The Golden Cave in Taiping Town

The word "widow" is used to describe Jindongtun in You Village Committee, Taiping Town, Liucheng County, because there are many mysteries in it.

The Jindong River and Jindong Village are actually hidden in a mountain nook. The mouth of the Jindong River is the entrance to Liucheng 40th Street. Looking at the lonely dam at the beautiful Jindong River Estuary, you can hardly imagine that in the early 1970s, this was the construction site of the Jindong River Hydropower Station, one of the three major water conservancy construction projects in Liucheng County. At that time, in response to Chairman Mao's call to vigorously build water conservancy projects, more than 2,000 passionate young people from Liucheng drove a mighty team to this paradise surrounded by mountains and rivers, and devoted themselves to the vigorous Jindong River water conservancy project construction project. among. There were too many projects that were hurriedly started and then stopped in a hurry. No one has delved into the reasons why the Jindonghe Hydropower Station was never completed. It’s just that today, with the passage of time, the passionate years are far away from us, but the construction of that year The traces left behind are still clear. The large-character slogan on the stone gate "Don't be afraid of difficulties, man can conquer nature" seems to be telling us the story of yesterday.

On this legendary Jindong River, there is a little-known strange thing - sugarcane "bamboo rafts".

In the past, the Jindong people could only grow corn, so there were mountains and ridges full of wasteland, but everyone was extremely poor. Later, the government guided the Jindong people to open up wasteland and grow sugar cane to make money, and the villagers realized that sugar cane was sweeter. There is a lot of land in Jindong She, so a lot of sugar cane can be grown. However, Jindong is too mountainous and even oxcarts cannot pass through it. The river in Jindong is too small and motor boats cannot enter, so every year the sugar cane in the mountains and ridges is too high. It all relies on sugarcane being tied in rows and floating down the river out of the mountains. Villagers also often use rows made of sugar cane to transport charcoal, pigs and cattle until they are taken out on the mountain, so "sugar cane boats are used to pull sugar cane" has become a great spectacle in Jindong.

More than a thousand tons of sugar cane produced in Jindong every year are floated out. The vast rows of sugar cane are very spectacular, but when talking about this, the villagers look helpless. Each row of sugar cane weighs about 7 or 8 tons, and it takes about two days for each row to float outside the mountain. Therefore, in Liucheng, the sugar cane from Jindongtun is always the first to be cut and the last to be transported to the sugar factory. . Extremely inconvenient transportation has become the biggest obstacle to the development of Jindong.

Jindong is not accessible to traffic, and it takes more than 3 hours to walk from the mountain pass to Jindongtun. Approaching Jindongtun, there are more than a dozen disorderly mud houses surrounded by a bamboo fence, which is the entire Jindongtun. Villagers said that because living conditions are too difficult, many Jindong people have moved outside the mountains to make a living. There used to be only 8 households left in Jindong Village, which had more than 40 households, and they are typical of the "9938 Troop" (the ones left behind are all old people). and women). Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to use the word "widow" to describe the Golden Cave.

When we walk into the home of any Jindong people, we can see a strange phenomenon: electric lamps are hung and candles are lit. There are electric lights on the walls of every house, but everyone lights candles at night. Villagers said that their place without electricity is one of the few natural villages in Liucheng that does not have electricity. Why do every house have electric lights if there is no electricity? In fact, Jindongtun used to use water from the Jindong River to build a small hydropower station in the village, but later it was no longer used for unknown reasons. Coupled with the lack of management, the hydropower station now only has a rotten house. The electric lights in villagers' homes have become luxurious decorations. An aunt who had lived in the Golden Cave all her life said that the electric light at home was as lonely as her, unable to shine and without a companion. It is a very common phenomenon in Jindong for the elderly to live alone and stay in empty nests.

The "Widow" in Taoyuan

If mountain villages can be divided into men and women, Jindongtun in Shangyou Village Committee should undoubtedly belong to women: feminine and demure.

Strictly speaking, Jindongtun is just a beautiful widow: the scenery is charming and the population is only thirty or forty people.

This small Zhuang village used to have more than 200 people. Due to the inconvenient transportation and lack of electricity in the village, more and more people have moved out. Now, only 7 households remain.

Legend has it that this was once a place where bandits lived, and historically there were only two surnames: Luo and Hou. At that time, the Luo family moved to Jindongtun and were attracted by the mountains and rivers here, so they called the Hou family here. Now, the Hou family has moved out of Jindongtun, and only the Luo people are left guarding this beautiful " widow".

Thinking about it, the bandit who chose the Golden Cave to stay must have been a person who knew how to be poetic and artistic.

The rooster stood happily on the rocks in the village and sang loudly, and its crows echoed in the village for a long time. Jindongtun is surrounded by rocky hills rising abruptly on all sides. The green trees on the rocky hills are really like jade lotuses and jade bamboo shoots.

The Golden Cave is just like the paradise described by Tao Yuanming.

The mountain village has declined.

Only the neatly stacked tables and chairs were left in the two mud-brick buildings of the village primary school. If it weren’t for the thick dust on them, outsiders would have thought it was just a temporary winter vacation for the primary school.