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After the rain stopped, someone hummed Yue Opera in the street/a dog jumped over a puddle and looked around on the bridge/raindrops were still jumping under the injured eaves ... I lived in Xinjiang for many years, but not long ago, I wrote about my hometown Nanxun. At this time, I found that all the gardens were gone, and there were many unknown small gardens, such as Shiyi Garden, Yiyuan Garden and Dongyuan Garden, and Xiaolianzhuang was the only one left there. Weeping willows, brushing water.
The sensitive rhythm of the lotus pond leaves an instant halo and instant broken silver. Its beauty and fragile classicism are supported by these hard objects: the royal stone archway, the red brick ladies' building (Dongsheng Pavilion) and the 72-year-old wooden mandarin duck building ... But Xiaolianzhuang has its secret resurrection story, which is its last vitality after years of vicissitudes. Just like the whole spring, the lotus in the water sleeps in the mud in winter. In midsummer, lotus will spit out its fragrance and rewrite its lush and lonely love.
Jiayetang Library, not only belongs to Xiaolianzhuang, but also is the heart of Nanxun, still beating in the wind and rain. The heart of a scholar. 200,000 volumes (600,000 volumes) of ancient books, which preserve history and memory. Its Song edition, Yuan edition, Ming edition, its subset of classics and history, unofficial history banned books, Yongle Grand Ceremony, Poetry Excerpt Room, Four History Zhai, Pear Wood Edition, window lattice seal script and its owner "Silly son Liu Chenggan" (Lu Xun's language) are addicted to books, which has brought a revolution in smell to Nanxun. Wealth is transformed into a library, and silver is transformed into ancient books searched everywhere.
Wealth comes from silk, silk comes from lush mulberry fields, and mulberry fields come from fertile land. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, due to the opening of Shanghai and westerners' fascination and yearning for Nanxun's rich Lisi series, Nanxun got a historic opportunity, and wealth rolled in towards Nanxun and accumulated rapidly, making this historically unknown Jiangnan town a male town in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces. At that time, there appeared the rich and upstart headed by Liu, Zhang, Pang and Gu, commonly known as "four elephants, eight cows and seventy-two golden dogs". The wealth owned by this wealthy class is equivalent to the fiscal revenue of the Qing government for one year.
Tochus, England? Arrom was probably the first western painter to arrive in Nanxun. In one of his oil paintings, he described the grand occasion of Nanxun Silk Market: silk boats blocked the river, porters were busy shuttling, waterfowl and wild ducks were playing around the boat, ancient camphor trees on both sides of the river covered the sun, and pedestrians, stone bridges and oriental pagodas were faintly visible in the distance. There is a scene of "thousands of water markets gather, and business and fishing are neighbors". The descendants of the rich go out of their homes and cross the ocean to study and do business. Nanxun people living in ancient deep houses began to carefully open doors and windows and carefully explore and look at the distant world. Architecture is a strong evidence. The western-style women's building and the red brick archway in Xiaolianzhuang, as well as the Balenciaga Ballroom, blue crystal glass, shutters and Klein iron column head in Zhang Shiming's former residence, all reveal such a message to us: Nanxun is accompanied by a gradual lifestyle.
One hundred years ago, Nanxun people had a sense of wealth and cultural superiority. They went back and forth between town and Shanghai in a small steamboat. Running between "Great Nanxun" and "little shanghai". I didn't even look at the Shanghainese. It is said that the day after Sun Yat-sen took office as interim president, he announced the establishment of a city in Nanxun, but for some reason it didn't come true.
What is interesting is not how much wealth Nanxun accumulated a hundred years ago, but the destination and destination of wealth. In addition to the hedonistic extravagance of some unscrupulous descendants, Nanxun's wealth has two distinct flows: one is revolution, and the other is book collection. This constitutes two inseparable threads in Nanxun tradition, which are also literature and martial arts, courage and softness, generosity and inspiration. The protagonists of the former are Zhang Jingjiang and Pang Qingcheng, while the representatives of the latter are Liu Chenggan and Jiang Ruzao.
When I stood in a room of Qianweng Hotel and looked out, I saw a shoddy garden. I don't know when Little Tiananmen Square appeared. I am ashamed of the aimlessness of my hometown people and their poor and pale language. However, the two simple and incisive couplets of Zunde Temple are comforting me, memorable and worth remembering from time to time.
Perhaps, in time, everything we have has been lost, just like those disappearing gardens, the fragrance that once blew on our faces, the precious classics that were scattered in the library and never came back, just like the descendants of Nanxun who were scattered like birds ... A tree can be new, why can't a civilization do it? A civilization should also have the ability of self-repair and self-renewal. Perhaps, the interpretation of Nanxun should start with the tip of our tongue. After the rain stopped, the bayberry wine in the riverside restaurant continued, and the wet problems salvaged from the water continued ... "Wild water chestnut" orange cake, taro and smoked bean tea. A kind of green vegetable called "Embroidered Brocade" smells strange, but when it reaches Nanxun, ten miles away from Fiona Fang, it will mutate and lose its unique fragrance. This green vegetable can represent Nanxun where pride and fragility coexist. Sugar cake, a soft cake made of glutinous rice flour, maltose and wild vegetables, is a delicious snack with the deepest memory in my childhood. In front of the vegetable market, every time I see the smiling fat master selling sugar cakes, I feel at ease and feel that I have really returned to Nanxun. Five Blessingg Tower also has fried fish and crispy noodles. Every morning, a fisherman with a loud voice drinks three taels of soju with noodles, and then passionately talks about current affairs and politics, the protection of ancient towns, and the legend of "four elephants, eight cows and seventy-two golden dogs" ...