Visit three more lanes and seven lanes
Yu Sheng
In Young Writers, Issue 7, 2021
Three lanes and seven lanes at an entrance
Fuzhou's Sanfang And Seven Alleys is "a large-scale and well-protected historical and cultural block in China, one of the few ancient architectural relics in the country", and is known as "the source of Fuzhou's history, the root of culture, and the place where the cultural context is prosperous". So far, I have been here twice. The first time was four or five years ago, that time came and went in a hurry, but when I arrived at Sanfang And Seven Alleys, I didn't have time to see more, and only visited the Lin Zexu Memorial Hall and the former residence of Lin Juemin.
Lin Zexu, a great national hero, the first person to "open his eyes to the world", and also a "perfect person" in my mind, naturally could not go to Fuzhou without going to his memorial hall to see. On that occasion, I came to his memorial with a pilgrimage heart. Strangely enough, four or five years later, when I think back to what I first saw in his memorial, the memory is not very deep. Only that time I bought a copy of the "Lin Ze Xu Family Book" here, and for four or five years, it has simply become my pillow book, and I picked it up and turned it over from time to time to draw some nutrition from it.
That time, I was impressed by the reliving of Lin Juemin's "Letter with Wife" at Lin Juemin's former residence:
Yi YingQing QingRuhui: I am now saying goodbye to Ru Yong with this book! When I wrote this book, I was still one person in the world; when I read this book, I had become a ghost in Hades...
I am full of my heart for Ru, helping the people of the world to love what they love, so I dare to die first, regardless of Ru ye!
Our great and ancient nation, whenever it falls into the critical juncture of life and death, there will always be many benevolent people who rise up, who sacrifice their small families to take care of everyone, kill themselves to become benevolent, and sacrifice their lives for righteousness for the sake of the future of the nation and the happiness of the majority of the people.
"Letter with Wife" is included in the junior high school language textbook, which is already familiar to us, but it is still different from the feeling when revisiting this desperate letter in his former residence, seeing things and thinking about people, looking at his relics, thinking about the scene where he once lived here, silently reciting "Letter with Wife" in his heart, only to feel that the chest cavity is full of a noble and great thing stirring, swirling, stirring, swirling people's tears swirling in the eyes.
Lin Juemin's former residence, Bingxin's former residence
That time, I also knew that Lin Juemin's former residence was also bingxin's former residence. After the failure of the Huanghuagang Uprising, the Lin family hastily sold their old mansion in order to avoid the door. The person who bought the Lin family's old house is called Xie Luanen, who is Bingxin's grandfather, and Bingxin lived in this house when he was a child.
Our house has several yards, but it is not like the courtyard of the "courtyard" in the north, but in front of a row or a house, there is a rectangular "patio", and each "patio" has a well, which is almost the characteristic of Fuzhou houses. In this large room, in addition to the occupants, is the guest room and the study. Almost all the halls and guest rooms, the pillars of the study rooms are pasted or hung with calligraphy and paintings on the walls - this is bingxin's recall of the old mansion in the article "My Hometown".
That time, there was another person who impressed me. Coming out of Lin Juemin's former residence, I happened to meet a lady in her fifties who was telling four or five scholars about the relationship between many celebrities in Fuzhou, she was not tall, dressed elegantly, and had a temperament like a professor in a university.
Related to this house, in addition to Bingxin, there is Also Lin Huiyin. Lin Huiyin's father, Lin Changmin, was Lin Juemin's cousin. In the private school where Lin's children were taught, there were also Lin Baishui and Lin Shu. In 1903, Lin Baishui founded the China Vernacular Newspaper. A few years ago, someone wrote an article titled "Pingshui Meets in a Hundred Days - Remembering the Death of Lin Baishui" to commemorate Lin Baishui. Lin Shu participated in the "Book on the Bus" in 1895, a pioneer of China's new culture, and has translated more than 40 world famous works such as "La Traviata Girl" and "Black Slave Wu Tianlu", opening a window for the Chinese people to understand Western literature.
She introduced these entangled relationships like a family, with a proud smile on her face: Lin Shu met her fellow villager Lin Xu when she entered the Beijing conference. Lin Xu was the youngest of the Six Gentlemen of Wu Shu. Lin Xu's wife, Shen Queying, was the granddaughter of Shen Baozhen, the minister of shipping administration in Fujian and the governor of Liangjiang, and Shen Baozhen was Lin Zexu's son-in-law...
For a moment, I listened to her like a family treasure, and I couldn't help but pause for a while, as if something had pierced my soul like a sword, what it was, but I couldn't say it. Looking at it, she had already led a group of people to the other end of the alley. Several pennant-waving tour guides led groups of tourists to come. Her figure disappeared into the crowd in the blink of an eye, so that I still don't know what her name is, where do she work in Fuzhou? How do you understand the relationship between these characters so clearly?
That time, I thought, Sanfang And Seven Alleys, what kind of place is this, how can there be so many brilliant stars in Chinese history gathered here?
