ye every day.

? Good instant-boiled mutton is inseparable from good water and seasoning. Kuancheng, which is located in the deep mountains, is sweet and clear, and can be called authentic mineral water. Onion, ginger, garlic and coriander all grow in Shan Ye, which is not much different from wild vegetables. Coupled with the local hillside peppers, these condiments, and this pot of instant-boiled mutton, it will make you taste delicious. Just after working for a week, a colleague invited me to taste this authentic instant-boiled mutton. Since then, instant-boiled mutton from other places has hardly aroused my appetite.

Every morning, the faint smell of meat in the mutton soup kitchen wafts from the street that is not too wide, which reminds me of the delicious food that I can't miss. I clock in at the Wangji Soup Hall at seven o'clock every day. Unlike mutton soup in other places, it must be mutton offal with conscience, while mutton soup in other places is mostly chop suey with poor ingredients. Mutton, sausage and liver are the main mutton offal used in Wang Ji Soup House. Mountain pepper is fried by itself, and sesame sauce is also a natural and mellow taste. His baked wheat cake is big, crisp, fragrant and crisp. There must be enough chopped green onion and thin slices of meat in the baked wheat cake. Such a mutton soup and sesame seed cake cost about twenty cents. At that time, my first monthly salary was 63 yuan.

? The second food that impressed me most in Kuancheng is tofu. This kind of tofu is handmade with Shan Ye soybeans and mountain spring water. It tastes sweet and has no beany smell. The way to eat tofu is: after cooking, put it in a big plate made of arrow shafts (corn or sorghum stalks), and put a sea bowl under the plate to hold soup. Put a snack plate in front of each foodie, put the seasoning made of chopped mountain pepper, coriander, radish and pickles, and then pour three heavy oils. A bite of tofu and an old Chengde wine once stirred my taste when I was eating. ? The most famous mountain in Kuancheng is Dushan (called Zushan in Qinhuangdao). In this mountain with an altitude of 1428 meters, there is a magical plant-the goddess of magnolia. Magnolia sieboldii is an ancient tree species that survived during the Quaternary Glacier Period, and is known as the "living fossil of plants". Dushan is called "the ancestor of the mountain" for its picturesque scenery and poetic sky. It is famous for its five wonders of mountains, water, rocks, caves and flowers, and is also known as "Little Huangshan Mountain in the north of Saibei". Dushan tofu is the leading food in Kuancheng, and Dushan spring water is the sweetest water quality in the area.

? Another food is the big fish in Panjiakou Reservoir. The first time I experienced the beauty of Panjiakou Reservoir was to participate in water law enforcement activities. I took the public security law enforcement boat around the whole vast lake area and went deep into the mountains around the lake area. In the deep water area, I saw local fishermen catch big fish with nets. There are crucian carp, carp, grass carp, silver carp and bearded catfish in the reservoir area. Different from other places, the fish is very big, and the big fish weighs dozens of pounds. The best restaurant to eat reservoir fish is in Boluotai village near the reservoir. Fishermen can cook a whole fish meal. I think the best thing is to boil big fish in mountain spring. The big fish boiled with local onion, ginger, garlic and mountain spring is not fishy, and the fish pieces are elastic and have a long aftertaste.

Other delicacies in Kuancheng include garlic white meat, wild mushrooms, stewed chicken with chestnuts and so on.

Annoying traffic trips

It is obviously a bit exaggerated to describe the Kuancheng traffic in that era with the great poet Li Bai's "it is difficult to go to the sky", but there are indeed many mountains like that. The most impressive and difficult mountain roads are the mountain collapse beam, the Yu 'er cliff beam, the Bancheng beam, and the Tangdao River. Let's talk about mountain collapse first. Bengshan Township is located in the western mountainous area of Kuancheng County. Because there are local coal mines, its economic position in the county is very important.

? The first time I went to Bengshan Township, I took a Chongqing Jialing Black 70 two-wheeled motorcycle driven by Lao He. It's a mountain road in the country. The roadbed is about seven or eight meters wide, and only large trucks can pass through narrow places. The place where we work is about 20 kilometers from the county seat. Because it is a mountain road, it is obviously less than half an hour's ride by motorcycle. It takes us an hour and a half to go there by bike and on foot. When we encounter a rugged steep slope, one side of the mountain road is a bottomless cliff, and we have to push a cart to reach the top of the mountain. We have to get off and wait when we meet a truck carrying coal across the street. When the truck passes by, we can go. It is even more troublesome to go to the mountain collapse after it snows in winter. It took an hour longer than usual to walk so far.

At that time, there were few cars in a county, and most of the cars led by the county were Beijing Jeep SUVs. Later, I got a better car like the Cherokee. In Yuerya Town, there was a farmer entrepreneur named Yang who owned a shiny black Toyota car that was only available in big cities at that time, which almost attracted the attention of the whole county.

? Our unit is a law enforcement unit, equipped with almost all two-wheeled and three-wheeled motorcycles. At that time, the big one was equipped with two two-wheeled motorcycles and a three-wheeled sidecar (commonly known as a sidecar), and the county bureau leader only had an old blue imported Roman jeep. In order to load the goods, the bureau also has a golden cup double-row truck. If the owner of this truck goes to Bengshan Coal Mine in winter, he will help the old cadres bring rice and oil items, and sometimes help them collect illegal items.

