My home is in an ordinary village called Yuanwan Cypress in the northwest of Susong County, Anhui Province. Behind the village is the Lion Rock with a relative height of 200-300 meters, the mountain rises from east to west, and the rocks at both ends are very similar to a pair of lions sitting majesticallyIn front of the village is an open field, a river about 100 meters wide passes through it, forming a natural geographical division, and most of the village houses on the east and west banks are built against the mountain and the river.
It is located in the first monsoon climate zone, with abundant precipitation and four distinct seasonsThe terrain is high in the north and low in the south, and the landforms and landscapes are diverseThe natural environment is superior, and the water and land products are abundant. The north is the remnant veins of the Dabie Mountain, and the south side has the water of the Yangtze River flowing through, and it is good at the beauty of mountains, hills, rivers and lakes and plains. It is the place where mountain goods gather since ancient times, and it is the hometown of fish and rice, and the economic structure and life style are rich in local characteristics.
If it is said that the northern mountains with peaks and peaks stand the steep style of Susong, and the southern waters of the river hugging the lake show the broad mind of Susong, then the Erlang River, which runs through the whole territory from north to south, is elegantly flowing with the beautiful charm of Susong. She surged the valleys, swirled around the hills, undertook the large and small Hongxi and ditches, connected many fields, villages and towns, and finally converged Longhu Lake, connected the Yangtze River, generously gifted abundant materials, and kept talking about the long history.
The Erlang River is the largest river in Susong, with a main stream of 66 long3 kilometers, the average annual runoff is more than 380,000 cubic meters, the basin area is about 597 square kilometers, only 32 square kilometers are in Huangmei County, Hubei, basically a river in Susong. Throughout the ages, people have lived by the river and lived in symbiosis with the river. The flow of water interacts with human activities and influences each other, continuing to write a long history of natural and human forces corresponding to each other, and jointly depicting the eco-social landscape of the co-evolution of environment and culture.
Around the winter of 1977, in order to solve the problem of overflow and flooding of the Erlang River during the flood season, the local government organized thousands of migrant workers to carry out major transformations of the river, widen the river, strengthen the embankment, and cut bends and straighten. That year, I was in the third grade of junior high school, almost 15 years old, and I participated in the work of "picking up the river" as a half-laborer. Since then, the Erlang River has been renewed, the waterway is straight, the embankment is high, and the ecosystem has undergone many unexpected and important changes worthy of reflection. The most significant change in the river near my home is that most of the bamboos and trees along the river have disappeared, and there are no longer large groups of birds gathering to inhabit, and the fish in the river, which was originally very abundant, have suddenly decreased.
What remains in the depths of my memory is still the zigzag Erlang River. The river's sandy beaches ebb and flow with the seasons, the very irregular banks are overgrown with poplars, weeping willows, reeds, overgrass and many more unknown species of miscellaneous trees and weeds, and large bamboo forests are scattered in the twists and turns of the river, which are home to countless birds, insects, worms and small mammals. I still remember that two or three miles away on the Qingwei side, at the confluence of the Erlang River and the Chema River, there used to be a large bamboo forest, all year round, regardless of spring, summer, autumn and winter, every dusk and sunset, there are countless noisy and frolicking sounds of returning birds. What I miss the most is the fish, shrimp and crabs in the Erlang River, there are dozens of species.
The gifts of Erlang River are generous and generous, and they are the main livelihood of my childhood. She opened up the pastures with fertile grass and water, and gave us a wide variety of wild vegetables, many of which can be used as vegetables, and a large number of delicious fish and aquatic products. In that era of material scarcity and poverty, Erlanghe provided us with the most important food nutrition. The banks of the Erlang River are the paradise of our wild growth - natural and clean swimming pools, treasures for collecting shells and pearls, sand tables for writing and graffiti, and battlefields for arranging troops.
Whether it's fishing or fishing, I became a good player at an early age, and the reason is a bit funny: because my father didn't care about it as much as other adults (except for fishing in the river during the rainy season). My father went to junior high school, was a little literate and literate, and has always served as a captain, instructor and other cadres, orthodox thinking, when I was a child, I always criticized me for not doing my job, "fishing and shrimp, delaying crops". But every time he catches and catches the fish, he eats it with relish - after all, it's a rare delicacy!My house at that time.
Five or six people, all year round can not eat a few catties of pork, a few eggs, the wild fish in the Erlang River has become the main of our animal protein.
When we were children, we tried all kinds of ways to find food: we went into the water to pick water chestnuts, calloween and chicken's head rice, caught wild fish, loaches, yellow eels and frogs, went up the mountain to collect hairy chestnuts, oak seeds, wild hawthorns, wild mushrooms and lichens, and hunted hares, pheasants and bird eggs ......I tried every method I could think of, and I got the hang of it.
10. The shape, taste, use, habitat, growth and activity season of hundreds of species of aquatic and terrestrial wild animals and plants. Later, when I studied the history of agriculture and the environment, and read the relevant materials in ancient books, I often corresponded with the experience and knowledge of my childhood, and I felt more and more that these necessary knowledge of production and life that had been passed down from generation to generation as our nation had helped many hungry people to survive with difficulty and tenacity for thousands of years. In addition to searching for food, he also has a lot of experience and knowledge in the prevention and treatment of accidental wounds, poisonous insect bites and common diseases, and many herbs can be found on beaches, embankments, ridges, fields and nearby mountains and forests along the Erlang River. These personal experiences have been of great help to me in understanding the environment, economy, society, and especially the history of food in ancient China.
Perhaps the distance of time and space can produce special beauty, and now my memory has diluted the bitterness of the past and left the beauty of childhood, but our generation has grown up in nature with "fun and work". Today, the Chinese people have long had enough food and clothing, forgotten hunger for generations, and their material wealth and convenience of life far exceed the dreams of their predecessors. It's just that I don't know if the water of the Erlang River is still as clear as everAre the azaleas still red all over the hillsides in spring?Are the verdant Masson pines already as thick as arches?Are the younger generations of young men in their hometown still running barefoot in the landscape and countryside, singing wantonly, and enjoying the comfort of the blend of man and nature?
Excerpted from "Erlang River is the Hometown", originally published in "Farmer**" author Wang Lihua.