Xiasi Ancient Town, one of the "Eight Ancient Towns in Guizhou" (Zhenyuan Ancient Town, Guiyang Qingyan Ancient Town, Jinping Longli Ancient Town, Guangshun Yelang Ancient Town, Songtaozhaiying Ancient Town, Chishui Bing'an Ancient Town, Huangping Jiuzhou Ancient Town, Xiasi Ancient Town), Located in the southwest of Kaili City, the capital of Qiandongnan Prefecture, it is 17 kilometers away from Kaili City, 10 kilometers away from High-speed Railway Kaili South Station, and 129 kilometers away from Guiyang City. The transportation is very convenient, and it is the west gate of Guizhou to Qiandongnan.
More than a thousand years ago, the Mulo people, who evolved from the Liao people on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, lived here. During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Miao people moved from the Wuling Mountains to Southeast Guizhou and entered Xiasi, becoming the second batch of living groups. In the Yuan Dynasty, in order to strengthen the rule over the southwest region, the imperial court began to set up "Tusi" (Tusi: a regional autonomy system implemented at that time). long lawsuit". In the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, it was renamed "Pingding Changju". In order to increase its rule over the southwest, the Ming Dynasty launched a wave of "garrisoning the border". A group of "garrison troops" mainly from Jiangxi came to Xiasi and became the third batch of residents in Xiasi. A small number of ethnic groups were also mixed in this wave of Tunbian, the "Dongjia" in the Ganjiang River Basin of Jiangxi Province and the eastern and northeastern areas of Jiangxi. They became the fourth batch of residents in Xiasi.
In the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, in order to strengthen the control of the eastern Miao area, "Pingding Changjusi" set up branch offices in "Xiasi and Tonggu". Because they are located in the lower reaches of the river, they were named "Xiasi" and are still in use today. It has a history of more than 600 years.
Water is the source of everything in Xiasi. Water has bred Xiasi and made Xiasi. Xiasi is located in the upper reaches of the Qingshui River, originating from the Doupe Mountain in Duyun. Down the river, you can enter the Yuanjiang River in Hunan, Dongting Lake, enter the Yangtze River, and go west to Guiyang, Anshun, and Yunnan. During the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court dredged the Qingshui River on a large scale for three times, allowing more ships to go up the river and reach Xiasi, thus promoting the prosperity and development of Xiasi.
The first commercial culture in Xiasi was the wood merchant culture. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, people tied the cut wood with ropes into rafts (discharge), and sold them in downstream cities. Many merchants also saw business opportunities. Huguang, Merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang transported cloth, oil, salt, porcelain, etc. to Xiasi, and after unloading, Xiasi’s caravans sent them to various places in the southwest for sale. It passed through Yuanjiang River in Hunan Province and entered Dongting Lake to be sold to various places. According to the memories of the local ancestors, the Qingshui River was wider than it is now. In the most prosperous period, more than 2,000 sailboats gathered on the Qingshui River, and nearly 10,000 tourists came and went to Xiasi .) In the thirteenth year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty, that is, in 1808, Xiasi was established as a water transport commercial port (bu) (read the fourth tone), and the streets were very lively. "The land is crowded with people and smoke, and the city that never sleeps is blown by songs."
The development of Xiasi was in the Qing Dynasty, and its heyday was in the period of the Republic of China. In the early period of the Republic of China, it developed into a bustling city. At that time, the streets on both sides of Xiasi were lined with shops. Goods were exchanged here, and restaurants, fire shops, and shops were open all night long and brightly lit. The prosperous scene at that time was called "Little Shanghai".
With the prosperity of shipping on the Qingshui River, Xiasi has become the most important material distribution center in the Yuanjiang River system from the middle of Guizhou, attracting businessmen from all over the country to gather here. With the gradual increase of the business population, the tax revenue is also increasing year by year. "Bureau" is the current tax bureau. Tax bureaus are generally set up in cities at the county or city level. At that time, Xiasi was just a small town, and the tax bureau was actually set up. One can imagine how prosperous it was at that time.
