Located in the southwest of Hebei Province and in the lower reaches of the Qingzhang River, XiangXian is a county under the jurisdiction of Handan City, bordering Shanxi and Henan provinces.
Located on the east side of Taihang Mountain, The county is known as "the key to The Qin and Jin Dynasties, the name of Yan zhao", and the walnuts, peppers and persimmons produced locally are well-known at home and abroad, known as the "three treasures" of the county. The county was first placed in the Han Dynasty, and is the place where the legend of Nüwa created people and supplemented the heavens, so it was known as "Huaxia Ancestral Temple" and "the hometown of Chinese Nüwa culture"
"However, the heavens and the earth are also things, and there are deficiencies in things, so the former Nuwa clan practiced five-colored stones to make up for their gaps." This is a passage in the pre-Qin classic "Liezi", which tells the story of the ancient Chinese myth and legend of Nüwa supplementing the heavens. According to legend, Nuwa is a beautiful goddess who made people out of the earth, refined stones to repair the heavens, and was revered as the mother of the earth. Nuwa is the humanistic ancestor of the Chinese nation, and also the Mother of The Emperor who has been believed by the people of Xiangxian County, Hebei Province, and her image has been rooted in the soul of this land.
For more than two thousand years, the people of Xiangxian County have followed the indoctrination of the ancient sages in a hard-working and simple style in a harsh environment, tenacious and self-reliant, and the people's hearts are good, as thick as mountains and as pure as water.
history
At present, the earliest version of the County Chronicle found is the "Zhixian Chronicle" during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty. Although the county was already established during the Western Han Dynasty, it was not clearly recorded in the history books of the time. According to research, the earliest written and reliable record of the county was a fire during the Eastern Han Dynasty.
In the ninth year of the Eastern Han Dynasty, in 204 AD, Cao Cao personally led a large army to attack The city of Yicheng, the center of Yuan Shao's rule. By this time Yuan Shao had died, and Cao Cao besieged Yecheng while leading his army around Yecheng to attack Maocheng in the territory of Xiangxian county. Maocheng was the stronghold of the Yuan clique, and Cao Cao burned the grain and grass that Maocheng had hoarded, and Maocheng was also burned.
The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms records that after Cao Cao broke the grain route to attack Yecheng, liang Qixiancheng, the governor of Xiangxian County, surrendered and was given the title of Marquis of Guannei. This is the explicit use of the word "wading" in the history books to refer to this place, which has been nearly 1800 years.
Located in the depths of the Taihang Mountains, the terrain slopes from northwest to southeast, and the Qingzhang River and the Turbid Zhanghe River, which originate in Shanxi, converge to form the Zhanghe River in Hezhang Village, Xiangxian County. Normally, the amount of water in the Zhanghe River is not large, and the pebbles are exposed, but when the flood season comes, the torrent is turbulent and affects both sides of the river. It is precisely because of the poverty of natural disasters in the county that Nüwa, who makes up for the heavens and saves the world, has become the god of heaven and earth that the locals believe in, and to this day, the Nüwa sacrifice is still the most important folk activity in the local area.
In the barren and rainy Taihang Mountains, The county was eventually burned by the passage of the Zhanghe River in the territory, and only the babbling Water of the Zhanghe River accompanied by the name of the county, witnessing the vicissitudes of the millennium here.
Places
Nuwa is a creation goddess in ancient Chinese mythology, she kindly created life, and then refined stones to repair the heavens when the earth was in danger, and bravely took care of living beings from natural disasters. In Zhonghuang Mountain, more than ten kilometers northwest of Shixian County, there is a temple dedicated to Nuwa called The Imperial Palace.
It is not only the largest and best-preserved temple in China to commemorate Nüwa, but also the historical and cultural relics of the earliest and most widely influenced shrine in the country, known as the "Ancestral Temple of Huaxia".
The ancient building complex of the Imperial Palace on Zhonghuang Mountain is backed by a cliff, the cornices are curved, and the grandeur is magnificent, and the main building of the Imperial Palace is 23 meters high and has a total of four floors.
The first floor is built on the grotto on the cliff, and the upper three floors of the pavilion are built like building blocks on the first floor of the grotto, and the Emperor's Pavilion seems to be close to the cliff from a distance. In fact, the Imperial Pavilion is not connected to the mountain behind, but is connected to the mountain by 9 iron cables.
