The author | Feng Zhao
In the southeast corner of Jiangxi, in the middle of the Wuyi Mountains, there is a map shaped like a thousand-year-old county with maple leaves rising - Lichuan.
Because it is located on the banks of the Litan River, it has been an important town for the exchange of people and goods between Gansu and Fujian provinces since ancient times; for thousands of years, it has precipitated unique historical and cultural relics such as ming and qing old streets and boat-shaped ancient houses. Zhu Xi called it "a city of mountains, green water floating buildings", Xu Xiake used "Lu Lu quite prosperous" to describe the gathering of merchants, and Zhang Hexhui used "Jiangnan in the dream" to describe his haunted hometown.
The remote geographical location and rich cultural resources provide unique convenient conditions for Lichuan Cultural Tourism.
Reproduce the map of the upper river of the Qingming Dynasty
According to historical records, the establishment of Lichuan County began in the second year of eastern Wu Taiping in the Three Kingdoms period. The ancient city scenic spot that exists in the old town of Lichuan retains the style of Ming and Qing dynasty architecture.
Sage Street, Lingyun Lane, Fengchai Lane, Huashi Street and other ancient streets and lanes crisscross each other, one is the arcade street surface, the other is a quiet ancient alley, the most prestigious of which is Zhang Hexhui Former Residence - this is a brick and wood building structure of the middle and late Qing Dynasty buildings, downstairs is a place of life and reception, the middle side of the patio, upstairs with bedrooms, schools and study rooms.
Beyond the building, the ancient city has a variety of shows, shops and specialties. Among them, Lichuan people have made core sugar for more than 800 years, including nearly ten manual processes such as seedlings, steaming glutinous rice, fermentation, boiling sugar, whitening, bucket, sugar pulling, and core filling. The owner usually stands at the entrance of the shop and performs the "Eight Commandments of Sugar Candy", humorously and vividly following the rhythm of the music, showing the hand-pulled sugar process.
In order to protect the folk handicrafts that are on the verge of being lost, Li Chuan also consciously supports and encourages the revival of "three hundred and sixty lines" such as cotton shops, blacksmith shops, shaved heads shops, weaving utensil shops, and Traditional Chinese medicine shops in the old street, which makes the ancient city of Lichuan known as the "living Qingming River Map" - perhaps, this is also a way for Lichuan people to retain their nostalgia.
The ship-shaped old house is loyal
In Zhouhu Village, Huashan Town, more than 40 kilometers away from the county seat, there is a strangely shaped, grand-scale and well-preserved boat-shaped ancient house.
Looking from the hillside, the houseboat sits west to east, consisting of three parts: bow, cabin and stern, with brick and stone as the bottom, bamboo and wood walls, green brick and gray tiles, and cornices. Around the houseboat, there are also ancient houses such as the Zhongwei Hall, the High Hall, the Doctor's Hall, and the Huangdongxi Ancestral Hall, which are like frigates surrounded by giant ships, forming a unique ancient architectural community with the houseboats.
According to the "Chronicle of Lichuan County", the houseboat has a construction area of about 10 acres, a house height of 6 meters, one into three halls, each hall with three floors, a total of 108 rooms. It was built in the 24th year of Daoguang (1844) by the wealthy Qing Dynasty merchant Huang Huirou at a cost of 20,000 taels of silver.
However, after the completion of the mansion, Huang Huirou and his six sons rarely lived in it, but handed it over to the clan to live in escrow. Since then, there has been no relevant record of the Huang Huirou family, and this houseboat has become a homeless house, and the rise and fall of the owner and his descendants are not clear to even the clan. What's even more bizarre is that the mansion actually has only 107 rooms, and some of them are secret rooms that can't even open the door. Where exactly is room 108? There are many opinions on this, and there is no consensus.
So, what is the meaning of this unique, uneconomical and space-taking houseboat?
According to the research and demonstration of The Jiangxi archaeologist Chen Jiang, the houseboat is actually a materialized form of "Hongchuan" that has been mentioned many times in the "Book" of the "Hui" that records important historical facts and rules about the "Hongmen" (Heaven and Earth Society) and the purpose of "anti-Qing and restoration".
Outside the houseboat, the ditch is unobstructed and the water is flowing endlessly, which means to hold up the flood boat to move forward; inside the houseboat, the patio is open, and the houses are connected to each other, like a labyrinth. In the main hall on the side of the houseboat, a circular sign is hollowed out on the wooden plank wall, and eight wooden swords point directly to the center of the circle, which is the rudder-shaped symbol of the Heaven and Earth Society, so the supreme leader of the Heaven and Earth Society is called the "Chief Helmsman".
The ink line "Double Dragon Contending for the Top" in the ancestral hall is the only isolated version in the country, which is in line with the purpose of the Heaven and Earth Society to "oppose the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming" and compete with the Manchu Qing Dynasty for the world.
In order to protect the ancient building community, Huashan Town has invested millions of yuan to repair the main structural frame, walls and broken doors and windows of the houseboat, and also used the national traditional village protection funds to renovate the façade of the old street houses and restore the retro elements.
With the increase of the fame of the houseboat, the number of tourists has gradually increased, and the annual number of tourists once reached 50,000.
The creation of oil paintings attracts guests
At the beginning of 2022, the ancient city of Lichuan welcomed a research team of tens of thousands of students to understand oil painting - it is also known as the "hometown of Jiangxi oil painting".
Li Chuan's history of creating oil paintings began in the 1980s. At that time, a group of young people opened oil painting training classes here, and the beautiful natural scenery and profound cultural heritage provided the soil for oil painting to flourish. Since then, a group of folk painters have left Lichuan and gone to Shenzhen, Xiamen, Shanghai and other places to develop, making Lichuan oil painting famous.
In 2009, Yang Jirong, president of the Lichuan Oil Painting Association, with the support of the county government, co-founded the Lichuan Oil Painting Street with many local colleagues, promoting the scale of the oil painting industry to become larger and larger, and gradually realizing the transformation of "painters to painters, offline to online, base to platform, decentralized and independent to gather and hug groups".
In addition, Lichuan has also stabilized the team of painters through measures such as free rent for oil painting studios, tax rebates for oil painting enterprises, and free training for oil painting creation skills for poor households, and built the Lichuan Oil Painting Creative Industry Park with a total construction area of 50,000 square meters, actively prepared for the Lichuan International Oil Painting Festival, and planned to build a regional art brand of "Lichuan Oil" painting.
Nowadays, there are more than 300 Lichuan people engaged in oil painting creation throughout the country, and their works are exported to more than 20 countries and regions in Europe, America and Southeast Asia; among them, there are more than 400 painters living in Lichuan and 49 oil painting enterprises, with an annual output value of 360 million yuan.
From Zhang Hexhui's "Dream of Jiangnan", the "Hongmen Memory" of the boat-shaped ancient house, to the National AAA-level Scenic Spot Lichuan Oil Painting Creative Industry Park, the Lichuan model of visiting ancient towns, visiting history, seeing beautiful scenery and learning oil painting has surfaced.