Sherron. Recall that the first time I went to Chunqiu Village was in the winter of 2006. In 2006, tourism development had not yet begun, and everything was still in a primitive state. Later, the Spring and Autumn Village became a famous tourist attraction, and I went there several times to accompany friends who came from afar. But the one that sticks in my mind is still the winter of 2006. That time, after I finished the interview on the farmland infrastructure in Donggong Town, it was Mr. Ye Jingfang, the head of the town's cultural station, who encouraged me to say that there is still a treasure in Donggong, do you want to see it? Is there a reason why the baby doesn't look at it? He said yes. He said to be a little mentally prepared, the baby is hidden in Lu Ping's mountains, and the road is not too easy to walk.
The treasure that Ye Jingfang said is the Spring and Autumn Village. It sits on the top of a hill called Liyu Mountain in the hinterland of Jing Mountain. At that time, the Spring and Autumn Village was not ** Autumn Village, chatting with the local villagers, they called it Dengjiazhai, also known as Stone City, or crowned with a "white" word, called White Stone City. It is said that those stone houses hanging high in the air, in the winter sun, will emit some mysterious white light.
Unfortunately, on the day we arrived, the sky was cloudy and a little cold, and the sun was not strong at all, looking up from the bottom of the mountain, in the cloud and fog cover, the layers of city walls were stacked, towering and towering, and there was no white light coming out. It's just that when we climbed up the mountain, we found that the villagers were not all nonsense - suddenly I saw Liyu Mountain under the cloudy sky, the stone town on the mountain, and I was really shocked: the whole mountain is like a huge white ruins, full of white stone walls, stone houses of ruins, as if once swept by a strong typhoon, **, some stone houses have already collapsed, after years, dry grass and stones are all over the ground; Some of them were holding on to the top of the frame (some were Arrow Forts), one after the other, but all of them had no roofs, and the scrawny ones all had their mouths wide open, as if they were about to swallow the sky. There are no big trees on the mountain, and the usual trees are a little sparse, and the fallen leaves are sluggish, and the branches and roots are like swords and halberds, and there is a military spirit in the air. At the bottom of the mountain is the Maoping River, where Liyu Mountain (which I think is more like a catfish) stretches its wide mouth into the winter water, silently, with a steep mountain peak arched high on its back, and a flexible fish tail that undulates like a blue and black streamer along the Maoping River in the deep abyss. Those white-stone city walls, stone houses, arrow forts, etc., meander up from the tail of the fish and the back of the fish, follow the shape of the situation, twists and turns, high and low, continuous line, a piece, its scale is so large, looking at the past, it is like a family castle left over from a century, or more like a military fortress. Climbing, lingering, and stopping in it, the wind in the valley is whistling, and it is easy to remind people of the Southern Great Wall (Hunan, Guizhou, Miaojiang) and the North Great Wall (Badaling) that resisted the enemy in ancient times.
There is no road on the mountain, or no road can be found. The bushes and thorns that are half a person tall are all entangled between the stone gates and stone houses, which can be said to be a group of thorns. Fortunately, Ye Jingfang brought a machete with him before leaving, I thought it was a beast defense, he said to cut the road. He said that in recent years, he has to come every year, cut every year, and at the beginning of the year, he also brought cultural relics experts from Beijing to the mountain to investigate. Therefore, we walk very slowly, stop-and-go, chop, and stumble. Of course, there are also about the ruins and culture of the ancient walled city and ruins.
According to Ye Jingfang, after repeated surveys and demonstrations by cultural relics experts in recent years, it has been preliminarily determined that this ancient cottage should be built in the Chu and Han dynasties, and it is a super-large defensive cottage built by indigenous people to fight against bandits or avoid war. The north and south of the cottage are more than 1,200 meters long, about 20 to 40 meters wide from east to west, there are more than 150 stone houses, arrow forts, watchtowers and so on in the wall, if the stone city wall, patrol road, pier and the arched gate of the sentry card type (divided into the south gate and the north gate of the sentry card) are counted, the total construction area should reach more than 20,000 square meters (later in 2008 when the third national cultural relics census was further confirmed). There is no doubt that this is a huge alpine building, because it was once huge, and now it has been reduced to ruins, but the majesty of the past is still there, and it still faintly shocks and sighs, making people unimaginable, and they can't help but be confused: not to mention the overall planning of the cottage, the design of those battlements, stone houses, and the construction form and craftsmanship of the lanes, and other aspects, let's just say how such a huge construction project was completed in that ancient era when it was completely carried on the shoulders? How is such a huge amount of building materials mined and cut and processed? And how to transport those tons of stones up the mountain from other places one by one, not to mention how much labor and how long it takes to transport them up a cliff surrounded by water on three sides and a cliff on one side? How many unpredictable stories have happened in the meantime? These are not simple questions, no matter how much I try to guess and "open my mind", I think it is a little incredible.
