The Back Prose of Jiezi Ancient Town

Standing at the intersection of the north and south tributaries in the upper reaches of Dongke River, the faint blue fog in the sunshine blocked my view of Jiezi ancient town, and only Dongbaozi Mountain was a vague figure, as if waiting for me to approach.

Turn left and turn right, and the Dongbaozi Mountain, shaded by pines and cypresses, finally becomes clear. Near, the tall and straight mountain gate of Chongfu Temple is impressive. Let me forget where I stand and only yearn for the wonders of Lingshan. Climbing up the mountain step by step along the steep stone steps, the pine and cypress trees on the cliffs on both sides are faintly retreating. As soon as I looked up, a white pine tree that I could hold slipped into the sky and stood in a handsome and straight posture. Looking at it, I suddenly remembered a difficult story my mother-in-law once told me when I was a child: her mother's family was in Jiezi ancient town at the foot of this mountain, and it was also a famous landlord family-Zhang's. Unfortunately, she did not enjoy the wealth of the landlord's family, but suffered endless disasters because she was born in the landlord's family. My mother-in-law often says, "I really wanted to study at that time, but I was too hungry to stand it." At that time, the school was on Yeshan (Dongbaozishan City God Temple). After class, I hurried to pick up pine nuts under the white bone pine tree to eat. In those years, the mountains were covered with white bones and pines. From autumn to the next spring, pine nuts often fall under trees. As soon as I ran to the Bones Pine Forest, I forgot the class. I just barely supported the second grade and couldn't go on ... "The years when my mother-in-law went to school happened to be the most difficult period for the country. She often said that the bones of wild pine nuts saved their dolls' lives, otherwise she would have starved to death. But her mother-in-law also said that the white bone pine on the mountain was gradually cut down. The most regrettable thing is the one in Nanchuan-"Jiugusong". Mother-in-law will show infinite emotion when she talks about Nine Gu Song. She said: "Jiusong is a sacred tree, and it takes more than a dozen adults to hold it. One of his branches grew to 10 meter, and then he stretched out nine thick branches around the neck of the tree. These nine branches are like nine "princes", spreading branches and leaves, which are independent and interrelated, and * * * influences the rise and fall of Jiezi ancient town; She is like an open giant umbrella, covering most of Nanchuan and sheltering all creatures ... "Yes, the destruction of Pinus bungeana is almost the pain of every old man. No one came from that era, no one saw Pinus bungeana in Yeshan or Nanchuan, but sighed and shook his head. In forty or fifty years, this is the only tree left in front of the white pine mountain, which is really hard to get. I don't know what a cruel and tragic story was staged here in the sixties and seventies, but it is an indisputable fact that the cultural relics and rare tree species in Jiezi ancient town were destroyed.

There are those painful stories in my heart, and we silently passed by Bai Pisong.

As soon as I entered the mountain gate, the first thing I saw was the Temple of General Ji. There is a cursive script on the top of the door "Hall of General Han Zhonglie Hou Ji", and there is a striking couplet on the doorpost: "Savior burns Luming Literature Ding Han, Marquis worships dogs and cooks cages". I looked at this couplet and felt a cold wind in my heart. It lured me into the battle of Xingyang, which decided the outcome of the Chu-Han War in 204 BC: Liu Bang was forced to Xingyang City by Xiang Yu on the night when the evil wind roared. Seeing Enemy at the Gates, in all kinds of unexpected situations, Ji Xin, who looks exactly like Liu Bang, bravely took the lead, got into Hanwang's carriage and went to Chuying to find Liu Bang to eat, claiming: "When the food runs out, Hanwang will surrender." The Chu army believed it, and long live the mountain call. At this time, Liu Bang took the opportunity to lead dozens of riders to escape from the East Gate. Then there is the fact that everyone can think of. Yes, Xiang Yu, who can bury 200,000 Qin Jun alive overnight, dare not cook or burn a scapegoat? It is entirely possible, and indeed it is.

However, standing in the shrine of General Ji today and thinking about this story is still deeply moving: even if Ji Xin looks like Liu Bang, life is only once for everyone, which is a truth that everyone knows. "Is Ji Xin forced by Liu Bang?" Looking at the statue of General Ji, I accidentally expressed my doubts. Actually angered an unknown old man around him. "What did you say? You said that General Ji died for him because of Liu Bang's bullying? "

In fact, I knew I was wrong as soon as the words came out. Walking into temples, Buddhist temples and other places is not easy to talk nonsense. But the words have been "splashed" like water and can't be taken back. I had to apologize and say, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disrespect General Ji. I was thinking, how could he ... "

