Pengshui is long. Pengshui, in fact, is a long river in the north-south direction, a section of the river that flows through Pengqiao, Pengqiao people call it Pengshui, flow to other places, what kind of water is called, and I don't know. Because at the mouth of the first three forks in the south of the river, there is a three-plate stone bridge, which was called Peng Bridge in ancient times. The regional map in the genealogy of the Tang family in Pengqiao Tangjia Natural Village is prominently marked with the name of the bridge and its location of "Pengqiao". Moreover, the Tang family tree has a written record: "Tang Zhi, the ancestor of the Tang surname, avoided the hustle and bustle of the city, and the land in the fifteenth capital of Pengqiao, Kaomuxian Xixiang, was fertile and beautiful, and he could be cultivated, so he led his three younger brothers to move south from Pingyi Slope to live here, and then multiplied into a clan." Pengqiao place name, about from this.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Zhoujia, West Bank (Pengqiao Tangjia), Qianyan, Qiaodi, Dongyang five natural villages were merged into an administrative village, and Pengqiao was taken as the name of the village. So much so that the name of Pingqiao Village has been officially handed down to this day. Pengqiao bridgehead, the original stone stele, on the book "Dapeng Bridge" three words, after the Tang family moved the ancestor Tang Zhi to build a bridge on the tributary of Pengshui to the west, the number "Zhongshang Bridge", I don't know when and who will move the Dapeng Bridge stele to the west of the Zhongshang Bridge and stand. When I was a child, I went to Dukou Elementary School, and when I passed this bridge, I saw this stone monument, and later it is said that someone moved this monument to use it as a water port, I don't know if it is real. If it is true, it should be moved back to its original place and restored.
The five natural villages of Pingqiao are in order from west to east.
Arranged in a zigzag pattern, there are about 1,800 people living with six surnames, including Zhou, Tang, Huang, Dai, Song and Jin. They live in harmony and work diligently to cultivate the fertile land on both sides of Pengshui.
In the east head of the Tang family, the north head of the front wall, there was originally a "Yang Mansion Palace", the palace is all wooden structure, the east is facing west, the two into the quadrangle pattern, tall and majestic. It is the center of Pingqiao villagers and the belief of Pingqiao people. After the establishment of Pingqiao Administrative Village, it became the administrative village station, and the villagers were often convened here to implement the best policy or announce major decisions in the village.
In my memory, there is a grass house on the south side of Yangfu Palace, which is the "mill" of villagers milling rice (not modern machine milling, but ancient stone mortar milling), and the owner of the mill is called Ah County or Ah Yao, and it is called "Sieve Rice County". Later, the grass house collapsed, and the stone mortar, bamboo and windmill equipment for rice milling were moved to the temple. And can be on the pestle shelf, the left and right feet take turns to jump and step on the pestle. Later, due to the installation of advanced rice milling machines in many places in neighboring villages, this mill factory also completed its historical mission.
In the years of the Great Leap Forward, the village was changed to a production brigade. The temple was crumbling due to disrepair, and there were no fireworks due to the destruction of superstition. The brigade converted the two corridors into livestock farms, raised a lot of pigs, and assigned two elderly uncles to manage them, but they were discontinued after a short time.
I remember that during the Cultural Revolution, the front and rear halls finally collapsed. However, the north and south corridors where the livestock farms were run are still there, and the cadres of the brigade are often seen holding meetings and discussing matters here.
In the late sixties, the rural sideline began to rise, the homespun and homespun weaving in Jiangnan was re-warmed, the market demand for recycled cotton yarn and recycled homespun cloth increased greatly, and the homespun tools developed from a hand-cranked single-spindle spinning machine to a mechanical hand-spinning machine with dozens of spindles. As a result, the production of homespun yarn increased exponentially, adapting to the needs of the homespun market at that time. At that time, although there were self-employed side businesses, homespun products were purchased by supply and marketing cooperatives, and the brigade was also encouraged to collectively set up side businesses. The Pingqiao Brigade also began to create a team-run side business. First of all, two "flowering machines" were introduced, and the buyers of the brigade went to other places to purchase rag sheets, which were rolled by the flowering machines and turned into variegated recycled cotton. It is then distributed to members who have spinning machines to spin yarn. Then the yarn is recovered, and the processing fee per catty of yarn is determined by the brigade and settled regularly. The members of the club have income and are very supportive of these initiatives of the brigade. The brigade also mobilized some members who had looms, concentrated the looms in the brigade, set up a brigade weaving factory, and used the south corridor of the Yangfu Hall as a weaving factory workshop after a slight transformation. There are about 30 looms, and 50 to 60 women are in full swing here, and a few male workers are assigned to guide and manage the work. Part of the homespun cloth produced is purchased by the local supply and marketing cooperatives, and most of them are promoted by the brigade buyers to the local specialty companies in other places, and there are also door-to-door purchases from the supply and marketing cooperatives in other places, and the sales volume is very good. The employees of the weaving factory have a clear division of labor, and they are paid according to the output, and the enthusiasm for production is quite high. There are signs of rural industrialization.
