Bluestone slabs, red tile houses, and the smell of food wafting through the alleys. After continuous renovation, construction and development, Jinan's old streets and lanes Furong Street has become a cultural tourism street in the bustling area, with Western-style buildings and antique shops staggering around, greeting visitors from all over the world. At the south end of Furong Street, a group of bronze sculptures of "Old Remnant Listening" come to life, like the introduction of a novel, narrating the leisurely past of this old street.
Photograph: Zhong Fusheng
Hibiscus Street got its name from the spring
Furong Street starts from the Fuwen Temple in the north to Quancheng Road in the south, with a total length of more than 400 meters and a width of about 6 meters. Walk along the street to the Guandi Temple, the temple is full of incense, and tourists who come and go to worship Guan Gong are endless. In the Guandi Temple, Tang Jingchun, a member of the Expert Committee of the Jinan Geographical Names Association and an expert in Jinan Literature and History, talked about the old affairs of this old street.
Photography: Wang Qin
According to Tang Jingchun, Furong Street got its name from the Furong Spring on the street. There are accounts of Furong Spring in Jin's "Famous Spring Stele", Ming's "Seventy-Two Springs Poem" and Qing's "Seventy-Two Springs". Dong Yun, a famous poet of the Qing Dynasty, lived by the spring for a long time in the summer of Qianlong (1793 AD), and his "Furong Spring Residence" described the situation of the spring water at that time: "The old house is half an acre of moss, and the stone beam floats upstream fish." A pool of new green hibiscus water, a few short flowers sitting in the shade of a book. From the poem, it can be seen that the ancient Furong Spring was a good place for lotus flowers to bloom and swim in the spring, perhaps because of the gorgeous lotus flowers on the spring, and the name of the spring was "Hibiscus".
It is reported that in the twenty-eighth year of the Ming Dynasty (1600 AD), the Furong Spring was used as a water source to lead the small river to pan pond in front of the Fuwen Temple, and the name of this small river was "Tiyun Creek". Before the early years of the Qing Dynasty, the center of Furong Street was still TiyunXi, and most of the residents on the street at that time were concentrated on the west side of the street. During the Kangxi Dynasty, the Shandong Inspector Fu Yamen was rebuilt on the site of the former Mingde Palace in the east of Furong Spring, and the Xiyuan of the former DeWangfu palace in the area of the current Wangfu Chizi was abandoned as a private residence, so that the east side of the street slowly built residential houses and shops. "There are so many shops that they can't come all day and walk in the creek, so people use large bluestone slabs to cover The cloud creek as a dark ditch." Tang Jingchun said that it broke the formation of Furong Street - The Creek Changed Street.
Photography: Haina Baichuan MCC
Wang Chutong of the Qing Dynasty has a poem: "East neighbors and west houses and houses, splashing jasper canals under the steps." The same flat bridge low premium, nong family fishing brocade fish. "This probably describes the vivid scene when Furong Street was formed during this period. Tang Jingchun said that the old man who lived in Furong Street once recalled the beauty of Furong Street in those days: In the early morning, a thin layer of fog drifted on the stone slab road, and in the distance, the pedestrians who came and went seemed to be strolling in a fairyland, and through the gaps in the stone slabs, they would see the spring water flowing under the stone slabs; in the dead of night, when walking on the street, they would hear the sound of the springs under the stone slabs; during the flood period, the spring water under the stone slabs would gush out of the road, and they would get rid of the scene of "clear spring stones flowing up".
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, this street was surrounded by patrolhouses, capital divisions, cloth administration divisions, tribute courtyards and government school gates, and the good geographical environment attracted many merchants to open shops here. The famous Ruifeng Xiang cloth shop, Jinan's first optical shop "Yishan No.", the largest department store in Jinan at that time "WenShengxiang", the famous educator Ju Simin, Wang Zhuchen, Xu Deyi and other people opened the education book club have settled in Furong Street, Furong Street once became a commercial street mainly engaged in the four treasures of the literary house, antique calligraphy and painting and printing industry, and also gathered engraving, copper tin, musical instruments, clothing shoes and hats, snack shops and other shop workshops, shops on both sides of the street, customers are full of doors. After the merger was implemented in 1956, most of the paving was converted to factories or residences. It was not until the renovation of the old city in 2000 that Furong Street was renewed, although it did not have the bluestone slabs of the past and the spring water that could not be heard, but it became a "folk street", which miniature Jinan's commercial culture, historical sites, cultural features and natural landscapes.
"Let" out of Xiangfeng Lane
There are three alleys running through the east and west of Furong Street, namely Furong Lane, Xiangfeng Lane, and Jinju Lane. These three alleys and furong street are connected with the longitude and latitude of Furong Street, and the alleys are connected, and the winding paths are quiet, painting a "Qingming River Map" of old Jinan, deducing the colorful life of the city and witnessing the development and change of Jinan City.
Furong Lane starts from Furong Street in the west and reaches the front of Pearl Spring Gate in the east, which is the most prosperous commercial street before the opening of Jinan. Today, many of the ancient buildings in the alley no longer exist, only the cornices under the eaves, and the rusty iron hooks used to hang signs on the beams, telling the lost years in the alley.
North of Furong Lane, you can see a very narrow alley, less than three feet wide, allowing only one person to walk, and the green bricks and tiles standing on both sides of the alley have pulled the alley more and more long. This is Xiangfeng Lane, commonly known as "Wall Gap Lane". According to Tang Jingchun, there is also an interesting story about the origin of the name of this alley.
