Photo/ Xiangxi Old Miao
400 years is only a moment in history; for a village, it is a life-and-death cycle of 20 generations. In this land, people have used 20 reincarnations to interpret 400 years of life, old age, illness and death from the fall of the earth to the age of old age. Years have warmed up the magpie camp with the warmth of life.
It is an ancient village located 20 kilometers north of Jishou City, on the border with Guzhang County. From the north of Jishou City, about 20 minutes by car, on the left side of S229 Provincial Road, two small hills stand next to each other, and in the hollow formed by the top of the mountain, is the Magpie Camp. The terrain is like a bird's nest, guarding the village tightly, if you don't climb to the top of the mountain, you don't know that there is such a big village on the top of the mountain. The two roads cross at the foot of Magpie Camp Hill, and on both sides of the road are rows of high-ocean buildings, which contrast with the old wooden buildings on the top of the hill. For 400 years, the Magpie Camp has been standing here in an inherent posture, like a beautiful person who has passed through the smoke and clouds of history, leaving the world independent.
The locals called the magpie camp camp camp. The upper character not only indicates the geographical location, but also has a clear distinction from other villages at the foot of the mountain in terms of history, culture, customs and so on. At the source, the Magpie Battalion is not a village, and as a barracks, its existence is prepared for war. In the long historical period, war has given it various advantages, so that in front of the surrounding villages, just like its own geographical location, there is a kind of superiority that is high and condescending.
400 years ago, a certain court official inspected Miaojiang and passed by, taking advantage of the location here. Look, this is the place where Qianzhou must pass between Guzhang, Baojing, and Yongshun, and the two small hills stuck in the valley are like lock keys, and if an army is stationed here, it can receive the miraculous effect of a husband and a wife. On both sides of the mountain are open fields, rich in soil and fertilizer, which just provides living materials for the garrison. When the official inquired, this place was called Sparrow Village. As a military camp, this name is stingy and ugly, which is detrimental to the image of the imperial court, and it is simply renamed Magpie Camp, which is auspicious and joyful and tasteful. This rewrite is not only a village name, but also a centuries-long history of the rise and fall of the Miaojiang border wall.
As the starting point of the northern end of the border wall of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the important strategic position of the magpie camp is self-evident. It was responsible for defending Baojing, Guzhang, Yongshun, and other counties from attacking Qianzhou. Directly facing the gourd and Tanglang of Baojing, the vast Miao areas such as Morong and Pingba in Guzhang can be described as the throat of the northern part of Qianzhou. Once this place was lost, there was no danger to the north of Zhenxi (present-day Jishou) and Qianzhou. The Ming and Qing dynasties have always been painstakingly operating the magpie camp and investing heavily in troops. In this small military stronghold, a military commander at the garrison level was stationed, equivalent to today's deputy department level cadres. Under the garrison, there are also military posts such as foreign commissioners, general generals, hundred generals, general banners, and small banners, as well as military branches such as war soldiers and tun soldiers. There are about two hundred military personnel stationed for a long time. To this day, the local people often mention that during the prosperous period of that year, the camp had to consume two fat pigs every day.
From the historical records and surviving remains, it is conceivable that the magpie camp was once heavily fortified. This small stone city occupies two hills, and the walls made of boulders are more than two meters high, wide enough to walk horses, and extremely strong. On all four sides were gates and towers, and two pig cannons were placed on each of them. The streets in the city are in a "well" layout, the center is a large pond, the cross street at the west end of the pond is the center of the camp, and the stone road intersects here, leading to the four gates; there are two Yixue Mengguan in the east of the city, a temple, and the open space between the school and the temple is a martial arts field; the garrison office and the general and foreign commission offices are located on the flat ground on the top of the hill in the south of the city, looking at the four directions from above, and from this in the direction of Qianzhou, there are official pavilions and horse monuments; in addition, there are general's mansions, barracks, stables, and post shops, which are completely built and have a complete system.
During the Ming Dynasty Apocalypse and the Qing Dynasty Jiaqing, the Magpie Camp had two large-scale constructions. During the Apocalypse, Hu Yihong, the deputy envoy of Chenyuan BingbeiDao, commissioned a guerrilla attack on Deng Zuyu, starting from Zhenxi to the magpie camp, and adding a border wall for more than sixty miles. The wall is eight feet high, five feet from the bottom and three feet above the top. Prior to this, the Magpie Camp towered over the Ten Thousand Mountains only as an independent camp, and this project made it one of the most important passes on the Miaojiang Great Wall, which is nearly 400 miles long. In the 25th year of the Kangxi Dynasty and the 50th year of the Kangxi Dynasty, local officials had advocated the rebuilding of the border wall, but the first time it failed for various reasons, and the second time it was directly rejected by Kangxi. The Miao people's uprising that broke out in The 60th year of Qianlong dealt a heavy blow to the Qing government, and after the uprising was suppressed, the construction of the border wall was put back on the agenda. From the second year of Jiaqing to the sixth year of Jiaqing, the Phoenix Hall Tongzhi and the "Prime Minister's Border Affairs" Minister Fu Nai "prepared to set up a fort and add a pillbox... Miaojiang is more than 700 miles along the border, and the whole line is surrounded by circles. "The camp sentry presided over by Fu Nai is all made of locally mined bluestone as material, carved and chiseled regularly, and the masonry is tightly stacked, and its solidity and durability are greatly enhanced compared with the Ming Dynasty technology. Many of the remnants that can still be seen in the Magpie Camp today are basically remnants of this period.
It is no exaggeration to say that Magpie Camp is one of the best-preserved historical sites in Jishou City. Walking through the village, the streets, houses, and terrain in front of you are still the layout of 400 years ago. Wooden houses, gables, and stone roads all exude a pale and ancient meaning. The ruins of the broken walls on the top of the mountain, the scattered short bricks and tiles, and the pillar foundations wrapped in barren vines and grasses are like a real and textured picture of vicissitudes, which makes people feel that history is not far away. The former city head slanting sun, the former wolf smoke painting horn, and the former iron horse Jingo, tossing and turning back and forth on the land under their feet, as if there is still residual warmth. Looking at Jishou, there is no place like the Magpie Camp that can be unaffected by the changes of time, and always be reincarnated truthfully, calmly, and objectively, sitting there in the most authentic state, straight to the root of history.
History is alive at Magpie Camp. Marriage, funeral, marriage, old age, illness and death, the villagers' living customs still retain many barracks cultural characteristics that have been accumulated over a long period of time. For example, the four city gate entrances and the intersection of Cross Street are built with land temples, which is rare in Jishouji. For example, when the village is doing a happy event, the palanquin must enter from the east gate; in the event of a funeral, the coffin must come out of the west gate. Chatting with the villagers in the camp, they will tell you such a story: in a certain year, a certain family member did a funeral, the owner did not believe in evil, preferred to carry the coffin out of the south gate, just turned around the coffin became extremely heavy, so that the mourner could not lift his feet, and finally had to turn back to the west gate, and the result was smoothly out of the city. The villagers use various stories and legends to justify and serious those ancient customs. No one can say the origin of those rituals, but everyone spontaneously maintains and practices them. History continues in customs, and customs create history in evolution. So the cycle has continued, and over the past 400 years, the unique cultural charm of magpie camp has been formed.
The times are advancing, the smoke of gunfire is gone, silently walking through the magpie camp in the wind and moon of history, engraving the past into the days, quietly exuding thousands of styles.
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