The Yuan and Wu rivers flow through the Hongjiang River, providing important water transportation conditions for the formation of the Hongjiang commercial port.
The Yuanshui River starts in Guizhou, collects many rivers in southeastern Guizhou and the border areas of Hunan and Guangxi, passes through the Hongjiang River, enters Dongting, and runs through the Yangtze River; the source of the Wu River reaches Chengbu, collecting small and large streams along the way, passing through Suining and Huitong. It is injected into Yuanshui River from Hongjiang River. In the old society where transportation was very congested, Yuanshui became a transportation link connecting the Hunan and Guizhou border areas with the vast areas in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
The large areas of land in the upper reaches of Yuanshui River and Wushui River Basin have sufficient rainfall and rich resources. The abundant wood and tung oil here are necessary materials for the production and life of people in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. These materials are transported by water to the Hongjiang River and then transported to Changde, Changsha, Wuhan, Shanghai and other ports in Jiangxi, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Daily products from these places are transported up the Yuan River to the Hongjiang River, and then transported to the Hongjiang River. Distributed to Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi and western Hunan regions. In addition, the Hongjiang River was wide and the harbor was excellent, making it easy for ships to berth. The Hongjiang River became an important distribution center for supplies at that time.
There is no precise historical record of the formation of Hongjiang Commercial Port. According to legend, Litzuozui (the confluence of Yuan and Wu rivers) was an ancient ferry with a post station. It was originally a market place and opened teahouses, restaurants, tofu shops and other small shops. After Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, Hongwang became increasingly prosperous. According to Wang Jiong's "Diary of a Trip to Yunnan" in the twenty-sixth year of Kangxi (1687), Hongjiang has become "a huge town with thousands of fireworks." As commercial trade continued to expand, Hongjiang relied on its superior water transportation conditions to become a prosperous and bustling city with thousands of merchants and boats. The simple market place surrounded by mountains developed into an important town in western Hunan, which was once known as " "Seven Provinces Thoroughfare", "Little Nanjing" and "Little Shanghai". Ploughhead is also the center of gathering of essences. There was once a popular saying that "Hankou's thousands of pigs, hundreds of sheep, and tens of thousands of loads of rice are not as good as Hongjiang's Plowmouth."
In the second street and Yijia Lane, Litzuzui, Liren Lane, Baoziao, Beichen Palace, Longchuanchong, Yujiachong, Qinjian Lane, Third Street Gaopo Palace, Musu Chong, and Youlu Lane There are still more than 380 ancient buildings from the Ming and Qing Dynasties preserved in places such as Tujiakeng, Fourth Street, Coal Slope, Old Street, and Shishi Tower, covering an area of ??53,942 square meters. There are now more than 2,000 households living there, with a total population of more than 6,000.
These cellar houses with gray tiles and gray walls, attic cornices, and side scuttles are arranged in a tic-tac-toe shape, winding along with the intermittently preserved bluestone roads and stone piers of about three or four kilometers. Deep and scattered. In this network-like, maze-like "seven lanes, eight alleys, and nine streets", the monasteries, ancient temples, markets, and inns of the Ming Dynasty, and the academies, Xingtai Yamen, and banks of the Qing Dynasty are perfectly preserved. , banks, guild halls, workshops, shops, inns, brothels, opium dens, teahouses, foreign banks, schools, newspapers and other ruins of the Republic of China. Door plaques, couplets, stone carvings, stone carvings, inscriptions, etc. from the Kangxi, Qianlong, Daoguang, Tongzhi, Guangxu, and Republic of China periods can be seen everywhere, especially the more than 20 Taiping urns with exquisite patterns, exquisite carvings, and different styles, which are even more beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful.