"Don't you think so? I mean, people really don't believe it now. Just like you, don't you believe that General Ji will die for Hanwang? But you know what? The fact is that he did go. And quietly put this scene to the end. Isn't this brave and fearless? If General Ji had been less courageous, like Qin Wuyang in those days, wouldn't a little trembling spoil the event? "

After listening to the old man's righteous defense of General Ji, I really admired him. I apologized to him and secretly asked the local people around me who he was. Someone whispered: "He is the famous' full shit' in Jiezi ancient town!" What they say is very ugly. Speaking of him, it is the same as Kong Yiji written by Lu Xun: he thinks he is a scholar, knows a lot, and likes to tell people some historical rumors or anecdotes, especially foreigners who come here. I smiled and said, "He really knows a lot and is very enthusiastic. He is a good man! " "A man of insight, the old man, listen to me. He is a good man. He quickly leaned in again. I turned around and asked, "As you say, Liu Bang, Emperor Gaozu, is really a lucky man! "

The knowledgeable man smiled and said, "He has always been very lucky. First of all, he was lucky to bring a good body from the womb. Second, God gave him a clever brain. He was a scoundrel when he was young. It was just a coincidence that he embarked on the road of anti-Qin. Fortunately, however, he is surrounded by a large number of elite talents, including Xiao He and Fan Kuai, Sean and Han Xin. Although Liu Bang himself doesn't know a few words, which of these people around him is an idle generation, and our general Ji Xinji, is he a mediocre generation? "

I nodded convincingly. He went on to say, "Come on, I'll take you!" " "

Sunlight escaped from the eaves and canopies of the hall, spilling warmth all over the floor. We told a joke after the knowledgeable old man. After a few steps, I looked up and saw the "Xinglin view" in front of me. Walking into the door of Xie Dingfeng's three-eave arch structure, I saw four characters written in front of the main hall, "Purple gas comes from the east", and when I turned to the back, it was "Lingxiao Wonderland". Turning around, we were attracted by the colorful quadrangle buildings. The old man in "The Insider" took us while walking and watching, and told us the legend of the origin of this view of Xinglin.

He said: "It is said that there was a very famous local doctor in ancient times. His wife's name is Apricot Leaf, and his home is just behind this mountain. One day, his wife suddenly disappeared. There is blood from the front of his house to far away places. Judging from this, his wife was taken away by a wolf. Whenever he sees a blood spot, he sticks a branch of an apricot tree in order to find his wife. I walked across the mountains and found many places, and later my leg was broken. A few years later, the nearby mountains were covered with apricot trees, and there were many fountains on the mountains. It is said that his wife's blood dripped into the soil and turned into spring water. One year, there was a plague in the local area. Doctors cured many people with this aphrodisiac and became more and more famous. After a few years of spring, the plague became popular in another place, and even the family members of the prefecture and county satrap were infected. The situation was very critical, so the satrap sent for a doctor overnight. The doctor said, "Look at my sick body. Besides, my treatment depends entirely on the water in the fountains in front of and behind this house. This spring is intermittent. Many times, there is water when the patient comes, and there is no water when the patient leaves. Therefore, even if I go with you, I may not be able to cure the epidemic. Let the patient come! Otherwise, there is nothing I can do. "After that, the patients came to see a doctor one after another. The doctor didn't want money, but only let the patients plant an apricot tree in this mountain. A year later, the plague stopped, and the mountain was full of depressions but full of apricot flowers. It happened that a Taoist priest came here to practice and admired the doctor, so he built the Xinglin View here ... "Listening to the story of the bearer, I thought: Maybe this" Xinglin View "is not the origin, but his statement is enough to show the gratitude of the local people for saving people and avoiding disasters.

Out of Xinglin Temple, the old man accompanied us up the stone steps leading to the top of the mountain. People feel condescending at the top of the mountain, and everything at the foot of the mountain is unobstructed. Lao Wang suddenly asked the old learned man, "People say this is the ancient battlefield of the Three Kingdoms, don't you think?" His question is like a stone stirring up a thousand waves, and several of us looked at each other: everyone knows that this place is called a street pavilion, but it is by no means an ancient battlefield of the Three Kingdoms. The ancient battlefields of the Three Kingdoms are located in Longcheng, Qin 'an and Longkou in Sol Zhang. I was thinking like this when the learned man spoke again: "It is said that this is not the specific location of the ancient battlefield of the Three Kingdoms, but at that time, the whole Tianshui was the key place for Shu Wei to lock the key. Whoever occupies Tianshui first will have the initiative in the whole war. Of course, there are also historical records: the street pavilion of that year is in the street valley in the southeast of Maiji District today. That's where we are standing now ... "What he said suddenly reminded me of the record in Gansu Tongzhi:" The street pavilion is 70 miles southeast of Qin Zhou, that is, Ma Su is surrounded by Zhang He. Today's famous street. " "New Records of Qinzhou in Zhili" says: "Jieting, namely Jiezi Town, is the land of defeat in Ma Su, Han Shu." I was thinking about these historical materials, and the learned old man said, "In fact, we locals think this is the place where Ma Su lost its street pavilion. At the foot of the mountain, there is a big pagoda tree that Zhao Yun rode on." Look: The Nanshan Mountain under our feet is like the place where Ma Su established his stronghold. The south river at the foot of the mountain is the valley where Zhang He is located, and the opposite mountain is the place where Sima and his son visited on the eve of the expedition ... "

