one

Going back to my hometown this time and seeing the wetland scenery of the Yellow River Estuary is one of the planned trips. Just looking at the genealogy, I accidentally saw a sentence recorded above, which made me change my mind. Genealogy records: "In the first year of Qing Dynasty, the riverbank burst, houses were destroyed and flooded, and people moved."

I asked my cousin, is this "river bank" the "Yellow River levee" in front of the village? Cousin said, yes.

It scares me. The word "yes" stirred up waves in my heart. So I walked on the Yellow River embankment in front of the village.

The water in front of the Yellow River is not as wild as expected, nor as rough as expected, and even a vortex undercurrent has never been seen. Just a gentle wave, calm and soothing, flowing silently. As the river looks eastward, the tide is flat and the shore is wide, and there is a Huanglong in the sea, swimming freely in the vast blue sea. Eyes swim with Huanglong, and at first glance, there is a line between water and sky, but there is no end of Huanglong. Although I stood on tiptoe and looked up, all I could see was the majestic posture of Huanglong. At the moment when a ship crossed the sea level, I vaguely saw a green line at the far end of Huanglong, which is the depth of the sea.

Is this the Yellow River? Is this the Yellow River that came from ancient times and nurtured Chinese civilization and Chinese culture? Is this the Yellow River, which has been raging and wild and written for thousands of years? Is this the Yellow River that symbolizes the Chinese nation's courage and unyielding, and the great difficulty of rejuvenating the country?

I stood on the levee and couldn't help asking so loudly.

The levee at the foot tells me that this is the Yellow River.

Huanglong in front of me told me that this is the Yellow River.

I am no stranger to the Yellow River, even familiar with it. In Jinan, the city where I live, the Yellow River flows from west to east day and night. The viaduct erected on the Yellow River has made me travel to and from both sides of the Yellow River many times a year, and I don't know how many times I have seen the Yellow River. Many years ago, I also returned to the source and visited the Yellow River landscape. At Huayuankou, I stood on the Yellow River levee and saw ten thousand mu of farmland to be harvested. In Sanmenxia, I held the railing of the dam and saw the mirror-level high gorge Pinghu; In Qikou, I stood by the ferry in the ancient town and saw the ferry that was ups and downs in the Yellow River. In Yichuan, I stood on a rock and saw the roaring Hukou Waterfall. In Hetao, my feet were immersed in the Yellow River and I saw the land of fish and rice in the south of the Yangtze River. In Qinghai, I have seen the ninety-nine bends of the Yellow River. When I went back to my hometown this time and saw the Yellow River estuary again, it was also a wish to visit the Yellow River mileage. Only when I saw the genealogy record that "in the first year of Qing Dynasty, the riverbank burst, the houses were destroyed and flooded, there was nowhere to shelter and food, and the people migrated" did I ask my cousin to know that my hometown was not far from the Yellow River estuary, and the Yellow River burst many times in history. Listening to my cousin talking about the historical situation and past events in my hometown, I can't help asking myself; I have been to the Yellow River, but do I really know it? This is my ancestral homeland, but do I know this land in my hometown? With such heckling, I turned over the history.

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The history is a little long, but it is clear. In the eleventh year BC, that is, at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, the tributary of the Yellow River must have been cut off. In the third year of follwed, the Yellow River was decided by Wei County. Surging, everywhere, is a piece of Wang Yang, thousands of miles of fertile land. The Yellow River flood, which lasted for more than 60 years, left many places in the lower reaches of the Yellow River barren, and people wailed and starved everywhere.

The empire needs taxes, the emperor needs peace and the people need peace. Thus, in the spring of 69 AD, Emperor Han Ming wrote a letter to govern the Yellow River. "In summer, he sent hundreds of thousands of people to build dikes and canals with Wang, and traveled thousands of miles from Xingyang to Haikou. The landscape is a commercial terrain, with mountains and hills chiseled, decomposition results, straight into ravines and streams, erosion prevention, sparse accumulation, and miles of water gates, which is even more confusing and there is no danger of collapse again. "

This history comes from the Book of the Later Han Dynasty and Biography of Wang Jing. The "Thousand Rides to Haikou" mentioned in the book is the land of my hometown today.

The recurrence of the disease was alleviated and the life of streaking for thousands of miles was restored. Therefore, "Jing You is well known".

Jing Wong is the hero who treated Huang. But I prefer to believe that the "hundreds of thousands" who built dams on both sides of the Yellow River are heroes. Although I can't find their surname Zhang Si in ancient books, through the clouds of history, I can see that in the biting wind and rain, their women and children helped each other, with their hands on their shoulders and cars in their baskets; In the cold weather, their father and son helped each other, rammed earth to build dams and reinforced river banks; In the thunder and lightning, they are connected with each other, closely investigating and guarding against death. It is their strong forbearance and hard struggle that makes the Yellow River flood flow into the sea safely in the face of numerous storms and dangers.