But that time, after all, it came and went in a hurry, and some thoughts were just like electric fire tongues, occasionally flashing in the mind. Leaving the three lanes and seven alleys, mixed in the noisy city sounds, those occasional flashes of thoughts are drowned out without a trace.
This time as a guest of the lecture hall of Fujian Bamin College, the hotel where you stayed was in Sanfang And Seven Alleys, and the time was much more relaxed than the last time. After completing the mission, I walked on the cobblestone street at night, the street was sparsely populated, and the slate behind me seemed to be vibrating out of my footsteps - what is this place, how can there be so many brilliant stars in Chinese history gathered here?
It is said that in the feudal dynasties of the past, there were only eighteen counties in the country with more than 1,000 zhongjin soldiers, of which Fujian occupied 4: Min County (present-day Fuzhou), Jinjiang, Putian and Jian'an (present-day Nanping). There is a saying that the reason why Fujian has a wealth of talents is related to the fact that the northern warriors moved south due to war and chaos in history, such as the "Yongjia Rebellion" at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the "Five Hu Chaohua" at the end of the Tang Dynasty, and the "Yiguan" "South Crossing". That is to say, the reason why Fujian is so talented is because the genes of the readers are well inherited. But I always feel that the inheritance of genes is only an internal cause, and fathers are like dragons and tigers, and children and nephews are like guinea pigs. Fujian talent is so brilliant and the flood waves are rising, there must be his external reasons. So, what is this external cause? Is the external cause really like Chen Junqing, a Fujian man in the Southern Song Dynasty, who said, "the ground is thin and plants pine cypresses, and the poor children of the family read"? The reason seems to be so, it should be good to use it in other places, it seems to be "universally applicable", but it is not so accurate when used for the soldiers of the three lanes and seven lanes. You know, the three squares and seven lanes of that year were a gathering place for dignitaries and nobles, and some people said that the three lanes and seven lanes of that year were to Fuzhou, just like the Forbidden City was to Beijing. How did the children of these rich and noble families achieve "rich but not proud, expensive but not comfortable", and let the "blood of the readers" continue to circulate? As I walked towards the Lin Zexu Memorial Hall at night, I pondered. The footsteps buckled on the stone slab, like a sound of inquiry. On both sides of the stone street, the big red lanterns are bright and red, and the antique houses make me trance into the era of Lin Zexu.
Unsurprisingly, the gate of Lin Wenzhong's ancestral hall at night was closed, and I looked up at the tall archway-style door wall, and I couldn't help but think of Lin Zexu's words to warn the eldest son: "The most important thing is to use force, especially to read more sage books, otherwise it will be easy to fall." He warned the eldest son that if he did not read the books of the sages, it would be easy for people to slip into the filth.
The dignitaries and nobles of the three lanes and seven lanes still do not forget to remind their children and grandchildren that they must always remember diligence, hard work, upward mobility, and goodness, only in this way can the "blood" of the family be passed down from generation to generation and flourish.
It was night, in the hotel, listening to the fuzhou tone of the street talk outside the window gradually thinned out, and I gradually fell asleep. In April, there were already mosquitoes in the room, and one was killed before going to sleep, but there was another one hidden very deeply, and at four o'clock in the morning began to seek revenge, buzzing and screaming, stirring up my dreams, simply getting up in disguise, a person out of the hotel, treating himself as a wind, wandering in the three lanes and seven lanes at will.
Compared with the hustle and bustle of the day and night, the three squares and seven lanes at this time are like a human room. Those tourists receded from the three lanes and seven lanes like a tide, waited until about eight o'clock in the morning, and then began to pour in like a tide. I stared at the cobblestone street as if the vanishing footsteps were all dreams. The sky is clear, the sun has not yet risen, and at the end of the alley, the figure of the early security guard occasionally flashes.
Narrow alleys, high courtyard walls
A few vines hang down from the wall, so casually hung on the wall, it is simply a masterpiece of abstract masters; the old banyan tree in Wenrufang hangs down a wisp of brown air roots, like the old hair in Peking Opera; narrow alley, the courtyard wall is high, the courtyard wall of Minshan Lane is almost two stories high, people walk in the alley, looking up at such a high courtyard wall, is it to prevent theft or the display of the owner's identity? Looking up at the sky above the courtyard wall, there is really a feeling of sitting in a well and watching the sky. Three lanes and seven lanes, can you find a person sitting in a well and watching the sky?
Walking in the morning light, the green tiles and white walls are all in sight, so that I was born in Anhui province and walked into an ancient building in my hometown. However, unlike the horse head wall eaves of hui school buildings, which are as flat as a straight line, the horse head wall eaves of the three lanes and seven lanes are all with a round arc, resembling a saddle, and the locals call this wall "saddle wall". Looking at the character of a local person from the architectural point of view, does the horse head wall reflect the character of Anhui people to be more square, and the saddle wall reflects the character of Fujian people to be more mellow? It seems far-fetched. I think that the architectural style of Sanfang And Qixiang is the product of Huipai architecture and the localization of Fuzhou, which should be an appropriate expression. So, can it be said that taking, borrowing and blending can be said to be the cultural soul of the three lanes and seven alleys?