In that year, the Qing army invaded Jinan, captured Zhu Youshu alive, the king of De, and set fire to the de king's mansion, so that a large area such as Maomiao Lake in the west of the palace was gradually abandoned for the people's use. Maundy Lake is also known as The Pond of the Royal Palace. Some rich people are optimistic about this spring water resort and try to buy land and build a house here. At that time, the houses built on both sides of the eastern section of Xiangfeng Lane were too close to the walls, and the laneway could only be walked away by one person. There is a Zhangqiu person who is engaged in business in the Jinan area to the south and north of the road, and they build relatively houses across the road. The two of them looked at it, if they continued to learn to build houses on the east side, the alley would become too narrow, so they both proposed "let one let go", which means to build the house a little backwards. As a result, after the construction of these two houses, the re-construction of houses in the western part of the alley has also "let go", and finally made the road wider. Later, people called the alley "Let the Lane". And Zhangqiu people easily read "let" as "wave", and "let let the lane" is also pronounced as "wave lane". In order to make the name of the alley sound better, some people suggested that it be called "Wall Gap Alley", because this alley is actually formed by the wall cracks of the houses on both sides. This has been called for many years. Later, there was a cultural person in the alley, and he proposed that there was a Qifeng Bridge in the alley, so it was better to name it after the harmonic sound of "Xiangfeng Lane" of "Wall Gap Alley", and also to be auspicious. To this day, the wall of a room in the middle of the street is still embedded with carved stones from the "Xiangfeng Lane" in the first year of QingXianfeng.
Jinju Lane, which has gone through vicissitudes
From Xiangfeng Lane to the north, the number of steps is less than 50 steps, and it is time to reach Jinju Lane, which is familiar to people in Jinan. According to folklore, there used to be a rich man who lived here, and his wife was young and beautiful, named "Hibiscus". Later, the rich man married a second room called "Chrysanthemum", "Chrysanthemum" was the main house, and the rich man was allowed to take a break from "Furong", and when the rich man bought land in Jinan Fucheng to build a house, Chrysanthemum felt that there were too many streets named after "Furong" in this area, so that the rich man also used her name to name the streets and alleys where he lived. The rich man asked the fortune teller to come up with an idea, and the fortune teller asked the rich man to make a pure golden chrysanthemum flower as a decoration, let the people nearby come to see, and bribed the local officials, proposed to use the auspicious "golden chrysanthemum" name, and suppressed the street named "Hibiscus", and finally renamed the place "Golden Chrysanthemum Lane".
Speaking of Jinju Lane, we must mention the Lu Cai Kui shou at the east end of the lane and the Chinese time-honored brand "YanxiTang". Yanxi Hall was founded in March 1932, when the Southern Yan And Northern Return Festival, taking the meaning of auspicious and joyful, got this elegant name. Since its inception, "Yan xi tang" has been adhering to the business philosophy of tong sou without deception, whether it is wearing a robe and a horse coat, or a short dress, the waiter does not judge people by appearance; no matter how expensive the meal is, or the egg soup of one or two cents, it is all eight classics, one board and one glance. In terms of cooking skills, "Yanxitang" pursues a typical old Jinan flavor, and is known as "Lixia Flavor" for its soup dishes such as clear soup and milk soup. During the Cultural Revolution, "Yanxitang" was renamed "Red Star Hotel", and in 1980 it was changed back to "Yanxitang". In 1986, when the new store was renovated, the famous poet Zang Kejia was specially asked to write the name of the store. And it is such a long-established hotel with a long history, which eventually disappeared into Jinju Lane due to poor management. Today, there is only one old site left, the gate is closed, and the two big red lanterns leave people with infinite sighs.
And the old street has experienced vicissitudes and changes, not only this one. Tang Jingchun said that the café next to the Guandi Temple was once a teahouse called "Furong Hall" in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and people who came and went to take the imperial examination used to drink a few cups of tea in the tea house. Pu Songling mentioned this teahouse in the article "Beggar Monk" in "Liaozhai Zhiyi". The story is about a monk who spends his days near the Furong Pavilion and Daming Lake. The people gave him wine and food, but the monk did not accept any of them, and asked him what he needed, but did not answer. I haven't seen him eat all day, but I'm full of energy. Some people repeatedly advised him to go to the remote alleys of the mountain village to make up his fate, and the monks ignored him. A few days later, someone found the monk lying frozen by the side of the road outside the south city, not moving for three consecutive days. Fearing that he would starve to death and cause trouble for himself, the residents pulled hands and feet one by one to move the monks elsewhere. The monk was furious at this time, reached into his arms, took out a short knife, slashed at the chest, cut open his belly, grabbed the intestines with both hands and threw them on the side of the road, dying of exhaustion. The people were horrified to report to the officials, and the government buried him hastily with a broken mat. Overnight, someone found that the monk's tomb had been excavated by wild dogs, the grass mat was exposed, trampled with his feet, empty, opened to see, the grass swept into a clump, dusty, the monk's body was missing. "Pu Songling did not pass the exam three times, but he made up this story in the tea house near this examination room." Tang Jingchun quipped.
An old street, several old alleys, buckets turn to stars, vicissitudes change. In any case, Furong Street is still bustling. This bustle is the bustle of the city, the relaxed bustle, like the spring water gushing out of the hibiscus spring, gushing endlessly.
Author: Chen Juhui, Wang Fei
Source: Jinan Ancient City Historic District