The side business of the brigade, in addition to weaving, also has a side business, which is particularly worth mentioning, that is, "beating ash baskets". Here is a brief introduction to what the "ash basket" is, the ash basket is a kind of agricultural tool, made of bamboo, the shape is very similar to the dustpan used by the northerners, but the ash basket is larger than the dustpan, and there are two more ash basket ears, tied with a rope, can be used for shoulder picking. Farmers use this thing to pick up mud, burn fire plaster, and use it to fill the burned fire marl and sprinkle it into the paddy field as fertilizer, which is its main function, because it is related to the marl, so it is called ash. Of course, it can also be used to hold other things, such as weeds, vegetables, etc. The people of Pingqiao beat the ash basket, which was famous in Jiangnan at that time. One of the original was the agricultural production in Jiangnan at that time, and the ash basket was used from house to house, and the second reason was that there was only one place in Pingqiao in the Jiangnan area to make the ash basket. Due to these two reasons, the Pingqiao people made the ash basket very popular. Pingqiao people also receive income as a result. There are many professional terms, such as "breaking the scorn", "sharpening the bow", "making the head", "making a contract", "wrapping the ears of the ash", etc., so that it is not accurate, I am not sure. Pingqiao people, especially Dongyan, Qiaodi, and Qianyan, almost every family in these natural villages can fight, the Tang family will fight, and the Zhou family will rarely fight. At that time, collective sideline work was advocated, and the production team also tried to concentrate production, but due to the difficulty of satisfying the site, the division of labor and remuneration were not easy to grasp, and finally gave up. However, it has continued to exist as a family side hustle. So far, there are still many Pingqiao people who adhere to this industry. Speaking of which, we have to mention the two major water conservancy projects of repairing the bridge pier reservoir and dredging the Hengyang branch river. When repairing these two major water conservancy projects, there is no excavator like now, no engineering vehicles, all the earth and stone are almost all manually picked out with ash, the engineering command at that time issued the task of purchasing ash to the Pingqiao production brigade through the first department, the Pingqiao people at that time, when the farm was busy, they worked in the field during the day, worked overtime at night to beat the ash, and a large number of ash was transported to the construction site, but it would not be lifted because of the large demand, and it was completely subject to the purchase price. According to the specified quality production, the whole process is also orderly, and it has paid labor and made contributions to the water conservancy construction at that time. Pingqiao people are not only unique in Jiangnanyan, but may also be unique in Wenzhou. I don't know when this craft began to rise, and there is no way to verify it. With the progress of the times, it is likely that this process will slowly wither or even disappear. I have a naïve idea, can I apply for protection as intangible cultural heritage? Let the few Pingqiao people who can make ash baskets now sort out and excavate this craft and pass it on?
Pingqiao is a rural area, and of course the countryside is inseparable from farming, and the people of Pingqiao, like people in other places in Jiangnanyan, rely on cultivating paddy fields and planting rice to live. Jiangnan farming, its way of working, is roughly the same. It is nothing more than ploughing and sowing, raising seedlings and transplanting seedlings, weeding, fertilizing and pest control, irrigation, and harvesting rice. There are many interesting facts about the assignment that are worth describing, but due to the limited chapters, I am not going to go into detail here. Here is only one thing, which has played a great role in the future development of agriculture and in increasing production and income. It is "farmland capital construction", which we call "land leveling" in our local language.