The large mansions that are antique, decorated with dragons and phoenixes, decorated with fancy decorations and pay attention to ostentation are mostly two-story buildings with two floors or two floors with two floors. Generally, it is equipped with more than a dozen box rooms, nave, main room and miscellaneous rooms. The owners are all nobles and nobles. Among them were Ming and Qing dynasties, Mrs. Gaoming, Jinshi, Juren, scholars, Kuomintang elders, generals, bandits, underground party members and revolutionary heroes. The owner of the "Qingyuanfeng" oil company alone owns more than 50 such mixed-use cellar houses. This shows the wealth and wealth at that time.
Hongjiang has been a post station, a commercial port and a prosperous city since ancient times. As early as the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, there were merchants trafficking goods in Hongjiang. In 1687 during the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, the famous scholar Wang Jiong recorded the prosperity of Hongjiang in "Diary of a Journey to Yunnan" where "thousands of families called it a giant town". During the reign of Guangxu and Xuantong, the business operations of the "Five Prefectures and Eighteen Gangs" were even more prosperous. In 1934 of the Republic of China, there were 37,600 people in Hongjiang, and 13,000 were doing business. During the Anti-Japanese War, the population increased to about 160,000. More than 20 provinces and cities across the country, including foreigners and businessmen from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao, have come here in droves, and more than 1,300 commercial shops have been opened. At this time, Hongjiang was known as "Little Nanjing" and naturally became the political, military, economic and cultural center of western Hunan. The Tenth Administrative Inspectorate Office of Hunan Province and the Hongjiang Administrative Office of the Provincial Government were successively established here. Warlords in Guangxi, Guizhou, and Sichuan fought for this treasured land. A group of literati came here in admiration.
Hongjiang, a small town, has 15 banks, 7 banks, 17 newspapers, 29 primary schools, 4 middle schools, 44 business docks, more than 30 opium dens, more than 40 brothels, and more than 60 temples. , nunneries, temples, palaces, halls, halls, halls, ancestral halls and other religious places. Unfortunately, most of these places have been demolished, and only a few ruins can be seen. Although the appearance of these ancient buildings is stained and crumbling, they bear witness to the creation of a prosperous foundation and the precious scene of an ancient town refining its jewels. A decadent society characterized by struggle for wealth and extreme luxury has also witnessed the glorious history of the smart, simple, shrewd and strong Hongjiang people who persevered and worked hard to start a business. They left a large amount of precious wealth for our descendants. Speaking of old Jiangnan, people will think of Shanghai’s luxurious Shili Foreign Trade Co., Ltd.; think of the merchant ships and fish sails coming and going on the Huangpu River and Yangtze River; think of the docks. There are mountains of department stores waiting to be shipped to various places... Perhaps people have never thought about where the shiny tung oil on the ships that shuttles between the Huangpu River and the Jiangnan coast comes from? Never thought about the " Where did "Hongyou" come from? From the port, trucks and trucks and packages were transported from the warehouse to the inland. Where did the department stores traveling in Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou change from big ships to small boats, and divide rivers and branches for distribution? If we talk about it with If we call the people along the coast of Old Jiangnan who maintained trade relations from the Tang and Song dynasties to the Ming Dynasty and the Republic of China a distant relative, this distant relative of Old Jiangnan is Hongjiang, the "Little Nanjing" in western Hunan.
China’s earliest water Silk Road brought the Hongjiang Mall three thousand years ago. Recently, Mr. Lin He, a Chinese folklore expert, used many archaeological and historical documents to explain that China’s Silk Road first started three thousand years ago. The Water Silk Road started in the Shang Dynasty. The route is that Sichuan's supplies pass through the Yangtze River before reaching the Three Gorges, then transfer to the Youyang River, pass through Youyang and Xiushan, and enter Yuanling (ancient Qianzhong County Prefecture). The old site) reaches the source of Qingshui River, then changes to caravans to enter Yunnan and Myanmar or Vietnam, and then crosses the Indian Ocean by land or sea to reach the Western Regions. The Maritime Silk Road proposed by Mr. Lin He predates Zhang Qian's mission to the Western Regions in the Western Han Dynasty, and also advances the history of Hongjiang Ancient Mall by three thousand years. At the same time, Mr. Lin’s theoretical insights also explained a mystery in my mind. We saw a cultural relic in Hongjiang that was said to be from the Yuan Dynasty. On it was an iron-and-lead model of a market scene in Hongjiang. Very bustling. But people say that the Hongjiang River always illustrates the ancient shopping city of the Qing Dynasty, but what about the "Hongjiang Shanghe Picture" of the iron plate city in the Yuan Dynasty? Only then did I get the answer.
