The story and legend of Xue Yingqi

Wumu, located at the junction of Wuxi and Wujin counties, was once a street town during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It is said that there was one street in Shangtang and one street in Xiatang. They were very prosperous for a while. There is a bridge across the canal in the town. It was built in the second year of Tang Qianfeng (667) and has become an important transportation artery between the north and the south. It is said that during the Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty, when pedestrians boarded the Wumu Bridge, they could see Miss Qianquan dressing up in the boudoir of Xue Fangshan's house in nearby Yuxiang (belonging to Wujin County), as well as playing music, chess, calligraphy and painting. Xue Fangshan, whose name is Yingqi, is a well-known local official (Jiajing Jinshi, deputy envoy of Zhejiang University). He believed that the Wumu Bridge was detrimental to his family's feng shui, so he reported to the court to reduce the mileage of the "Thirty Mile Three Bridges" (i.e., Luoshe, Wumu, and Henglin bridges) on the canal from Luoshe to Henglin, and called it " "Three Bridges in Ten Miles" stated that it was really inconvenient for the people to transport grain to Beijing, and a Wumu Bridge must be demolished to facilitate water transportation. The Wumu Bridge was demolished and moved to Qishuyan.

The official name of Wumu Bridge mentioned in the article is "Guanwen Bridge". After Xue Fangshan returned home from Zhejiang, he wanted to realize his long-cherished wish in his youth: In the late Southern Song Dynasty, Song generals Yin Yu and Max Long fought against Yuan soldiers and died heroically in Wumu together with 500 warriors. For hundreds of years, no one paid tribute to him. Determined to build a shrine to commemorate Generals Yin and Ma. After returning home, he chose the site of Wumu Shangtang (note: the local name for the ancient canal is Tanghe, and Shangtang is the north bank of the canal) to build "Er Zhong Temple to worship him, and still built a bridge to the right of the temple, and dredged the river to connect boats." Construction "The stone was carved in the soil" records that in the Southern Song Dynasty, Xue Ji, the ancestor of Xue Fangshan, the bachelor of Guanwen Palace and the Duke of Guanwen, built the "Guanwen Bridge" here. Due to disrepair, the original bridge has disappeared. Fang Shan was deeply surprised and decided to name the bridge "Guanwen Bridge", which is commonly known as "Xuejia Bridge" by the locals. And in the north of "Er Zhong Temple", Xue Ji Temple was built. What happened is recorded in detail in the "Reconstruction of the Monument of the Ancestral Hall of the Great Scholar and Guogong of the First Ancestor Song Guanwen Palace" written by Xue Fangshan in the "Wu Mu Xue Family Genealogy" (Genealogy Volume 3, page 39). In the Ming Dynasty, Xue Fangshan from Yuxiang was an official in the court and knew how to read Feng Shui. One day, when passing through Zhangjia Xiejia Village, I saw that it was a land of lump crabs, which had good feng shui. I wanted to be a high-ranking official, but Yuxiang was a land of gold roosters. I was afraid that my future career as an official in the government would be affected. Therefore, he lied to the people of Xiejia Village and said that although your village has good Feng Shui, it is a pity that the village does not have a river. If a river is built immediately, there must be a high-ranking official in the village. After hearing this, the people of Xiejia Village immediately called all the villagers and opened the river overnight. Unexpectedly, the water in the river turned red as soon as the river was opened, and the villagers did not know why. Xue Fangshan's student Zou Yinglong also knew Feng Shui. One day when he passed by Xie's house, he saw that the Feng Shui treasure land had been destroyed. After asking the villagers, he found out what happened and found out that it was Xue Fangshan's fault. Zou Yinglong said that this village is a land of crabs. If you open the river and cut off the legs of the crabs, it will be difficult to move. If you want to take revenge, you only need to build an archway on the head of the golden rooster in Yuxiang before dawn to suppress the golden rooster. After hearing this, the people of Xiejia Village built the archway overnight and it was not demolished until 1956.