The Xiasi Wharf is a landmark building in the ancient town. The word "Xiasi" on the archway is in Xiaozhuan script. It was built in the forty-fourth year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (AD 1779), and it is all paved with blue stones. It is also a civilian wharf, civilian use: it is a wharf dedicated to ordinary people. The big wharf witnessed the prosperity of Xiasi Ancient Town at that time. At that time, from one side of the river to the other side of the river, you can reach the other side directly from the docked boat without taking a boat or crossing the bridge. . Twelve words can be used to summarize the scene of Xiasi Ancient Town at that time: there were many small boats on the river, many small horses on the street, and many small sedan chairs on the road. With the prosperity and trade brought by water transportation, Xiasi's economy has also achieved considerable development and progress. Businessmen from all over the world poured into Xiasi, and brought their architectural culture and food culture, which were passed down from generation to generation, forming a multiculturalism that has influenced today.
If there is a civil wharf, there must be an official wharf (also called a small wharf). Official use means that only officials and famous scholars can use it. It is said that Xia Tonghe (Guizhou He is the last number one scholar in Chinese history, and also the first person in China to be sent to study in Japan as a number one scholar. Because of the number one scholar, there is a number one scholar bridge nearby.
Next to the small pier is the food street of Xiasi Ancient Town. Xiasi has a lot of delicacies, including: blueberry ice powder, moon cake, potato rake, stinky tofu, etc. Xiasi snacks can be summed up in a catchphrase: Xiasi sour soup fish, forever Not tired of eating; when I go home on weekends, I will serve wild ducks; At this time, it was time for dinner. I met Zhang Luo, a waiter in a restaurant, and followed me in. The two ordered fish in sour soup and moon cakes, which were delicious and very generous.
In the ancient town, we will see many Hui-style architectural styles integrated with local Miao and Dong architecture, and the exterior and interior features of Hui-style architecture can be summed up in one sentence as "green bricks, small tiles, horse-head walls, corridors and lattice windows. "The main body of the house is often a Miao and Dong stilted building structure. The walls on both sides are made of stone bricks, which are built higher than the main house. The function is also called the firewall.
Why do Hui-style buildings appear in places where ethnic minorities live together? Huizhou merchants, together with Cantonese merchants, Shanxi merchants, Zhejiang merchants, and Jiangsu merchants, were collectively called the "Five Great Merchants" in history. All prosperous market towns in the Yangtze River Basin generally have active Huizhou merchants. The success of Huizhou merchants' economic construction is naturally Their architectural culture has also been approved and promoted. The prosperity of business in Xiasi Ancient Town has attracted Huizhou merchants to settle here, leaving behind their local culture.
In the third year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (1664), Huguang was divided and governed. Many merchants from Hunan and Hubei traveled up the Qingshui River to do business in the place of Xiasi, forming a business gang, and then established their guild halls. It is also the first guild hall in Xiasi Ancient Town - "Two Lakes Guild Hall". As more and more businessmen come to Xiasi, Zhejiang Guild Hall, Jiangxi Guild Hall, Fujian Guild Hall, Guangdong Guild Hall, etc. have also been established one after another. These guild halls have different styles and have become a beautiful landscape of our Xiasi. The only guild halls preserved at present are Guangdong. The guild hall, Lianghu guild hall, and other guild halls have been damaged. You can visit the Lianghu Guild Hall, which is now the Yuwang Palace. The Guangdong Guild Hall is a typical Lingnan characteristic building. There are many styles of Lingnan architecture, including wok [huò] ear houses, arcade buildings, Hakka enclosures, and bamboo tube buildings. The Guangdong Guild Hall in Xiasi Ancient Town belongs to the typical wok-ear house style. From the front, the towering walls on both sides are in the shape of wok ears, and from the side, it looks like a "convex" character. Most of them are built with blue bricks, stone pillars and slabs, and the outer walls have patterns of flowers and birds. Because the gable is shaped like a wok ear, it is called "wok ear house". The wok ear house also symbolizes the two ears of the official hat, which means "leading to the top". Now it has been built into a vortex house? Food center, allowing tourists to enjoy tea and listen to operas while dining here. It is a pity that the Guangdong Guild Hall has not opened for a long time, so we can only look at the exterior.
On the side opposite to the Guangdong Guild Hall, there is a Yangming Academy, which was established on the site where Wang Yangming’s reincarnated disciple Sun Yingao gave lectures. It was built in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.