Mr. Luo Zhewen, a famous Chinese ancient architect, once studied the architectural principle of the Imperial Pavilion, and according to Mr. Luo Zhewen's research, the entire building body used the principle of deviation from the safety rate of the center of gravity in high-rise buildings. When the staircase encounters an external force leaning forward, as long as the safety factor of the center of gravity is deviated, the nine iron cables on the Imperial Pavilion play a role in stabilizing the building.
Now that the Imperial Pavilion has been re-strengthened, the nine iron cables have lost their original role. But in the hundreds of years before the reinforcement, with these nine iron cables, the Imperial Pavilion experienced more than a dozen earthquakes and was safe and sound. Mr. Luo Zhewen also could not help but feel that the construction of the Imperial Pavilion on the cliff with iron locks was a unique architectural miracle in China.
Due to its age and lack of relevant archaeological findings, it is difficult to verify when the Imperial Palace was built. Most of the main buildings seen today are relics of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
The first floor of the Imperial Pavilion is the Worship Hall. The icon of Emperor Eun is placed in a grotto carved out of a mountain. There are also 3 grottoes and 4 open-air rock walls next to the worship hall, and there are Buddhist scriptures carved inside and outside the caves, with six scriptures of more than 130,000 words.
These cliff carvings exude the purity of Buddhist thought. The content of the engravings of the Imperial Palace is mostly related to Buddhism, which is not only of great reference value for the study of calligraphy and the evolution of engraving, but also provides a very precious historical specimen for the study of Buddhist culture, and is known as "the first wall sutra group under the heavens".
Most of the Cliff carvings of the Imperial Palace were engraved during the Northern Qi Dynasty, and although these pure and harmonious stone carvings have been polished for more than a thousand years, they still precipitate the vicissitudes of history. No matter when the Imperial Palace originated, as a Taoist palace temple, it is integrated with The Buddhist culture, which makes this ancient architectural complex more prominent.
It is also with such a temple commemorating Nuwa that a section of the roots of Chinese civilization can be preserved. Spanning thousands of years, the charm and value of this ancient building have become more and more prominent, which is the eternal spiritual belonging of the people involved in the county, and it is also the sustenance and continuation of Chinese civilization.
folk custom
In Shixian County, the locals believe that the Virgin Mary is the mother of the earth that blesses the living earth, and it is precisely because the folk Nüwa sacrifice in this county is not only old, but also various ceremonial procedures have been preserved.
The folk Nüwa sacrifices in the county are also known as the swing society or the upper society, and each village spontaneously organizes the villagers to sacrifice the nüwa in the form of associations. The seven surrounding villages, with the Imperial Palace as the core, formed the Seven Dao Society. It is impossible to know when the origin of the prefectural swing activities is no longer known, but this long-standing custom was forced to be interrupted by the Japanese invasion.
Until 2003, in order to organize the Nüwa Gong Festival, the local cultural department of the county found that people in various villages still spontaneously worshiped Nüwa during the investigation of the villages around the Nuwa Palace. Under the organization of the Ministry of Culture, the activities of the community, which had been interrupted for more than sixty years, were resumed.
Faith constitutes a very important way for ordinary people to express their vision of a better life, so the sacrificial culture of the pendulum as a nuwa has also become a landmark local culture in the county.
Every year at the beginning of the third lunar month, the Imperial Palace will hold a temple fair for more than half a month, and various clubs will also hold various activities in the village to worship the Emperor. This is not only a grand sacrifice, but also a precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation.
In 2006, the Nüwa Festival, with the Imperial Palace as the main carrier, was included in the first batch of intangible cultural heritage in the country, and every person involved in the county will find a spiritual belonging because of such a common cultural belief, and the Chinese civilization will eventually continue to future generations through such inheritance.
Drama
There is an ancient opera called Saiju in Xiangxian County, which is an ancient drama that spreads in Shanxi, Hebei and other places. The performance content of the drama is mainly for the battlefield conquest, the plot is more fighting, the scene is not exquisite, but it must be mighty and rough, and it is known as a "living fossil" in the Chinese opera industry.