Along the way, the doors of Shen Baozhen's former residence and Lin Zexu's mother's former residence are tightly closed - except for the hotel, all the doors of Sanfang and Qixiang are tightly closed, and the ancient history is separated behind the thick door panels, behind various plaques and couplets. The glorious things of history always silently flowed out from between the walls, from between the plaques, from the cracks in the doors, from under the base of the stone lion, and gradually soaked in the morning light.
Little Yellow House
All the doors will open, all the history will be presented. After nine o'clock in the morning, when the tourists flooded into the three lanes and seven lanes like a tide, I walked into the small yellow house located in the yellow lane accompanied by friends. It is said to be the largest ancient house in Sanfang and Seven Alleys. You need to buy a ticket to enter, perhaps because it is too early, there are not many tourists in the courtyard, and for those who are accustomed to seeing jiangnan gardens, the courtyard does not have much new cleverness. What attracted me was a century-old Pingbo tree in the yard, the first time I had seen the Pingbo tree, the leaves were emerald green and fat, larger and thinner than the leaves of the batch tree, and there were some white flowers faintly between the tall canopy. There is also an ancient mango tree, which is said to have been planted by huang pu, the first owner of the Yellow House, The Second Year of Tang Dashun (891 AD) and the ChongwenGe School Secretary Lang Huang Pu. In this way, this is a thousand-year-old tree. The trunk, where an adult with outstretched arms may not be able to hug him, is now known as the "Mango King". The relationship between trees and people is the easiest to arouse people's reverie. The leaves fluttered in the breeze, as if they were flipping through the thousand-year-old history books page by page, or talking about the old things that happened in this building and even in the three lanes and seven alleys. There must be a piece of light and zero feather about the soul of the culture of the three squares and seven lanes in this sassy sound, but no one can understand it.
Out of the XiaohuangLou, through An min Lane, into the Wenrufang Daguangli, we walked into He Zhendai's former residence to taste tea.
He Zhendai (1867 ~ 1952), a twenty-three-year-old Guangxu man, was good at painting Nengqin, calligraphy and stele paste in a furnace, poetry deep and distant, sparse and quiet, is the "same light body" Min school of the temple army figures. Famous and numerous disciples, everyone was proud to be able to enter the gate.
It is a two-entry courtyard with the courtyard door open on the side facing the street. After a few steps straight through the entrance, turn right is the hall of the first entrance, and on the left hand side is the courtyard wall facing the street, facing the hall gate. On the wall of the courtyard is a large "Fu" character written by the present person, and the word "Fu" is preceded by a huge water tank filled with water. Standing on the steps of the hall and looking at the reflection of the word "Fu" in the water tank, you can feel the meaning of folk auspiciousness.
Now the owner of the house temporarily belongs to Zhang Zhizai, who is a master craftsman of Shoushan stone, and his works have won gold medals in competitions many times. Aiming to be about 1.70 meters tall and slender, he told us about the process of his original settlement here, and how to restore the appearance of his old residence after moving in, all in the original appearance. There are not many words, three words and two words, the tone is not hurried, reminding me of the lady in her fifties who I met in front of the Xinhai Revolution Memorial Hall when I first came to Sanfang and Seven Alleys. When Zhi did not speak, he had a gentle smile on his face like a person in the three lanes and seven alleys who read the world.
Small flower tables with red bricks
We sat in the hall of the second courtyard and drank tea, looking at the exquisite courtyard, the weeds growing randomly in the stone cracks and on the edges of the steps; looking at a small flower platform that was placed in a staggered manner with red bricks, and on the stage there was a bunch of Brazilian irises raised in a coffee-colored pot, and behind the flowerpot was the fir interstitial screen of the first courtyard, on which hung the axis of the torii dead branches of torii painted by an unknown person, and the ink marks were faint, and the magic was in the middle of nowhere. Zhi zai also talked about his artistic pursuits one after another. The patio is not large, the eaves around the roof form a small rectangular frame, I can't help but look over the gray tile ridge, look at the tall kapok tree in the neighbor's yard in the frame, the fiery red kapok is withering, and one is leisurely leaving the branch.
I was imagining that if it rained, I came to this old and exquisite courtyard, while drinking tea, listening to the sound of rain dripping from the sky, and then stunned, thinking about my past, thinking about the past of sanfang and seven alleys, what a pleasant pleasure it would be.
Thinking like this, it was as if there really was a drop of water dripping down, dripping onto the gray tile ridge, dripping onto the bluestone slab of The Three Lanes and Seven Alleys, and dripping onto my heart lake. My heart lake immediately splashed a circle of ripples, and this ripple spread out in a circle, and I looked closely, and it seemed that in this wave I faintly saw the cultural soul of the three squares and seven alleys.
In an instant, the heart lake was as calm as ever. Actually, I didn't see anything, I didn't see anything.