There is a local legend that Guan Yu during the Three Kingdoms period once served as a soldier in Lupingtun when he was stationed in Xiangyang, and he read "Spring and Autumn" in this village. I estimate that the name of the current "Spring and Autumn Village" is about to be ***. Whether Guan Yu has read "Spring and Autumn" is hard to say, but he has been to the Spring and Autumn Village, and even lived in the village for a period of time, it is not that there is no basis at all. Luping Village, located in Donggong Town, was the traffic artery from Xiangyang to Dangyang and Yichang in the south; In other words, it was also the only way for Soochow to go north and attack Xiangyang by land. On the Woniu Mountain, which belongs to the boundary of Luping, there are still two large training grounds in the Three Kingdoms period, which are all in the history books, and the ancient monuments excavated from the Woniu Mountain are also recorded. In this case, who can conclude that Guan Yu did not lead his troops to fight a battle with the invading enemy in this stone city? According to the local villagers, in previous years, they went up to the mountains to graze cattle and chop firewood, and occasionally picked up some rusty iron arrowheads in the cracks in the stones of the city wall, but they were crushed after grinding for too long. Arrows, that's an important part of the siege! Imagine, in the face of the crazy rush of the tiger and wolf army outside the city, there are bursts of arrows flying like dark clouds overhead, no matter how brave the soldiers, I am afraid that they will inevitably be a little frightened!
It's just that these have long become a cloud of smoke on Carp Mountain. The fierceness and tragedy of the past have also been flattened and cut away by the years like knives. All that remains is the ruins of a few scattered stone-walled forts and foundations. In fact, this stone city was abandoned in the Ming Dynasty, and in the years when the city collapsed, it was naturally ruined and ruined, and the grass and moss were paved. Until one day, a local (Luping Village) squire named Deng Jiugong (should be a squire with a lot of cultural feelings), felt that such a large city, if it was allowed to be destroyed, it would be too pity, so he spent a huge amount of money to buy it, and partially repaired, and then simply moved his home up. Liyu Mountain was originally a feng shui treasure land surrounded by water on three sides, and after many generations, it has become a large local family with a large population. After that, the surrounding people no longer called it Stone Town, but changed its name to Dengjiazhai.
People are the support of the house, and if someone lives in the house, the house will not fall. Now that I think about it, I really have to thank Deng Jiugong and the Deng family, if it weren't for their continuous tinkering in the Ming and Qing dynasties (of course, the main thing is that the local ** of the dynasty also realized the important cultural relics value of Stone City, and did several large all-round reconstructions and repairs), otherwise, it should be annihilated without a trace. There are still regrets, with the changes of the times, most of the descendants of the Deng family have gradually descended the mountain and scattered all over the country, and when New China was founded, only one still insisted on living at the foot of Liyu Mountain, when the family was called Deng Mingzheng, and was the descendant of Deng Jiugong for more than 20 generations. In the winter of 2006, Ye Jingfang and I were on the northwest slope of Chunqiu Village, and we were fortunate to meet Mr. Deng, who lived in a low three-room black-tiled house and two partial buildings, lying at the foot of the mountain. That time, we stood at the door of his house and had a few brief conversations with him about the history of Chunqiu Village and the relationship between their family. He also called the Spring and Autumn Village Stone Town, saying: "My ancestors and my grandfather's generation all lived in Stone Town on the mountain!" At that time, Mr. Deng was in his 70s, his body was still strong, and his memory was clear, but he didn't seem to be so willing to say more. At the end of October 2009, the Xiangyang Writers Association held a literary pen club in Donggong, and I went to Chunqiu Village again, where Mr. Deng's family still lived. But in 2010, a well-known domestic scenic cableway company took a fancy to the potential tourism prospects of Spring and Autumn Village, and came to cooperate with Donggong Town to develop scenic spots.
In fact, it would be good if the people of the Deng family did not go down the mountain, or lived at the bottom of the hillside. Because their family history is already a part of the history of the Spring and Autumn Ancient Village, they have continued there for generations, and the roots of their descendants are the living roots of this stone village, and they have always been able to feel and soak in its ancient atmosphere, and the mountains and rivers, grass and trees on this mountain to condense the light and shadow of the passage of time. If that is the case, there will be more precious cultural memories left, and these memories are not only from the Spring and Autumn Village, but also ours.
Editor: Zhang Jing].
For more exciting information, please use the application market**"Great Wuhan" client, do not be authorized**, welcome to provide news clues, and pay once adopted. 24-hour report**: 027-592222222. The copyright of this article belongs to the original author, if there is a mistake or infringement of your legitimate rights and interests, you can contact us by email, and we will deal with it in a timely manner. E-mail address: kin0207@126com