As an important folk culture, Sai opera has been inherited and handed down in Shixian County, and there are performances of Sai Opera every year during the Emperor's Sacrifice or Folk Festival.
The performance of the game is rich in language and exaggerated in action, and there is no singing voice in the game, only a howling voice and a confession. The accompaniment instruments have no orchestras, mostly percussion, retaining their most primitive form.
The reason why the game is called the game is that it evolved from the ritual of sacrifice. Although there is no singing voice to follow, it is the favorite folk opera of the locals. It is precisely because of the power of folk beliefs that the drama has been passed down and preserved to this day.
Nowadays, Saiju is listed as a national intangible cultural heritage, and the inheritance of Saiju records the historical evolution of a place and is also the root of a national cultural inheritance. From the performance of the sacrifice to the nuwa to the generations of cultural blood, it is the cultural imprint that lives endlessly on this land.
Red memory
Next to the village of Chi'an in Shishi Prefecture, there is an inconspicuous mountain ridge called Shogun Ridge. After the death of Marshal Liu Bocheng in 1986, in accordance with his will, his ashes were buried here and a monument was erected to commemorate it. Since then, Xu Xiangqian, Li Da and a large number of other generals have chosen this place as their resting place. This is not only to commemorate the war years, but also to have a deep friendship with the local people.
They were all once the generals of the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, and together with the people of the county, they composed a legend together. In March 1938, the 129th Division of the Eighth Route Army, under the leadership of deputy division commander Xu Xiangqian, ambushed the Japanese army at Xiangtangpu in Xiangxian County. Surrounded by mountains and hidden terrain on all sides, the Eighth Route Army made full use of its topographical advantages to surprise the Japanese army and won another victory in the War of Resistance. Liu Bocheng called this battle a typical example of ambush warfare.
In 1940, the headquarters of the 129th Division was stationed in Chi'an Village, Xiangxian County, relying on the unique geographical advantages of the Taihang Mountains, and established the Jinji-Hebei Luyu Anti-Japanese Base Area with Xiangxian as the center. Not only that, but deep feelings were also established between the Eighth Route Army and the local people.
In 1941, there was a famine in Xiangxian County, and the home of Li Caiqing, a villager in Zhuangziling Village in Xiangxian County, was already difficult to maintain, and at this time, Zhu De, commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army, happened to pass by, and he specially sent someone to send half a bag of millet. It was by relying on this half bag of millet Li Caiqing's family to survive the famine. It was also from then on that Li Caiqing's 14-year-old eldest son, Guo Xi, joined the Eighth Route Army.
In May 1942, the Japanese army launched the largest sweep of the Taihang Mountains, and a large number of wounded people of the Eighth Route Army and the money and materials in the border area were difficult to transfer. In the midst of the crisis, Li Caiqing stood up, she and her family hid the Eighth Route Army's military supplies in batches into the cave, and then sent the wounded of the Eighth Route Army to the cave on the cliff with a rope to hide, and then went down the rope to the cave at night to deliver water and food to the wounded, risking her life Li Caiqing covertly protected more than fifty wounded and sick people of the Eighth Route Army in 18 caves around Zhuangziling.
When the troops were transferred, Li Caiqing kept no less materials, and the wounded also returned to the troops one after another. She also kept in mind the instructions of the head of the army and never publicized it to the outside world. More than 40 years later, when the reporter of the People's Daily came to the county to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, this legend of the War of Resistance became known to the world.
It is precisely because of such a great mother of the Eighth Route Army that there is a legend of 9,000 soldiers of the 129th Division entering the county and 300,000 troops going out of Taihang. According to statistics, during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the people of the county paid more than 100 million catties of public grain, and the young and middle-aged people in the county actively joined the army. In the entire War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, there were no traitors in the county, the mass base was good, and the common people exchanged their own sacrifices for the survival of the troops.
Liu Shuai said a sentence: "If there is no chaff in the county to eat chaff and throat vegetables, we will eat stones." With deep affection for the people of Xiangxian County, Liu Bocheng and many other generals of the 129th Division were buried on the mountain ridge next to Chi'an Village after their deaths.
Today, the county has renovated the old site of the headquarters of the 129th Division and built a new exhibition hall of the 129th Division. The green mountains and rivers of wading the county, a village and a family witness that red legend, but also continue this red memory. The Taihang spirit of not being afraid of difficulties, not afraid of sacrifice, having the courage to take responsibility, and having the courage to win is also integrated into the blood of the county and passed down from generation to generation.