Taking advantage of the original architectural advantages, Yangming Academy has constructed a dialogue space between people and architecture, people and space, people and landscape, and people and ideas through Chinese-style scene space, reasonable blank space, simple design and Zen expression, so that everyone A person who walks into Yangming Academy, walks into Yangming's spiritual world, and understands his spiritual realm.
The academy covers an area of more than 200 square meters. There are teaching halls, book collection pavilions, and front halls enshrining statues of Confucius, Wang Yangming, and memorial tablets for world-renowned teachers. The side halls on both sides are exhibition rooms, which introduce Wang Yangming's deeds. In the front hall of the academy, there are also comments from leaders and celebrities on Wang Yangming, among which is President Xi Jinping’s comment: "Wang Yangming has truly achieved the unity of knowledge and action throughout his life. He is not only a great philosopher, thinker, but also a great statesman. , a military strategist. When he was giving lectures in Longchang, he proposed four basic requirements to students: resolve, study hard, reform, and be good.
In Yangming Academy, we can see Wang Yangming's "principal enlightenment" and "thinking enlightenment" as well as his philosophical lines: "The mountain is close to the moon and far away, and the moon is small, so the mountain is bigger than the moon; if a person has eyes as big as the sky , I also saw that Shan Xiaoyue is wider."
Wang Yangming (1472-1529) was born in Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province. His original name was Wang Shouren, and he was of Han nationality. A famous thinker, philosopher, calligrapher, military strategist, educator, and writer in the Ming Dynasty. Zeng Guan went to the Ministry of War in Nanjing, and was the censor of Zuodu of the Metropolitan Procuratorate. He is the master of Lu Wang's philosophy of mind. He is not only proficient in Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, but also can lead the army in battle. He is a rare all-round great Confucianist in Chinese history. His philosophy of mind is another peak of Neo Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties, and the official philosophy of the late Ming Dynasty, which started the trend of people's ideological emancipation. He was born in Zhejiang, became famous in Beijing, realized Taoism in Guizhou, and made contributions in Guangxi and Guizhou. In the first year of Ming Zhengde, Wang Yangming was demoted to Longchang, Guizhou (now Xiuwen County) because he was framed by the eunuch Liu Jin, and he became a postman, that is, an unqualified official in charge of a post station. It was precisely because of this framing that he was demoted that Wang Yangming pondered day and night, and finally had an epiphany, which is the familiar Longchang Enlightenment. Wang Yangming's second disciple, Sun Yingao, returned to his hometown in Qingping after resigning from office in the third year of Wanli. Later, he went to Xiasi to give lectures and spread Yangming's thought, so that Yangming's theory penetrated into the bones of Xiasi, and then took root and sprouted, forming the current diverse and inclusive Xiasi . Therefore, the establishment of Yangming Academy on the former site where Sun Yingao gave lectures has shown the commemoration and continuation of the influence and promotion of Yangming Theory in Xiasi. Wang Yangming's unity of knowledge and action and the theory of reaching conscience ushered in a research peak in the 21st century and was highly respected by the whole country and the world.
In his later years, Mr. Yangming summed up his theory of mind as follows: There is no kindness and no disgusting body, there is goodness and maliciousness, knowing the good and knowing the evil is conscience, and doing good and eliminating evil is investigating things.
The first sentence: There is no good and no evil body. There is no distinction between good and evil in the Tao, and all things are born in the Tao. At the beginning of human beings, the mind and nature are consistent with the Tao, and there is no good and no evil.
The second sentence: There are good and evil actions. Once a person's thoughts are produced, good and evil, good and bad, also follow. This is what the Buddhists say.
The third sentence: Knowing good and knowing evil is conscience. When people see evil phenomena, they will hate evil deeds; when they see good things, they will like them. This is human conscience at work.
The fourth sentence: Doing good and eliminating evil is the investigation of things. People take the initiative to eliminate the evil deeds produced by unreasonable selfish desires, and take the initiative to do good deeds. Gewu in Confucianism means to explore the truth of things and correct human behavior. "Ge" here means "to investigate thoroughly".
Next to Yangming Academy is a small pagoda called Xizi Pagoda. In ancient times, literati valued two things the most; one was hair, because it was inherited from their parents. The second is writing. The ancients had the custom of "respecting the sky and cherishing writing". The manuscripts they don't want can't be thrown away casually, and they should be burned in the tower of cherishing writing. This is a kind of respect for words and sages. At the Xizi Pagoda, you can experience free copying, and calm down to feel the Yangming culture.