? The county bureau organizes several law enforcement inspections every year, usually led by the bureau leaders, and sent by the market department, the economic investigation department and the registration office. When the inspection team goes to the countryside, it is often five or six three-wheeled motorcycles in front, Roman jeeps in the back, and Jinbei double-row trucks in the back. Every inspection will find fake and shoddy goods in semi-trucks, including fake cigarettes, fake wine, fake firecrackers and so on. At that time, the biggest headache for the bureau leaders was to take the team to Tangdaohe Township for inspection. Because, going to this town far away from the county requires wading, and there are dozens of different mountains and rivers. It freezes in winter and the river dries up in spring and autumn, which is not a big problem. What I hate most is summer. The river almost rose below the knee, and we couldn't cross much with a three-wheeled motorcycle. After three or four people push the car across the river, they have to deal with the water and moisture in the spark plug, otherwise the car will definitely not start.

Once, in the summer, I went to Tangdaohe Institute. Because the journey is too difficult, I need to write a survey report on the local business situation, so the leader let me live in the office. In a week's time, my colleagues and I traveled all over the village, wrote an investigation report and visited the place described in Tao Yuanming's Peach Blossom Garden. Due to the inconvenient transportation, in that mountain village, I saw a small northern town with white walls, black tiles, green trees and red flowers. There are farmhouses, shops and restaurants left over from farming civilization in the town. Such a scene, many years later, I saw something similar when I traveled to Jiangnan. Therefore, my best memory of the northern countryside is actually Tangdaohe Village in Kuancheng. Later, my paper entitled "Poverty alleviation in mountainous areas is inseparable from individual and private economy" was adopted by publications in Chengde, and because of this paper, I participated in the Chengde individual and private economy development conference organized by the State Council research group in baiyun hotel, Chengde at that time, and the paper also won an award.

? Cultural and recreational life

If swimming is regarded as a cultural and recreational life, it is a bit far-fetched. However, in Kuancheng, it is still very tempting for me to swim in the waterfall river in summer. To the north of the main urban area of the county, there is a big river named Waterfall River, which flows from northeast to southwest and finally flows into Panjiakou Reservoir. In summer, there is a low stone dam in the tall poplar forest to the south of the river bank. Several colleagues and I often come here to swim after work in the sultry afternoon. After a day of sunshine, the river has lost its coolness. We wear shorts in the river, sometimes diving, sometimes dog planing, and there are often a group of children swimming naked next to us. Groups of big white geese on the shore, with long necks and small red eyes, looked at us curiously, and sometimes made a few inexplicable goose calls. As the sun sets, we shake off all the water drops and reluctantly leave the water's edge.

No one dares to go into the river during the rainstorm and flood season. People can only look at trees, animals and nameless objects wrapped in muddy water from a distance. The rumble of stones at the bottom of the river is like a train crossing the border. I often live nearby and fall asleep in such a strange sound.

At that time, there was no karaoke in the street, no Internet cafes and no billiards hall. There is a cinema in Zhongjie, and I haven't been there many times in my mind. I have always felt that I am an animal who likes to walk with others. I'm alone. I don't want to go for an outing or go to the movies alone except reading. So, in Kuancheng, I gradually like playing poker. However, my poker skills are so trendy that I lose almost every time. Dong Ge of Personnel Bureau and Chang Di of Education Bureau play cards together the most. We often go to Dong Ge's house to play cards on public holidays. After losing, my face was covered with notes. Because of this, I still feel a little depressed and my face often turns red. They laughed at me and I said, I don't want to play! Just as Brother Dong's lover's meal was ready, the three of us began to drink some wine. Chang Di is the biggest drinker. I don't think Dong Ge and I drink as much as him. For a time, playing cards and drinking became Sunday entertainment.

During the Spring Festival, the Yangko in Kuancheng is very lively. Before the fifteenth day of the first month, there were many yangko teams in cities and rural areas. Whoever puts snacks, wine and other gifts for the yangko team in front of their house will perform in front of it. Women and children love to watch yangko performances, and some little boys will learn their figures and expressions with the performance team. At the end of the year, the county will organize a cultural performance, the county troupe will play the leading role, and many units will also produce programs. Our unit will sing and perform on several occasions, and such tickets are free for employees.

Remember, at that time, the county radio station was built on the hillside south of the city. There are many cauldron-shaped white receivers hanging on the iron tower, and the small theater in the county is near the radio station.

To the east of our unit is a state-run beekeeping farm built in a valley. One day in spring, my colleagues and I came here to do business. We saw the mountains covered with exotic flowers and grasses, and the environment was very quiet. We took many photos there. I like autumn in Kuancheng best, which is a fruitful season. Because the road is not easy to walk, many fruit farmers have to pull their fruits to the county seat to sell. The streets are lined with hazelnuts, mushrooms and other fruits and mountain products. There are wild animals such as pheasants and roe deer (these wild animals were still able to hunt at that time). Visiting such a fruit market has become the most interesting thing on weekends, and every time I visit it, I will buy back a lot of fruits.

Later, he left Kuancheng because of his job transfer. When I went to Kuancheng again in recent years, I found that the road became better, the buildings became taller, the city became wider, and a beautiful bridge was built on the waterfall river, as if a new city had risen in the mountains. The builders finally built Kuancheng into a place with beautiful mountains, water and people!