Contemporary
"Two mountains sandwiched between a ditch, no earth and light stones." There are many stones in the mountains, so you can climb the hill when you go out." Due to drought and little rainfall, more mountains and less water, Wang Jinzhuang Village in Xiangxian County has been building a village for more than 700 years and has always been worried about eating. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, natural disasters were effectively controlled, but the population of Wang Jinzhuang also increased year by year. In the 1960s, the population of the village grew to more than 3,700 people, and land became a key issue for more people to feed.
In the winter of 1964, Wang Quanyou, secretary of the village party branch in Wang Jinzhuang Village, organized the villagers to build a barren mountain that had never been cultivated for generations and began to build terraces. They wanted to ask for land from the mountains and cut grain from the stones.
Among the people who opened up the land and cultivated the land, the youngest was only seven or eight years old, and the oldest was over the age of ancient. However, regardless of men, women and children, everyone has only one purpose, to ask for grain from the barren mountains. Relying on the unique tenacity of the Taihang Mountain people, the villagers of Wangjinzhuang built more than 2,500 kilometers of double-layered stone weirs on top of 57 deep ravines and steep ridges, creating more than 4,000 high-standard terraces. With land comes the foundation for survival. Wang Jinzhuang people solved the grain problem by their own efforts.
After the terraces were repaired, in order to increase the income of farmers, Wang Quanyou led the whole village to plant 300,000 pepper trees on the terraces.
The DaHongpao peppercorns produced by Wang Jinzhuang are famous for their thick skin and large oiliness, and are known as the reputation of ten lixiang. The peppercorn harvest season spreads all over the mountains and overflows with peppercorns. The peppercorn trees planted under the leadership of Wang Quanyou have now developed into 10,000 acres of peppercorn gardens.
Not only that, Wang Jinzhuang people skillfully used the resources of the terraced fields to plant pines on the top of the mountain, peppercorns on the edge of the field, and small grains in the field. The terraced fields in the Taihang Mountains, where there is little rainfall, not only ensure the growth of hardy crops, but also avoid soil erosion.
In 2014, the dryland terrace system with Wang Jinzhuang as the core was rated as an important agricultural cultural heritage of China by the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China. The layers of terraces carved above the valley like musical scores bear witness to the tenacious and indomitable character of the people of Xiangxian County, and also witness the true color of The Taihang people who have worked hard for thousands of years to become rich.
Nuwa culture is not only the common cultural belief of the people of Xiangxian County, but also the inheritance of Chinese civilization, and it is also a unique cultural business card of Xiangxian County. Since 2003, the Nüwa Gong Festival ceremony in Xiangxian has been held for 16 consecutive sessions of Chinese from all over the country and overseas have come here to worship their ancestors and seek their roots. The Imperial Palace of Wa in Xiangxian has become one of the sacred places of ancestor worship in China.
On this basis, relying on the Imperial Palace as the core, the county is focusing on building the ecological and cultural circle of Nüwa, and the core scenic spots such as the Newly Built Heavenly Garden and the Heavenly Valley on the Emperor's Mountain integrate humanities research and leisure tourism, and have become a business card of the county. The beautiful Qingzhang River under the Zhonghuang Mountain runs from north to south, running through the whole territory of the county, meandering through a narrow valley. The Taihang Red River Valley is linked by the Qingzhang River, and the mountains on both sides of the river are co-led to turn Baili Qingzhang into a Baili Gallery.
The continuous expansion of the ecological and cultural circle of Nuwa has led to the ecological field of the entire county. Today,the urban and rural forest coverage rate of xiangxian has reached 51%, and it is known as the greenest place in the Taihang Mountains. In 2016, Xiangxian became the first batch of national full-scale tourism demonstration zone creation units.
The people of Xiangxian not only use tenacity and diligence to cultivate the land and carve out the musical score of the earth, but also create a rich folk culture in this land full of warmth and hope, create nature, benefit the people, love and benevolence, and strive for self-improvement. This is the spirit of Nüwa that the people of Xiangxian believe in, and it is also the spiritual driving force in the modernization of Xiangxian County.