From a geographical perspective, the Hongjiang River is indeed very small. Even in the territory of western Hunan, Hongjiang can only be regarded as a remote place. You can walk from the east of the city to the west in less than an hour. However, in this small place, the Yuan River, Wu River and Wu River flow directly from Dongting to the Yangtze River. The upper part connects the necks of Yunnan, Guizhou and Shu, and the lower part opens the waterways of Dongting and the Yangtze River. Hongjiang was a famous place for producing tung oil in Chu State as early as the ancient Chu-Wu war. By the Qing Dynasty, Hongjiang's annual output of tung oil was 200,000 tons, or about 7 million kilograms. Most of the paint for fishing boats and passenger ships along the Jiangnan coast is produced here, and it is named "Hongyou" because of the Hongjiang River.
High-quality timber from Guizhou and western Hunan was also collected and distributed from the Hongjiang River and became the first-class pillar material for the imperial palace and nobles. According to the county records of the Qing Dynasty, 15,000 of the 37,600 people in the city were engaged in business during the Qing Dynasty. Therefore, as early as the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Hongjiang had settled in ten major halls, including Hengzhou Hall, Huizhou Hall, Fujian Hall, Wubao Hall, Huangzhou Hall, Qi Hall, Chenyuan Hall, Shanshan Hall, Jiangxi Hall, and Guizhou Hall. . From the end of the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, during its heyday, Hongjiang received merchants, tourists and people living in exile from more than 20 provinces and counties across the country. Businesses moved around, people came and went, businessmen stayed for a long time, and their descendants multiplied. Commercial guild halls also developed more from the ten major halls in the Qing Dynasty. Such as Shanxi Guild Hall, Xin'an Guild Hall, Shaanxi Guild Hall, Sichuan Guild Hall, Changsha Guild Hall, Changde Guild Hall, Xiangyin Guild Hall, Mayang Guild Hall, Suzhou Guild Hall, Huzhou Guild Hall, Chizhou Guild Hall, Nanchang Guild Hall, Yongzhou Guild Hall, etc. Most of these guild halls were built during the Kangxi and Qianlong years of the Qing Dynasty and developed into the early Republic of China. After several renovations, the building has become even more majestic and magnificent. Moreover, each major venue has a large amount of real estate and a lot of income. For example, the owner of the "Qingyuanfeng" oil company and his family purchased more than 50 cellar houses in Hongjiang.
Because of this, as early as 1573-1620 during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Hongjiang Litouzui (today's Yuanjiang Road) had formed a material trading and distribution market of a certain scale, with numerous shops and workshops. It became the earliest port and commercial port in Hongjiang.
In the 26th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign in the Qing Dynasty in 1687 AD, Wang Jiong, a famous scholar and poet, recorded in his "Diary of a Journey to Yunnan" that "there are thousands of families with fireworks, and it is called a giant town". Rows of houses, sails and sails, and clouds gathering" were used to describe the Hongjiang River in western Hunan in his eyes.