Xiasi Ancient Town is a multicultural town where various ethnic groups live harmoniously here, including Miao, Mulao, Dong, Yao, Han, etc. In the ancient town, there are Miao Zhaimen, Dong Drum Tower, Lusheng Square, Fengyu bridge, Han opera stage, etc. Next to Lusheng Square and Xizi Pagoda, you will see the Drum Tower.
Gulou is an essential element in the culture of the Dong people. It not only exists as a scenic spot, but also a meeting place for the Dong people to make decisions when they face major issues. The Dong people’s emphasis on the Drum Tower can also be seen from the concept of "building a village first". If you are careful, it is not difficult to find that most of the Drum Towers of the Dong people have odd numbers as the number of floors, which take the homonym of "Ji" and look forward to auspiciousness To be able to accompany one's own people at all times. The current Drum Tower is a place for people to rest, and occasionally folk artists come here to play.
Lusheng Square is in the central area of the ancient town, surrounded by characteristic buildings such as Drum Tower, Miao Village, and Han Theater. There are several time periods in the square every day to perform folk dances and other programs. Visitors usually visit other scenic spots in the ancient town first, and finally come here to rest and watch the programs.
Wind and Rain Bridge, also known as Huaqiao, is one of the most distinctive folk buildings in Dong architecture. Miao villages like to stand by mountains, while Dong villages are mostly built on both sides of rivers and streams, living across the water. Therefore, the Wind and Rain Bridge appeared. Like the Drum Tower, the Wind and Rain Bridge has a rigorous structure, a unique shape, and is full of national temperament. The whole building does not need any nails, rivets or other iron parts, but is connected by tenon and tenon of durable fir wood, so that it rises from the ground. This kind of bridge gets its name because of the promenade-style bridge house built on it, which can shelter from wind and rain. Wind and rain bridges can be seen everywhere in southeast Guizhou, and there are two wind and rain bridges in Xiasi ancient town.
The functions of the Wind and Rain Bridge are: first, to facilitate travel; second, to shelter from the wind and rain; third, for leisure gatherings; fourth, to add landscape.
Next to Yuwang Palace, there is a Wenchuang Street named 1808, which is because in the 13th year of Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty, that is, in 1808, Xiasi was officially opened as a commercial port. 1808 Wenchuang Street is an experiential community integrating intangible cultural heritage, minority folk culture, traditional skills, and inheritors. On this street, we can hear folk song singers singing folk songs here, and peasant painting experience area , handmade sachet making, batik, papermaking experience, etc.
The Xiasi Bronze Drum in 1808 (there is a Bronze Drum Village in Xiasi Town) is famous both at home and abroad. It is a modern painting with a unique national artistic language, which is based on the thinking of modern farmers and uses traditional art techniques such as paper-cutting, embroidery, and batik of the Miao nationality. . Today, more than 3,000 bronze drum peasant paintings have been exhibited in the United States, France, Germany, Taipei, Hong Kong and other places, and more than 500 pieces have won awards of various levels. Therefore, Tonggu Village was named "Hometown of Modern Chinese Folk Painting" by the Ministry of Culture. 1808 specially provided painting workshops for the painting masters of Tonggu Village, visitors can watch their painting process and works up close.
Xiasi's leather batik (should add a single person, the word library does not have this word) is also very famous. It is known as the "Picasso art" of the East and is one of the folk printing and dyeing crafts. The Ge family is an ethnic group that needs to be identified, that is to say, the Ge family is an ethnic group outside the 56 ethnic groups in China. The current population of the Ge family is less than 50,000, and they are mainly distributed in the southeastern part of Guizhou. Among them, Chongxing Township in Huangping and Longchang Town in Kaili are the most concentrated, and they are the settlement areas of the Ge family. The biggest feature of Gejia batik is that the ancestor drum is the center, and other things such as stars, birds, animals, and flowers are spread around it. The Ge family devoted their love to nature and the development of national culture to batik.
In general, when you come to Qiandongnan, Xiasi Ancient Town must be a place worth visiting, don’t miss it, you won’t regret it.
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