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Ancestors came here with a large number of Shanxi immigrants during the Hongwu period, which is recorded in the genealogy. It has been more than 400 years since the Yellow River burst in1/BC. When I first arrived, it was deserted. From a distance, it was full of mud, Artemisia annua, reeds and yellow sand piles. The ancestors didn't know that all this wildness was a masterpiece of the Yellow River dam break in the early Western Han Dynasty. The ancestors dug ditches and drained water here, reclaimed land and established their own homes. There are crows and villages here gradually. The ancestors led the sails down the net and rowed hooks, and gradually there was shipping and a market town here. In particular, the ancestors built dams to expand fields, diverted water to dry salt, and worked hard for generations, which made the salt industry economy, which began with Jiang Taigong, the ancestor of Qi State, become unprecedented prosperity after several times of abandonment and recovery. More than a hundred years later, it has become a famous salt-producing area in Huaiyang, known as the crown of Beijing. Its prosperity, as Liu Xuebo, a Qing Dynasty man, described in his book Beihai Fu: "The sand is white, the waves are clear, the flowers are flying, the scenery is like a product, the business market is full of gold, and the tax is full of national tax." The degree of wealth can be seen.

What our ancestors never imagined was that in the fifth year of Xianfeng, the Yellow River was diverted again, which made all the prosperity and prosperity, along with villages, towns and brine ponds, disappear with the flood. This is a record in the genealogy; "In the first year of the Qing Dynasty, the riverbank burst, houses were destroyed and flooded, and people moved."

This, perhaps by accident, may be fate.

When the ancestors left the locust trees and their homes on the banks of the Yellow River, although they were at a loss about their future and destiny, they would never have thought that the Yellow River would be so cruel and tyrannical to them in a distant place where they had settled down and their family business had been stable for generations.

Later generations don't know much about this family history, and I am also in the genealogy.

I didn't know until I read the records of the Yellow River breach in Xianfeng for five years. Perhaps it was a breach and the flood was too fierce, which was recorded in the genealogy; Perhaps the disaster caused by the breach was so deep that the two floods of the Yellow River in the fifteenth year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty and the twentieth year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty did not attract attention, and the genealogical records were all understated.

The ancestors once again returned to the wild times. Wash the house, raise the foundation and turn it over again; If the ditch is blocked, remove the silt and dig again; The fields are covered with yellow sand, and then deeply ploughed and buried underground; When you are hungry, catch small fish and shrimp around ditches and rivers to satisfy your hunger; When you are thirsty, drink the muddy yellow river water in the mud ditch. In the second year after the flood receded, the washed-out village came back to life, and it became a comfortable nest for generations to settle down.

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Decades later, when this tortured land rested, disaster came again, this time it was not a natural disaster. 1937, Japanese imperialism trampled on this land wantonly, and national survival once again burst its banks like the Yellow River, encountering a crisis of life and death.

"On the banks of the Yellow River, there are a group of outstanding descendants of the Chinese nation." In this high-spirited battle song, Xiao Hua came, Huanghua came, Xu came, Yang Guofu came, and the ancestors of my hometown joined the Eighth Route Army in succession. In the face of natural disasters, our ancestors showed perseverance, and in the face of national disasters, our ancestors showed greater courage and unyielding. Killing devils on the battlefield, men bravely risked their lives to forget themselves; The rear supports the front rescue, and women and children do their best. Every household has a sword and every village is a battlefield. Our ancestors swore to defend their hometown to the death, and countless people sacrificed the battlefield. In this land soaked by the Yellow River, countless hometown elders are also soaked with blood. In the eight years of the Anti-Japanese War, one army after another grew up drinking the Yellow River water. Their footprints have traveled all over the motherland. In today's armed sequence of * * * and China, there is still a teacher of the tiger and the wolf with the blood of his hometown.

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I want to know, what supported our ancestors to be so tenacious? What spirit inspired our ancestors to be so brave and tenacious? For a long, long time, I have no answer.

I silently walked down the levee. Although his face is dignified, his steps are much lighter. My cousin, standing in the parking lot under the levee, looked at me from a distance with a puzzled face. He didn't know why I insisted on not accompanying him and went to the levee to see the Yellow River alone. He doesn't know why I walked so hard on the levee; He doesn't know why I watched the Yellow River enter the sea on the levee, and there were tears in my eyes.

Back to the village not far away, in his spacious and bright room, my cousin fried several dishes. Just like the tradition of hospitality, this table has not only hot and cold cooking, but also drunken dates, braised fish and jujube wine. Surprisingly, this time-honored brand has been entertaining guests and has been stewing barracuda for many years. The fish dish on the table this time is braised carp.

Cousin said: this drunken jujube will be eaten later, this jujube will be drunk later, and this wild barracuda will taste terrible again.

I asked, why is it bad again?

My cousin said that the fork in the wild river has become a canal fish pond, where all the domestic fish are stocked, and then all the hairy crabs are stocked. There are not many wild barracuda.