Looking in the direction of his finger, we can't help nodding silently: This mountain is really like the situation described in Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and we are somewhat convinced. Then, the old man said, "Ma Su, it is inevitable to lose the street pavilion. He is no different from Yang Xiu and Jiang Gan, except that Zhuge Liang is emotionally partial to him. Look at his San Xiao: Laughing at Zhuge Liang's "oversensitive". He thinks that the street pavilion is a remote place, and Wei Bing dare not come. It is really unnecessary for Kong Ming to make painstaking arrangements. Laugh at Wang Ping's "real woman view" and deny Wang Ping's good strategy of "stationing troops to take power"; Sima Yi came to patrol the whistle at night and said, "If there is life, I will not go around the mountain. ".What's the difference between this ignorant laughter and Jiang Gan's attempt to persuade Zhou Yu with a golden tongue when he led a Tsing Yi child to Dongwu? What's the difference between this and Yang Xiu talking about "chicken ribs" and confusing the morale when Cao Cao was in a dilemma? Are they all arrogant and willful? These people, like stars, have no light, but they still have a little. But many times the stars can't help but think of themselves as the sun, always feeling radiant and not caring about the sun that can really shine and heat. In this way, the trouble is coming. Hehe, look at me. Actually, you all know this I have a lot to tell you. Ha ha ha ... "

Hehe, he deserves to be a "knowledgeable person". He is really familiar with a lot! After listening to the old man's comments and comments on ancient events, we smiled and said goodbye to him. When you come down from the mountain, you go straight to the "Ten" Street in the ancient town.

The streets of the ancient town in the first month are very lively. With the word "ten" as the center, the four streets of east, west, north and south are crowded with shops. Daily necessities are dazzling. Bean jelly, stuffed skin, noodle fish, barbecue, sesame candy, oil rings and so on are all fragrant. People in the street say that if you come on the ninth day of September, you will be even more difficult to move. Not to mention the sound of gongs and drums and firecrackers, you will be amazed at the small costumes with long legs, shoulder poles, stalls and swaying in the air. Listening to the enthusiastic introduction of buyers and sellers on the street, the food around us once again opened our taste buds. We each ate two bowls of bean jelly and stuffing, and then got up and looked around. Hehe, I really saw an ancient locust tree in "Ten" Street. Some people say it is the big locust tree of Zhao Yunshuan's war horse. He told us vividly: "There is a tumor on the height of the tree. It was Zhao Yun's white horse that gnawed at the tree and grew such a big tumor. Hehe, we all laughed at this statement. Then someone pointed out to us that there are Shanshan Guild Hall and Zimeige not far from West Street, but now there is no trace. But Wenchang Pavilion in East Street is still there. Indeed, when we walked past, we saw that the roof of the eaves hall was extraordinary. As soon as we stood there watching, someone came to us and said, "Master Wenchang is amazing. Every New Year's Day, as long as you light a incense burner for Master Wenchang, the students' wishes for the big exam will be half realized. "

We went back to the street talking and laughing, and several two-story wooden buildings came into our eyes. From the outside, the first floor is spacious and tall, which may be the facade of the shop from the beginning; The second floor, relatively small and exquisite, is said to be a businessman's room. Its doors and windows railings are engraved with patterns, especially the panes facing the street, and the hollowed-out patterns are more delicate and complicated. It should have cost a lot of money and energy to make it. Just as we were watching and chatting, an old man sitting in front of the wooden building shop in the sun said to us, "If you want to see it, go in!" " "

At the invitation of the old man, we were pleasantly surprised. The old man said he was 83 years old, but as soon as he turned around, he raised his stool and led us briskly into the yard. It turns out that there is a wooden building in the east of the yard, which looks less gorgeous than the one facing the street, but it has less damage. To the north of the courtyard is a newly-built three-story small foreign building. After we looked around in the yard, the old man said, "Come and sit in the house!" " "We are all very happy to enter the wooden house in the East. Across the door, there is a table with incense burners and sacrifices, and there is a big oven in the middle. The fire is red, and the tea in the pot on the stove is boiling. The old man asked us to sit around the stove and let his granddaughter in her thirties pour us tea. I looked down and saw that the ground was a half-foot square blue brick, and the brick surface had been polished very brightly, and some of them looked incomplete. Looking up again, the roof wood of the house is still very strong, and only the gable and the front wall skin seem to have been mended with cement later. The old man said that the wooden building facing the street was in the early Qing Dynasty, and it has been an old house for hundreds of years in the hands of his grandfather. Later, my father made it up, and his generation made it up twice. In recent years, children and grandchildren have to tear down the room to build a new building, but because he values the stories left by his ancestors here, he has always kept them.