The famous Chinese scholar Shen Congwen lived in Yuanling for some time in 1940 and made the Yuan River flow freely. When the land of North China was filled with smoke of war, in his eyes, the large merchant ships on the Hongjiang River in Xiangxi, which served as the capital of Chongqing in the rear area, were still "sailing in the Yuanshui River Basin, showing magnificent and extraordinary appearance, and could be called giants" The ships should be counted as "Hongjiang Oil Ships". These ships have mostly square heads and high sterns, and are brightly colored, sometimes with a little gold paint decoration..." Shen Congwen said at the beginning of his "Several Counties in the Upper reaches of Yuanshui River": "From the Chenxi River Going up, you will reach Hongjiang, which is the center of western Hunan...usually there is "Little Chongqing" (at that time, the Kuomintang government moved to Chongqing and became the companion capital of China. It is also the largest city in the non-occupied area. Therefore, comparing Hongjiang with Chongqing, we can see that the literati More than 380 ancient cellar houses tell an ancient story. The cellar houses of the Ming and Qing Dynasties are a major feature of the architectural history of China and the world. In the form of a courtyard house, within a high fire-sealing wall, the roof slopes downward in proportion from the four sides to the center to form a small square patio, which can absorb the sun's rays and air. Most of the cellar houses in Hongjiang are two-story houses with two floors or two floors with three floors. , three into the third floor. There is a sky bridge connecting the north and south on the third floor. Most of the cellar houses in Hongjiang are built according to the mountains and the situation. With mountains as the skeleton and water as the blood vessels, they are built on high slopes or on the edge of ridges. They are either located in deep lanes or stilted in low-lying areas on the shore. The eaves of the entire cellar are connected to the eaves, the high walls are connected to the high walls, the winding bluestone slabs are connected to the staggered stone piers, which run through the entire ancient mall.
The cellar houses in the ancient shopping mall vary in size and style. It has a palace-style sorghum style and a building style, and a Hui-shaped courtyard style. The outer wall is a fire-sealing wall made of old blue bricks, and inside the wall are the main hall and wing rooms of wooden structure. Its characteristic is that the nave is extremely spacious and the corridor steps are paved with flat stone slabs. The walls on both sides of the nave and side rooms are mostly double-headed horse-head gables. Due to the deep courtyard, in order to make up for the lack of sunlight, most cellar houses have a sunroof (stand). The biggest difference between the ancient city of Hongjiang and the cellar houses in other places lies in its "commercial" characteristics. Not only are there thousands of shops here, but the most iconic sign of the mall is the door wall. The ancient shopping malls in Hongjiang are full of cellar houses where wealthy merchants lived. The door wall at the entrance is not the usual rectangular plane with right-angled openings, but geometrically equilateral double beveled openings. After entering the courtyard, the architectural structure of the cellar house is also different from that of other ancient city cellar houses. The first floor of Hongjiang's cellar houses is like a storefront, tall and spacious, the second floor is mostly an accessible warehouse-style structure, and the third floor has small rooms. Or the second floor of the front yard is the hall and warehouse; the third floor of the backyard is the living room. Hongjiang ancient cellar houses also have three characteristics. First, the patio in the cellar house courtyard changes from narrow to large, and then from large to small; second, the door decorations change from simple to complex, from thick to thin; third, the wall paintings and The beam is simple and bright, with a character unique to the commercial industry. There are generally dry patios and wet patios in ancient cellar houses. The entrance gates of most cellar houses are inlaid with strips of bluestone. What can be seen everywhere in the ancient alleys are water tanks composed of bluestone slabs with exquisite carvings of fish, dragons, flowers and birds or engraved with famous calligraphy and poetry. People in the ancient city called it the "Taiping Jar". It is used to store water, prevent fire, and raise fish for viewing. It can be seen that the life of the people in the ancient city has declined but their elegance remains the same.
The doors and windows of ancient cellar houses often have carved beams. Its lintels, pillars, screen walls, window panes and furniture are all decorated with animal patterns of flying dragons, flying phoenixes and cloud patterns, which are lifelike, ancient, charming and elegant. According to relevant information on Hongjiang, in ancient Hongjiang, as early as the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, commerce had become increasingly prosperous. In order to maintain ethnic friendship and safeguard the interests of fellow villagers, foreign businessmen formed groups and set up guild halls and temples one after another. A large number of merchants with the ten-year name appeared. The "General Assembly Hall" is a group of ancient buildings (cellar houses) of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. More than 300 years ago, Hongjiang formed a pattern of "seven lanes, eight lanes and nine streets."
