Quote from the "Millennium Changmen" section of "Suzhou Culture Series": "Shantang Street is customarily said to be a seven-mile Shantang, so they mistakenly believe that the street from Changmen outside the Monk Bridge to the main gate of Huqiu is seven miles long.

, In fact, this is not the case. A Shantang Street is less than seven miles away. The correct term for it should be "Qili Shantang". At some time, seven stone civet cat heads appeared on this street, "Qili Shantang".

Shantang got its name from this, and it was later rumored to be "Qili Shantang". As for why there are seven stone civet cat heads standing on this street, it is said that at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang was worried about Zhang Shicheng.

The base camp was in Suzhou, and Liu Bowen was specially sent to Suzhou to inspect. Liu Bowen walked east and west in Suzhou, and when he turned to Shantang Street, he found that the Shantang River ran across the Baidi and looked like a crouching dragon. He was worried that a real dragon would appear here.

The emperor was about to compete with Zhu Yuanzhang for power, so he cast a spell and placed seven stone civet cats on Shantang Street, and named them respectively. The one beside Shantang Bridge was Meirenli, the one beside Tonggui Bridge was Tonggui, and the one beside Xingqiao was Tonggui.

They are Wenxing raccoons, Caiyun raccoons beside Caiyun Bridge, Haiyong raccoons beside Qingshan Bridge, Fenshui raccoons beside Xishan Temple Bridge, and Baigong raccoon beside Puji Bridge. It is said that the seven raccoons have the power of a thousand-jin giant lock and can make a strong lock.

If the earth locks the dragon's body forever, the Zhu Ming Dynasty can be passed down to eternity... In the 1960s, the author saw that there was only one civet cat head left on Shantang Street, opposite Tongqiao Bridge.

In front of a small cigarette paper grocery store...".

Coincidentally, the newly published "Shantang Gou Shen Lu" says this: "The seven stone cats originally carved in bluestone on Shantang Street were placed on seven bridges. They have different shapes and simple styles, so people also call them "Shantang Street".

'Seven raccoon dogs'... He (Liu Bowen) came up with a way to build seven bridges on the Shantang River, which are like seven locks... and placed seven raccoon dogs on the bridges to guard the seven.

Lock the lock and break the 'feng shui'."

?The two books quoted above only tell people three points: first, there are seven stone cats; second, each one is placed at the bridge edge of seven bridges across the river; third, the name of "Qili Shantang" should be corrected.

We know that the seven bridges across the Shantang River are Shantang Bridge, Tonggui Bridge, Xing Bridge, Caiyun Bridge, Puji Bridge, Wang (Bian) Mountain Bridge and Xishan Temple Bridge.

"Shantang Gou Shen Lu" says that these seven bridges were built by Liu Bowen to lock the Shantang River, which does not make sense.

I took a set of photos to introduce Shantang Street and published them on a sub-column of "I love taking pictures" in our Suzhou "Wu Forum" column. My online name is "No. 1 Gate" and you can check it out.