Before the liberation, Jiangnan Yan, like the whole country, farmers farmed and worked alone. Fields in the countryside are privately owned by farmers and can be freely traded. As a result, the land was divided into fragments, with large hills and small pieces, each occupying it, high and low-lying, and it was difficult to protect from drought and flood. By the riverside, called "the head of the river", waterlogging is easy to drain, drought is easy to irrigate, it is a rare fertile field for a thousand gold, far away from the river is called "the heart of the field", full of water first, drought first, is rotten field. The rich people all occupy the good land, and the rich people can't even get the Xintian.
After liberation, the rural areas changed from land reform to agricultural cooperatives, and finally all land was owned by the collective. In this way, the collective can plan the land in a unified manner. The basic construction of farmland can be carried out smoothly.
The Pingqiao Brigade was divided into eight squads at that time, and I personally experienced the whole process of farmland capital construction in the third squad where I belonged, and the third squad was essentially a natural village where the Pengqiao Tang clan lived, with a population of about 100 people and less than 100 acres of land. A Pengshui tributary surrounds this land, and a broken river bifurcated in the Pengshui tributary, dividing this land into east and west. The residential area is located in the middle of the land, scattered on the east and west banks, and a small stone bridge connects the east and west residential areas. The south side of the house is called the front of the door, and the three sides are facing the river. The north side is called the second half of the river, extending to the north along the Guillotine River, the east side is called the other bank of the river, close to the Zhutou River, there is a small piece of cultivated field in the west, and it is also a paddy field near the river. The location is very good. The water conservancy conditions are quite superior. However, due to the pattern of private ownership of land in the old society, the transformation of grain fields was restricted. There are many fields and low-lying fields, and there are many graves mixed with them. Rice production has always hovered between the fourth and sixth evenings of autumn.
After the establishment of the collective system, the production team carried out overall planning and rational transformation according to the geographical conditions of the land, connected the small hills and farmland into large hills, and leveled the uneven land. All the ridges were changed to be perpendicular to the river, and all the fields in the heart of the river were turned into river head fields. Waterlogging is easy to drain, and drought is easy to irrigate. Shovel out mass graves that hinder production, dig up excess miscellaneous sites, fill small ponds, and straighten crooked river banks. After three years of hard work, the land leveling project of the whole team was basically completed. It not only increases the cultivated area, but also shows neatness. At the turn of spring and summer, it is green, and in the autumn harvest, it is golden, and the total yield per mu has increased significantly. The villagers regard the collective as their home and love the collective. Consciously safeguard the collective interests and work hard to cultivate this land that belongs to itself. It turned out to be a family with the same surname, but after collectivization, it became more like a family.
Other squads also entered the farmland capital construction movement. The basic construction of farmland was an important measure for agricultural production at that time, which laid a good foundation for the subsequent increase of agricultural output.
When it comes to agriculture and the collective, I have to talk about one person, this person is Zhou Zhilu, the secretary of the party branch of the brigade that year.
Zhou Zhilu, a native of Zhoujia Natural Village, his ancestors were an authentic farmer, who farmed since he was a child, and had no culture, but he was bold and capable, and his thoughts were active. Decent style and fair manner. Since the early days of liberation, he has served as a cadre of Pingqiao Village. In the early sixties, he began to serve as the secretary of the party branch of Pingqiao Village, and in the years when he served as secretary, Pingqiao's agricultural production flourished, and he was rated as the county agricultural advanced brigade many times. Sideline production is even more in the lead. The collective accumulation increased substantially, and in the early seventies, the brigade accumulated 190,000 yuan. The group of people in the Pingqiao Party branch know that the accumulation of the collective should be used for the collective. Due to the lack of electricity at that time, there were frequent power outages in rural areas, and Secretary Zhou boldly put forward the idea of running his own generator. It has received strong support from members and executives. A 100 kilowatt diesel generator set was successfully built to provide power for agricultural and sideline production. Zhou Zhilu himself is also more loved by the members.
During my return to my hometown, I had the privilege of working with this group of people for four years, experienced that hot and passionate era, and witnessed the spiritual outlook and hard-working character of the people of that era. More than half a century has passed. In retrospect, there was still an impulse of strength. Unforgettable years, lingering.
Long Pengshui, the years go by, and I only awaken a few old memories with attachment feelings. Society is developing, and times are changing. The land of Pingqiao and the people of Pingqiao are stepping into a new world with a new attitude.