Prose丨The beauty of Serikawa
Qiandao Lake, Qinchuan Ancient Village, and Qinchuan Creek pass through the village for more than 800 years.
This ancient village exists like a confidant across time and space, recording history and inheriting culture. It is the only provincial-level historical and cultural village in Chun'an County. This is probably the charm of Qinchuan.
It had just rained and the sky began to clear up. I walked into Qinchuan, and the trunks of the three old camphor trees at the entrance of the village facing the ancient village stretched out. It was a height that needed to be looked up to.
Hundreds of years of time have flowed away from the branches and leaves. Only the three old camphor trees beside Qinxiang River and the four-legged covered bridge at the entrance of the village are the constant companions of Qinchuan Ancient Village.
On the covered bridge, "The old man Huang Tong is happy in the paradise of Yu, and the green mountains and green waters of the blessed land on earth are free to wander." This couplet tells the Qinchuan people's open-minded outlook on life. Like their ancestors, they have a natural mind and live in Jiashan. Jiashui cultivates his moral character, cultivates his family, and has a paradise of his own.
Enter the village along the stone road paved along the Qinxi River. The most attractive thing is naturally the Qinchuan River that passes through the village. In the crystal clear stream, there are fish chasing each other. Shelducks and white geese float up and down, which is really interesting.
Wherever there is water, there are bridges. Along the way, bridges of different shapes and materials are erected across the stream. The ancient houses in the Anhui architectural style are built along the stream, with blue bricks and black Roof tiles, cornices and corners, the Taoyuan picture of "small bridges, flowing water, and people" slowly unfolds in front of your eyes.
Qinchuan Ancient Village has a lot of water and is crystal clear. Someone was washing vegetables and washing rice under the bridge, and an old man was collecting half a basket of small fish by the water. Under a pomelo tree, a peasant woman squatted in the shade to select vegetables, and sunflowers bloomed in clusters in broken earthen pots. This scene is different from other ancient villages. It is lively, full of life, full of water and human voices, and this life seems to be frozen in the past.
The beauty of Qinchuan lies in its elegance, with a simple, natural and uncarved appearance. The buildings in the village are a mix of old and new, with no deliberate reconstruction or modification. Most of the ancient houses remain in their natural state. The walls, doors, The carvings all show traces of the passage of time.
Who discovered and moved to such a quiet paradise?
In Qinchuan, Wang is a common surname. The "Genealogy of the Wang Family of Jiangzuo County" in the fifth year of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty clearly records that Wang Ying, the founder of Qinchuan Village, moved from Rugao to the bottom of Yueshan Mountain at the end of the Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty. When his son Wang Wanning became an adult, he moved from the bottom of Yueshan Mountain to Qinchuan Village. .
Wang Wanning saw that this place was "surrounded by four mountains and two rivers, with the Qinshui River flowing endlessly", so he named the village "Qinchuan". From then on, the Wang family took root in Qinchuan.
The Qinchuan River, which runs directly from north to south, divides the village into two parts. It is like a kind old grandmother, nurturing Qinchuan from generation to generation. There are more than 260 traditional buildings preserved in Qinchuan. Most of them were built along both sides of Qinchuan Creek from the Ming Dynasty to the Republic of China. The earlier ones were from the Ming Dynasty, and the larger ones were from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. They absorb the spirit brought by the endless flow of Qinchuan River and pass through generations.
Later, the Wang family built the Wang ancestral hall "Guangyu Hall". This "Guangyu Hall" was built in the Ming Dynasty. It has been restored several times and has been preserved to this day. It has become one of the highlights of Qinchuan's ancient architecture.
As the main ancestral hall with the surname Wang in the village, the four characters "Jiangzuo Liufang" are written on its gate. On the day when the plaque was written, the head of the Wang family stood in front of everyone, looking up at these four words, his spirit was palpable. I always feel that his figure standing proudly, looking around for him, and being so proud of him has never left.
The Qinchuan Wang family is a descendant of the Jiangzuo Wang family. The "Jiangzuo Wang family genealogy" enshrined in Guangyu Hall records that the Qinchuan Wang family has settled here since the Southern Song Dynasty. Fang Xianghuang, a native of the Qing Dynasty, once said: "The Wang family from Jiangzuo has been seven hundred years old and eighty-eight years since they moved to Sui." During this period, there were countless high-ranking officials, great scholars, wealthy businessmen, and righteous men.
The entire building is solemn and neat. Without this ancestral hall, you would not have thought that the ancient village of Qinchuan had produced so many famous figures in modern Chinese history. Their portraits were hung in the corridors, and the light in the patio Taking pictures from above makes these old friends on the wall come alive in a lot of ways.
When walking in the village, the mottled walls and simple lintels have all gone through the vicissitudes of time, silently telling the story of the village itself. The further you walk along the Qinchuan River, the more you can feel the historical and cultural atmosphere brought by these preserved ancient buildings.
Most of the ancient houses in Qinchuan Village have three or four bays, but the houses are deeper and have more rooms.
Therefore, the overall feeling is long and narrow. Most of the gates are Shikumen, veneered with large bluestones and decorated with decorative gate towers. There are steps in front of the hall and plain guardrails on both sides of the steps.
Most people have gardens in front of and behind their houses to build front and back gardens. In addition, the creek runs through the village. Villagers on both sides of the river like to build natural fish ponds in their gardens, even if they are new ones. The house also has this design. Therefore, here you can see the garden when you open the door, watch the fish in the clear pond, the plum blossoms reflect the fragrance of the door, the fragrant osmanthus floats ten miles away, the autumn orchid enters the secluded room, and the sky climbs the high wall, which is like a paradise on earth.
There are many people in the village who like calligraphy, and almost every household is good at calligraphy. The ancient village of Qiandao Lake has such a profound heritage.
Walk to "Shudetang" and look inside. There are calligraphy and paintings hanging on the walls of the house. It looks like a scholar's home. People can't help but want to go in and have a look and listen. Listen to old stories in the house.
Most of the old houses in Qinchuan are two-story, with southern Anhui Hui-style architectural style, and "Shudetang" is no exception, with horse head walls and Shikumen. Above the stone gate, there is a decorative gatehouse with exquisite brick carvings and raised wing corners. There are Spring Festival couplets at the bottom. Every household here has a habit. The top horizontal scroll is usually replaced by the word "spring".
The first thing you see after entering the door is the patio, which is rectangular and not too big. A lot of light shines in, illuminating the whole room.
The house has two entrances and three bays, and there is a wing on the side. The century-old water tank that has been preserved in the courtyard and the various baskets and farm tools accumulated in the horse racing building on the second floor all secretly reveal the atmosphere of a natural and peaceful life. The plaque "Shudetang" hangs above the board wall of the open living room, which looks quite old. Choosing a hall name is a cultural tradition in Qinchuan. At the second entrance, hanging on the wall is "Yi Anju". This name of the hall seems to carry a kind of hope.
Walking around Qinchuan Village, you will find the intelligence and open-mindedness of Qinchuan people. For example, in Wang Wendian's former residence, there are beauty seats, water pavilions decorated with foreign glass, and paddling pools with large carps. These pools are all made of running water from Qinchuan Creek. The people of Qinchuan used the water potential to bring water into their houses and thrived along this stream.
"The doors are hollow, the windows are polished; the neighbors are empty everywhere, and the side views are square." The Ming Dynasty's "Yuan Ye" describes the artistic conception of Qinchuan's houses in the most concise words. This is Serikawa's beauty.