Barracuda, drunken jujube and jujube wine are all specialties of my hometown. It is also the custom of hospitality in my hometown to entertain guests with barracuda, drunken dates and jujube wine. I went back to my hometown for the first time more than 30 years ago, and my first meal was braised barracuda cooked by my grandmother. After that, I went to visit my relatives, whether my brother or my aunt and uncle. Every household serves barracuda, steamed stew, or braised in brown sauce. When I left, I took all the drunken dates with me. I know, it's a custom in my hometown. At that time, I thought, how can there be such a custom in my hometown? I just didn't have a chance to ask.

Now there is an opportunity, I asked my cousin.

I didn't expect my cousin to talk about this problem from the immigration of ancestors: at the beginning of immigration, the only product that ancestors brought from Hongdong was a jujube tree. Unexpectedly, this jujube tree actually grows vigorously in this barren saline-alkali land, and the jujube produced is sweeter than the jujube produced in Hongdong. After drying, there are continuous sugar lines, which shine in the sun and look like gold lines. This is the famous "golden jujube" later. Drought melons and waterlogged dates, in the year of flood, crops failed, but small dates were covered with tree heads. These small dates could save lives. Therefore, jujube trees are widely planted here to save the disaster. When there is food to eat in good years, we will use the collected dates to make wine, and then use this wine to make drunken dates. It's nothing rare to celebrate the Chinese New Year, so it's a custom to treat people with this kind of drunken dates. Hundreds of years later, this has become a custom. So is barracuda. At the beginning of ancestors' immigration, rivers and valleys were everywhere. When there is a flood, barracuda goes upstream from the depths of the sea. The large and small rivers and valleys are full of barracuda. The bigger the flood, the more barracuda there are. To put it bluntly, these barracuda are still the product of floods. You can't eat more fish. They are all salted and hung up to dry. During the Spring Festival in China, this pickled barracuda has become a major dish for guests.

When my cousin said this, I suddenly understood the fundamental reason why pike was not served on the table today, but carp was served.

Cousin is a heavy drinker. After drinking a cup of jujube thick wine, he blushed and talked more: in recent years, there have been fewer jujube trees and the Yellow River has not flooded. There is a bumper harvest every year, and the food can't be eaten. Who will eat dates to satisfy their hunger? In the saline-alkali land where jujube trees were originally planted, some were planted with winter dates, and some were dug into fish ponds to raise the Yellow River carp. Look, this is the Yellow River carp we ate. Say that finish, my cousin pointed to the fish in the fish plate with chopsticks.

When I look carefully, it is really an orange fish tail, but the "golden scale" in the "golden scale red tail", the symbol of the Yellow River carp, has been scraped off before the pot is braised.

It's a pity that this yellow river carp, if placed in Jinan and in the hands of Jinan chefs, is a famous dish in Jinan, and I can't help but tut.

My cousin seems to have read my mind. He said, nothing rare. I'll bring you some live ones when I leave, and you can make sweet and sour yellow river carp when you go back.

And ... cousin went on to say: some people are also preparing to transform the saline-alkali land where jujube trees are planted into paddy fields and grow sea rice. In the past, nothing grew in saline-alkali land, but now crops can be grown in seawater. Yuan Longping is really amazing. It's a miracle to think about it.

After all, the Yellow River flood has been cured.

After dinner, my cousin is still in full swing. He waved his hand and said, come on, big brother will take you shopping. You haven't come back these years, and our hometown has changed a lot.

Walking out of the house and turning out of the street, the asphalt avenue in the village is horizontal and vertical, like a chessboard. Houses with high stone foundations and red bricks and tiles of the same color are neatly arranged on one side of the avenue. There are shops on both sides of the street, and some shops sound like they are selling advertisements. Strangely, there was no one in the street, only an old sanitation worker in orange overalls, riding a tricycle, said hello to his cousin and passed by. What about the people in the village?

Cousin said that these days, children are studying at school, young adults have gone to work in the city, and old people are not idle, weaving nets and carpets at home. There is no one wandering in the street except cleaning.

Yes, my cousin and I walked all the way from the northern end of the village to the south. I didn't see the second person except the old sanitation worker.

Out of the village, the left side of the road is full of wheat fields, and the wheat seedlings are green and strong; The sparse jujube trees on the ridge are vigorous and powerful. The right side of the road is full of fish ponds, arranged neatly. Walking on this empty and quiet land in my hometown, I feel depressed in the morning, and I can't help feeling endless stretch and pleasure at this time.

Further on, we saw the high Yellow River levee. I stopped and looked around from west to east, but I thought it was a towering Great Wall, standing among the mountains. I also think it is a winding dragon, entrenched in the land of my hometown.

I suddenly thought, is the levee protecting the Yellow River? Is it protecting the villages, land and people in my hometown? Or did people in their hometown protect the Yellow River, the village and the land?

About the author: Li Jinliang, a famous writer in Jinan.

Yidianhao Shandong creation center