"What's the story?" Lao Wang likes to collect folk stories, so as soon as he hears the word "story", he wants to hear it. The old man looked around us and saw that we were all looking forward to it, so he spoke:

"ah! In fact, it seems to be a very vulgar story now, but it is related to the foundation of this family, so I always remember that my grandmother was the daughter of a local rich businessman in the late Qing Dynasty. Grandma's grandfather and father are local foreign agents. Now I still remember that there are mountains of goods from foreign vendors in my backyard. I was eighteen years old and studying in Tianshui. My grandfather told me the story of him and his grandmother.

"On a snowy morning, my lonely and helpless grandfather was cold and hungry outside my grandmother's house. The servant who got up early to sweep the snow found my grandfather and reported it to his master. At that time, my boss was my grandmother's grandfather, and my grandmother was a yellow flower girl. With the rescue of the master's family, my grandfather finally woke up.

"It turned out that my grandfather was the son of a butler at the border between Sichuan and Shaanxi. Because his father committed a crime and sat with the whole family, he ran out and fled to the mountains. Later, my grandfather ran to a cave in Shimen Mountain and hid. But it was so cold that even the birds in Shimen Mountain starved to death. He can't stand cold and hunger. One evening, he ran out of the forest and came to the street the next morning. It's snowing. As soon as he arrived at my grandmother's door, he was unconscious. At that time, I listened to grandpa's story and found that he was a learned scholar, so I quietly left him behind. But he stayed at home for half a year. In the past six months, the scholar has not only helped his master read the words and settled the accounts, but also fell in love with my grandmother. She is smart, virtuous and ingenious. As a scholar, my grandfather takes a fancy not only to my grandmother's beauty, but also to her paper-cutting and embroidery. My grandmother is more interested in his talent and personality. In this case, we will be inseparable for a long time. The family also saw it in their eyes and were happy, ready to accept him as a son-in-law. But my grandfather said that he must know about his family before he got married, so he left. Grandpa left in summer, and grandma was pregnant for more than four months when she left. But winter has come and grandpa hasn't come back yet, which makes grandma and her family very uncomfortable. After my grandmother gave birth to my father, she couldn't bear the pain of lovesickness, and secretly went out to find my grandfather the next spring. As a result, she didn't go far, so she fell into the river in Shimen Mountain, and later found the body on the Dongke River beach downstream. My grandfather didn't return here until three years later. He brought a lot of gold and silver, ready to settle down and do business here. But he didn't expect to see grandma's cold grave and a young son when he came back. This young son is my father. Later, grandpa took over all the business of my grandmother's family, earned a lot of family business, and built the wooden building across the street. The one we are sitting on was also built by my grandfather. But unfortunately, he never got married again. My father died of depression after raising him.

We didn't expect such a vivid story to remain in this ancient wooden building. We drank tea quietly and listened to the old man telling stories. He accompanied us to see the old wooden building across the street. Mulou is also full of vicissitudes, much more than the wrinkles on the old man's face. I can't help feeling sad: how long can this story last? The old man didn't see my sadness, so he accompanied us to see the wooden building and walked out of North Street. Pointing to Beishan, he said, "There are not only stories of ordinary people, but also stories of ancient celebrities. There is Du Fu Caotang under the "Bagua Huai" on the hill diagonally opposite. Du Fu lived in this area when he came to Zhou Qin. Now this river is called "North River" and flows down from Shimen Mountain. The river to the south of the ancient town is called "South River", which flows down from Ren Xian Cliff. These two rivers surround Jiezi ancient town like giant's two arms, and flow out of the ancient town and then merge into Dongke River. Du Fu wrote several poems about Dongke Valley when he was here. After what he said, I really remembered Lao Du's two poems "Dongke Valley" and "Dongke Cliff Valley", and also remembered his difficult days in Dongke Valley.

Walking out of Jiezi ancient town, we stood at the intersection of two rivers in the upper reaches of Dongke River. Looking back at the East, the ancient town, together with the official records and folklore circulating in the ancient town, left us a shadow. However, this figure is desolate, simple and vivid. It attracts countless people who are eager for loyalty, peace, love and all good things to approach it, explore it and make it last forever.