In Hongjiang city annals, there are records of Hongjiang village (village) from 1075 in the Song Dynasty. Let’s look at the ancient streets again. The so-called streets are the urban traffic roads that form the cityscape where the population gathers and are developed to facilitate the citizens' daily needs. In the old days it was called "the road". That is, when society develops to a certain level, walking is replaced by horses, and the path walked by people and horses is called a road. By convention, the term "malu" has been passed down. The residents and shops built along the road on both sides of the road form a street.
In other words, where there are streets, there are cities, and where there are streets, there are streets. Streets can illustrate the changes in their history.
The streets of the ancient shopping malls in Hongjiang are generally flat, slightly straight and long called streets. The streets built along the ravines are called "chongs". The walkways between the streets formed by the terrain are called "chongs". lane. The streets are densely intertwined with stone steps all over and are narrow and winding. Except for the main street, the longest length is more than 500 meters, usually about 200 to 300 meters, and the width is 2 to 4 meters. The roads are all paved with stone slabs. It is a typical ancient shopping mall construction model. No wonder some experts said after seeing the Hongjiang Ancient Mall that it was a living fossil of the budding period of Chinese capitalism.
The smokehouse and brothel have become a yellow landscape of prosperity in the old Hongjiang River. Any prosperous soil will breed decay. Hongjiang flourished from the Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, and money was spent heavily on this land. In this prosperous "Little Nanjing" at that time, the opium dens and brothels were the most depraved and debilitating. The opium den in Hongjiang was famous in western Hunan in the old days. A large amount of opium comes from the Hongjiang River or passes through Guizhou to Yunnan, Sichuan to Southeast Asia, or passes through the Hongjiang River to Wuchu in the south of the Yangtze River. In the history of the development of the ancient shopping mall of Hongjiang, Hongjiang's brothels "prospered" with the prosperity of Hongjiang's commerce. At most, there were as many as two streets, forming a brothel market.
It was only 18 years ago in the Republic of China that visitors from all over the world came to Hongjiang to do business and developed into a tourist destination in western Hunan. With the opening and prosperity of Hongjiang commercial port, there is an endless stream of people coming to Hongjiang looking for opportunities to make money, sell goods, and come to Hongjiang for fun. This made Hongjiang once narrow and crowded. As a result, hotels and inns also became busy.
So Hongjiang began to collect taxes on tourism, prostitutes, and banquets in the 18th year of the Republic of China (1929). It is conceivable that Hongjiang in those days was really a wealthy family.
Among the many palaces and gardens in Hongjiang, what is interesting is that the prostitutes in Hongjiang also have their own trade guilds. Moreover, the prostitutes in Hongjiang used their own way to be patriotic and resist Japan.
We can vaguely recognize the above couplet on the gate of Sanqing Palace in Hongjiang:
First couplet: Several suggestions are useless
Second couplet: Two Surrender after dropping an atomic bomb
Henglian couplet: Girls resisting Japan
This couplet was preserved by the people of Hongjiang and is still on the door lintel of Sanqing Palace. Some people say that this couplet is a pun, and some say that it was during the Anti-Japanese War. The prostitutes couldn't stand the Kuomintang officials' refusal to fight against Japan, and indulged in the feasting and feasting of brothels every day, deliberately venting their anger. All in all, after seeing this couplet, I think people must have different views on the prostitutes of the old Hongjiang River.
History is history after all. In the history of brothels in Hongjiang, what we can see now is only the cellar building of the brothel back then. After liberation, the people's government carried out regulatory treatment, education and disbandment of prostitutes. Many prostitutes become good people and join the workforce. Today's brothels have long since been emptied out, and only later residents have moved in. Therefore, when we see the rows of high-rise cellar houses and the well-preserved door and wall secret passages, we can't help but be stunned at the luxury of Hongjiang in those days.