Jiangnan literally means the south of the river. In the narrow sense of human geography, it specifically refers to the Wu-speaking area south of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The water town in the south of the Yangtze River, with its small bridges and flowing water, white walls and black tiles, and Wu Nong's soft words, is a paradise in people's minds. Jiangnan in a broad sense covers the south of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the north of the Nanling and Wuyi Mountains, that is, the entire territory of Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Shanghai and the area south of the Yangtze River in Hubei, Anhui and Suzhou. In different historical periods, the literary images of Jiangnan are different. Jiangnan first appeared in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties, and refers to the middle reaches of the Yangtze River with the Chu State as the background, today's central and southern parts of Hunan and Hubei, and parts of Jiangxi.

Four Famous Gardens

Nanjing Zhanyuan Garden, Humble Administrator’s Garden and Liuyuan Garden in Suzhou, and Wuxi Jichang Garden are collectively known as the Four Famous Gardens in Jiangnan.

Jiangnan gardens are natural landscape gardens based on opening ponds and building mountains. They flourished in the Six Dynasties and finally in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Mainly in Suzhou, Changzhou, Yangzhou, Nanjing, Shaoxing, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Huangshan, Chizhou, Huzhou, Shanghai, Jiaxing, Xuancheng, Wuhu, Shangrao and other cities. Due to the wars of the past dynasties, Suzhou has the most preserved private gardens today. Suzhou gardens have also been included in the "World Heritage List" as representative gardens. Nanjing Xuanwu Lake is the only remaining royal garden in the south of the Yangtze River in contemporary times. The following are certain representative garden buildings in each city:

Suzhou: Humble Administrator’s Garden, Liuyuan Garden, Master of the Nets Garden

Wuxi: Jichang Garden, Li Garden< /p>

Changzhou: Hongmei Park, Dongpo Park, Jinyuan, Orchid Garden

Shanghai: Yuyuan

Hangzhou: Guozhuang

Changshu : Yanyuan

Shaoxing: Shen Garden, Xiyuan

Nanjing: Zhanyuan, Xuyuan

Yangzhou: Slender West Lake Garden, Geyuan

Classic food

Xiao Long Bao - a delicious snack in the Jiangnan region. When Chinese people talk about Xiao Long Bao and Xiao Long Steamed Bun, no one dislikes it.

When and where was Xiaolong Steamed Bun born? Legend has it that it evolved from the famous Wanglou "Cave Plum Blossom Bun" in the Northern Song Dynasty and was brought to Jiangnan by the Northern Song Dynasty royal family. The more concentrated view is that it was born in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, in today's Changzhou, Wuxi and other places. Xiaolong is a unique embodiment of the food culture in this region. It is famous throughout the Jiangnan area for its thin skin, rich fillings, tender and fragrant flavor.

Osmanthus lotus root - Osmanthus fragrant

Jiangnan likes to use osmanthus as one of the food seasonings, and the food is also enjoyed for its sweetness, crispness, and rich fragrance of osmanthus

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Osmanthus and lotus root

It has a good reputation. The glutinous rice is filled with lotus roots, carefully prepared with osmanthus sauce and red dates. It is a unique Chinese dessert among the traditional Jiangnan dishes. Hangzhou's sweet-scented osmanthus glutinous rice and lotus root are soft and sweet, while Nanjing's sweet-scented osmanthus glutinous rice and lotus root are known as the most humane street snacks in Jinling and Nanjing, together with "osmanthus-sugar taro seedlings, plum blossom cakes, and red bean fermented rice dumplings."

Dongpo Pork

According to legend, when Su Dongpo was demoted to Hangzhou, in his impoverished life, he imitated the previous methods and improved them, adding roasted pork with wine to make braised pork. Made by slow simmering. This dish originated in Huangzhou, and later spread to Hangzhou, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, where it became popular and became a famous dish in Hangzhou. Dongpo Pork uses pork as the main ingredient. The dish has thin skin and tender meat, bright red color, mellow and juicy taste, crispy but not broken, fresh and refreshing meat color, fragrant and glutinous but not greasy.

Plumb pickles - a hometown dish cooked by the sun

The steamed black pickles written in Lu Xun's "Feng Bo" are very tempting. This kind of black and attractive dried vegetables is called molded dried vegetables in Lu Xun's hometown of Shaoxing. Because of its black color, it is also called Wu Gan Cai. It is one of the famous local "Three Crows": Wu Peng Chuan, Wu Felt Hat and Wu Gan Cai. A portrait of the Jiangnan water town in the old days.

Hairy crabs

There are many crabs in Jiangnan. Among the crabs in the south of the Yangtze River, Yangcheng Lake is the most outstanding, and its name is "hairy crab". For example, the two sentences of Mrs. Tang Guoli, the wife of modern university scholar Zhang Taiyan, were refreshing and straightforward: "If it weren't for crabs in Yangcheng Lake, why would you live in Suzhou in life?"

Water Village

Zhouzhuang< /p>

Wuzhen

Wuyuan

Hongcun

Climate

As everyone knows, Jiangnan is in the subtropical zone. The transitional area to the warm temperate zone has a warm and humid climate with four distinct seasons, making it a very suitable area for the growth of various crops and human survival. Compared with the cold and dry conditions in the north and the hot and humid conditions in Lingnan, the human body is very comfortable in the climate conditions of Jiangnan.