There was once a place in Tianjin that was as famous as the "Tianqiao" in Beijing and the "Confucius Temple" in Nanjing, and that was the "Three Visits" to the south of Heather. In the early years, Tianjin's commercial center was in the area of "Houjiahou" outside the north gate, and was later destroyed by the military disaster in Eight-Nation Alliance. At that time, the Japanese concession was building streets, and some vendors came to set up stalls near the edge of the Japanese concession to sell some food and sporadic department stores. Later, vendors gradually expanded the area, and the Japanese originally wanted to include this place in their Tianjin concession. However, due to the contradiction between the imperialists, their attempt failed. The fatuous Tianjin government dared not exercise sovereignty there, and no one was responsible for burying the bones of the dead, cheating and fighting. This place later became the "three cares". Although the Tianjin Police Department set up a police department here, opened several streets and built shops and houses, the place name of "three cares" has been handed down.

The late Republic of China was the heyday of "three cares". Most of the hotels and brothels that used to be "Houjia" moved there, and several small theaters such as Hualin, Qunying and Quanle were newly opened, which made the "three visits" extremely prosperous. There are many storytellers, crosstalk performers, singers, jugglers, westerners and fortune tellers. Among them, Wang Baoshan, who bought medicine and sugar, the white fool who bought cloth, and Liu, who treated boils, are all famous.

Heather, the Three Neglecters in Tianjin

There are flyovers in Beijing, Confucius Temple in Nanjing, and "Three Blacks" in Tianjin, all of which are the paradise of underworld figures before liberation and the den of sin.

In the south of the old city of Tianjin (now the square circle formed by four roads in the east, west, north and south of Tianjin is the base of the old city), the Kangxi people Shalincheng once said: The terrain is marked down, summer and autumn are swamps, and the water surface is frozen like a mirror in winter. The southern part of the old city mentioned here includes the third place, which was originally uninhabited. Therefore, there is no such place name as "San Gu" in the Miscellaneous Notes of Jinmen published in the 10th year of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1884), the Geography Textbook of Tianjin County published in the 22nd year of Guangxu (1897) and the Map of Tianjin City drawn by Liu Ruiqing. Its appearance is directly related to Eight-Nation Alliance's invasion of Tianjin.

1900 Before the Boxer Rebellion, the bustling area of Tianjin was Matou (Beidaguan), so there was a saying in the poems of the Qing Dynasty that "the bustling clothing street is also the northern market of Gongnan Palace". There were teahouses, theaters, pubs, restaurants, bathhouses and brothels in Houjia area. At that time, it was a playground in Tianjin and was called "selling gold pots".

1900, Eight-Nation Alliance fought the Boxer Rebellion, and the area around Gongnan Street and Yuyi Street became a scorched earth. The city walls were also torn down. There are nine foreign concessions on both sides of Haihe River in Tianjin, including Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Russia, Japan, Italy, Austria and Belgium. The prosperity along the Daguan River, behind the Hou family and outside the North Gate plummeted. Wang Ren 'an's History of Tianjin's Political Customs said: "Outside the south gate, it looks desolate and there is much water. Since Gengzi (according to 1900), foreigners have rented land to the southeast (city) corner and the east bank of Haihe River, and attic restaurants have been staggered. " At that time, a vulgar open-air amusement place was gradually formed in the depression (about 100 mu) near the original site of Dongxing market. Including those who are "upside down" in Dawa, those who sell fake powerful pills, those who sell "folded" snacks (restaurant leftovers), those who shave their heads and braid their hair, those who pull foreign films, those who set up tea stalls, and so on. Among the "abandoned stalls", the first four businesses are called "gold, batch, signing and hanging", followed by "physiognomy" (divination), storytelling (singing opera), juggling (magic) and juggling (selling martial arts). These businesses were originally located on the other side of Yanyun yamen, which was equivalent to the vacant land at the east exit of Yuyi Street (opposite to the west exit of Wenhua Street). Later, it continued to the south bank of the South Canal east of Beidaguan. After the boxer movement failed, they all moved to Dawa. People call this place: the origin of the name "three cares", and there is a saying: "Nobody cares about burying the dead (burying the dead casually);" Nobody cares about fighting; Nobody cares about kidnapping. Another way of saying it is: "This big depression is located in the south of China City and the northwest of the French-Japanese Concession. The three countries all shirked the cases that happened in this Concession, so it was called" three concerns ". In short, this was a boundary beyond the control of the police and the law at that time. This is the situation at the beginning. With the prosperity and development of the whole urban area of Tianjin, the scope of "three no matter" is expanding day by day, and later it became "South City".

Heather is not a big place, but it is an active place with all kinds of religions and tricks. It turns out that what's at home is what's here. . Heather concentrates on tea gardens, theaters, restaurants, hotels, shoes, hats, clothing, cakes, sweets, opium pipes and other shops in Tianjin, while Dongxing Market (formerly Dawa) still preserves the original appearance of "three cares" and is a place where Jianghu artists "stand out". There are all kinds of martial arts schools here (such as Bazhou Li, the home of the famous martial arts teacher Li Wenzhen, at the market), wrestling halls, Qiangli Pills (such as Mu Xiangfeng, who is tall and stunned and throws stones), slingshots (specializing in eating raw mutton), selling sheep intestines, bean juice, telling stories and singing.

Due to the prosperity of heather and the rising land price, Rong Yuan, the father-in-law of the last emperor Puyi, and Chun Li, the governor of Jiangxi, both bought land and rented houses here at low prices after the Revolution of 1911. From the present Ye Rong Street and Dongxing Street, we can also see the close relationship with Ye Rong Real Estate Company (owned by Rong Yuan and others) and Dongxing Economic Leasing Office (owned by Chun-Li). Heather, a small place, used to have more than 20 restaurants and more than a dozen theaters (Quyi). People come and go here during the day, which is called buying and selling. The night is full of bright lights and gongs and drums. Reactionary military police, spies and hooligans are all violent and evil in heather. The leader of Zaba (Yuan) and Zhang Ba (shopkeeper of Zeng Xingde Dumpling House) have been running rampant for 30 years, which is a crime of reactionary rule. Because of heather's special status, there were more than 20 newspapers registered in 1930s, such as Popular Times, Tianjin Lunch and Vernacular Morning Post. Some tabloids are notorious for publishing "pornographic news".