Stories and legends of Jianning Township
Legend has it that the Emperor of Heaven saw that Cuiping Mountain in Jianning was a good place and wanted to go down to earth to pray for the world. So, I chose a flat land on Cuiping Mountain and buckled my drinking bowl on a slate, which means a place to worship gods.
It's a pity that Shijie Niangniang (commonly known as matchmaker locally) from heaven also took a fancy to this place. Empress Shijie took a closer look and found that the drinking bowl that Ji blasphemed God usually used was locked in this place. She really didn't want to give up this treasure, so she had a brainwave and put her drinking bowl under the common bowl. After putting it away, she was still not at ease. She tore off the gold hairpin from her head and put it in a bowl to prove that she had won the treasure first.
The two gods each claimed that they were the first person to occupy this land of feng shui, and no one wanted to give up. Once deadlocked, he went to the Jade Emperor for a verdict. In order to appease the two gods, the Jade Emperor made a peacemaker and asked them to build a temple there together. This temple is called Jidu Temple. The Du Ji Temple in the front yard belongs to the God of Du Ji, and the harem of the goddess in the back yard belongs to the Empress Shijie. After the completion of the temple, Ji blasphemed God and Empress Shijie lived in harmony, and * * * blessed the world with abundant crops and the people to live and work in peace and contentment.
According to legend, there was a locust plague in Jianning area one year, and locusts destroyed crops very seriously. The local people went to Jidu Temple in droves to burn incense and bow down, praying for Er Shen to come out quickly and drive away the pests that destroyed crops. Er Shen did not hesitate to turn into countless crows to eliminate locusts. In less than an hour, all the locusts in the field were eaten up, and people were saved from the locust plague.
2. The Legend of Meeting Fairy Mountain
There are three legends.
First, according to legend, there was an Longwang Temple on the mountainside in ancient times, and there was a spring under it. The inscription says that it is "the first spring in Gaoyi". There is a pool under the spring and fish in the pool, so it is named Yuxian Mountain.
Secondly, it is said that the front door of Gong Yu's house in his 90s was blocked by Taihang Mountain and Wuwangshan Mountain. In order to let future generations walk out of the mountains and have a look at the outside world, he led several generations of children and grandchildren to move the two mountains. In the face of such an earth-shattering feat, the whole heaven was moved, and the Emperor of Heaven immediately sent Erlang God to help Gong Yu move mountains. Erlang began to move two mountains with one pole. To the west of Jianning, there was a lot of soil in the two shoes, so I stopped to dig out the soil inside the shoes, and the two hills were exactly the same. In order to commemorate the footprint of Erlang God in Jianning, the local people call it North and South Huixian Mountain.
Thirdly, it is said that two goldfish in the Queen Mother's Yaochi secretly ran out of the Yaochi and were fighting in the sky. When I swam through Jianning, I saw the scenery here was so beautiful that I forgot to go back to Yaochi because I was naughty. The heavenly queen was very angry and sent heavenly soldiers to Jianning to catch them. They don't want to go back at all, because they have fallen in love with this beautiful place deeply, and they just want to look at Jianning's land all their lives. Seeing that the mountain soldiers were coming, they settled down and turned into two mountains to the west of Jianning ancient town. While enjoying the beautiful scenery, they also wish the people of Jianning happiness and well-being. In order to thank the two goldfish immortals from Yaochi, Tang Tian, people call these two mountains North Fish Fairy Mountain and South Fish Fairy Mountain according to their orientation.
3. The story of Guo Dong
According to legend, Emperor Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty liked to travel around the mountains, neglected state affairs and ignored the people of the country. In order to satirize the emperor, Guo Dong, the minister, made some scenes of Gaoping into jingles and invited the emperor to visit Gaoping. A jingle cloud says, "Jianning Thousand Buddhas and Five Grain Stores, and the crows listen to the three counties. There is a big drum tower in Gaoping, half of which is poked in the sky. There is a Mijian Mountain in Gaoping, which is only a brick away from the sky. " The emperor was very surprised after hearing this, so he went to Gaoping to play with great fanfare, and the result was far from what he said. He killed Guo Dong in a rage. Guo Dong's descendants secretly asked the goldsmith to cast a golden head, let the two heads be connected together, and then buried it on Cuiping Mountain in the south of Jianning Village.
In fact, Guo Dong was not killed by the emperor. According to historical records, Guo Dong died at the age of 80. Legend is just a bridge imagined by local people to beautify their heroes. According to common sense, even if Guo Dongzhen was killed by the emperor, his nine families would be implicated, and it is even more impossible to have any plot of casting gold heads.
Guo Dong family continued to multiply for generations, and built a large-scale residential compound in the southwest corner of Jianning ancient town. However, things are unpredictable, and the family that has flourished for generations has gradually declined. In order to make a living, later generations sold most of their properties to a big businessman named Zhang in the ancient town. This is exactly what an old saying goes, "Germany has been handed down for more than ten generations, and after studying, poetry and books are rich, but only three generations." From this point of view, the greatest contribution of Guo Dong's family to Jianning people is to leave the spiritual wealth of "farming and studying" to the villagers. Among the descendants of Guo and other surnames, dozens of people have obtained top universities in China, such as Tsinghua, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Wuhan University, Tianjin University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and many people have obtained doctoral degrees by studying in the United States, France and other European and American countries. The literati in Jianning Ancient Town will March all the way, inherit the spirit of "farming and reading" of Guo Dong family, and become a model in the eyes of future generations.
4. Legend of official seal at the bottom of the tomb
It is said that during the Ming Dynasty, there was a drought one year, especially in Gaoping County, where crops were completely lost. At that time, a rich man named Ji, who lived in Pearl Lane (now Jiannan Village), an ancient town in Jianning, took out the food hoarded at home and distributed it to the poor to help the victims tide over the famine.
When the emperor heard about it, he was very moved and thought that the rich man had done a great good deed and helped the court solve the disaster. So he asked someone to bring him a letter to reward him and give him an official title and a knighthood. The rich man surnamed Ji mistakenly thought that the emperor was going to seal his family business. He was so scared that he didn't want to get involved with his family, so he hanged himself. When the officials sent by the emperor rushed to Jianning Ancient Town, it was already the day when the rich man surnamed Ji was buried. Officials lamented that they blamed themselves for coming too late, which caused such an unbearable situation. The propagandist was in a dilemma and didn't know how to report the matter to the emperor. After careful consideration, I decided to read the imperial edict strictly in front of the rich man's tomb and give him an official title, which became an isolated official title at the bottom of the tomb in history.
The Ji family has been doing business for generations and is known as one of the five major families in Jianning Ancient Town in Ming and Qing Dynasties (Zhang, Ji and Xia).