When it comes to closing mountains, we can't help but mention the Yellow River. The Yellow River flows through the closed hills for about 50 or 60 kilometers, accounting for only 1% of the total length of the Yellow River, but it is this 1% length that has brought us extreme pain. China people affectionately call the Yellow River the Mother River, but this mother is moody and violent here. As far as I know, from the pre-Qin period to about 3000 years before liberation, the burst floods in the lower Yellow River reached an astonishing 1593 times, with an average of two bursts and 26 major diversions in three years. Fengqiu is also often thrown by this mother on the south and north banks. The whole area of Fengqiu is the bed of the Yellow River. The Huangteng River washed away large fields with rolling sediment, washed away houses, washed away grains and destroyed the road ahead. This rolling yellow water brings sand mountains and patches of saline-alkali land, as well as endless miasma and plague. But people here have never lost hope. Rebuild after houses are washed away, sow next year after grains are washed away, and rebuild immediately after roads are washed away. Day after day, year after year, hardworking villagers spent a hard time in destruction and reconstruction. Although it has been turned upside down, the only constant is the hope for tomorrow. After liberation, the Yellow River was bound by a newly built levee, and the river course could no longer swing from north to south casually, so my hometown was never invaded by the Yellow River breach again. However, because the Yellow River carries a lot of sediment into the sea every year, there are about 400 million tons of sediment in the downstream, which makes the downstream riverbed rise year by year, thus forming a world-famous "hanging river on the ground" spectacle. At present, the riverbed in the lower reaches of the Yellow River is generally three to five meters higher than the ground outside the dike, and my hometown of Fengqiu, Henan Province is as high as 65,438+00 meters, which is really a paradise for the Yellow River. Since cleaning up the dry ridges, it has become a key project for harnessing the Yellow River. The famous dangerous workers in Cao Gang are located here. If the Yellow River is cut off here, it's really like water from the sky falling into a well. In my hometown, there has always been such a folk proverb: "The Yellow River breaks down a thousand miles and rushes to Beijing a thousand miles a day." Although the Yellow River has brought great disaster to Fengqiu, everyone in Fengqiu will still be proud of the Yellow River. It is the Yellow River that gives us the courage to fight against difficulties, and it is the Yellow River that gives us the strength to fight against fate. It is the best proof that Fengqiu people are still alive after many vicissitudes.
Once the Yellow River burst, it also brought a pearl to the land of Fengqiu in Cao Gang-Qinglong Lake (which is commonly known as "Tang Huo" by local people. These two words are dialects, but I don't know which two words and their meanings, but I just keep hearing people call it this way). This is a young lake, which is just a relic left by the breach of the Yellow River in the twenty years of Qing Qianlong. Qinglong Lake faces the Yellow River across the embankment and is connected at the bottom. It is the largest natural lake in the lower reaches of the Yellow River and has never dried up for more than 200 years. /kloc-More than 0/000 mu of water is quiet and elegant, with dark blue color and long and narrow north and south, hence the name Qinglong Lake. Here, the lotus leaves are green, the grass is green and the lake is calm. This is the paradise I yearned for when I was a child. There are wild reeds and cattails around the lake, scattered and dense. All kinds of fish swim happily in the lake, with occasional waterfowl and wild ducks. Singing in the reeds and playing in the water. People have never disturbed its peace for hundreds of years. When you come here, you will be quiet unconsciously, and you will never hear any sound except the voice of nature. It has not been developed until now. It's really a fairyland for self-cultivation
After crossing Qinglong Lake, we will drive two or three kilometers northeast to reach Ji Qinghe, one of the cradles of Henan Opera. At that time, the famous Liyuan Xumen class was located here. Ji Qinghe Village is the birthplace of Hunan Opera. As early as the Guangxu period, there appeared eight classes of Xiangfu tunes with Xumen as the mainstay. Chang Xiangyu, Chen Suzhen and Cui Lantian, famous modern Henan opera actors, all studied drama in Xumen class in Qinghe. Xumen Keban has a great influence on the development history of Henan Opera and once played an important role. Since modern times, many Fengqiu Henan opera actors have shined brilliantly on the opera stage and have been widely sought after and loved by the masses. Famous artists include Yan, Jin and Jin. From before liberation to now, they have made indelible contributions to the cause of Henan Opera. Recently, Henan Opera Broadcasting will hold a special program "Walking into Fengqiu" to commemorate and commend the contributions made by many Fengqiu actors to Henan Opera.
Having said that, let's talk about the history of my hometown. Fengqiu county was founded during the reign of Liu Bang in the Western Han Dynasty. According to legend, in the Chu-Han War, Liu Bang fled after being defeated by Xiang Yu and passed by Xiang Yan (now the northwest corner of fengqiu county). When he met Zhai Mu, he begged for food and Zhai Mu gave her a meal. After Liu Bang proclaimed himself emperor, he didn't forget to repay Zhai's kindness in increasing food, but Zhai's mother had died at this time, and Liu Bang decided to establish a healing place-fengqiu county where Zhai's mother was buried. This is the origin of fengqiu county's name.
If earlier, the recorded history of our hometown can be traced back to the Xia and Shang Dynasties, when Fengqiu was a small vassal state in the Xia Dynasty. According to historical records, the descendants of Emperor Yan are very famous and used to be the teachers of the Yellow Emperor. In the Xia Dynasty, the descendants of Feng Ju were sealed to their father (today's Fengqiu West) and became a vassal state. Later generations once called him father, but in fact he was named after a place name. When the Zhou Dynasty sealed the death of its father, its people were divided into two surnames, one was sealed with the father's surname, and the other was sealed with the surname, which was passed down from generation to generation. Therefore, Fengqiu is the origin of this surname, and many modern people who seek roots and ancestors will come to Fengqiu.
In the following time, another war happened here-the battle of singing. The Battle of Mingtiao was a turning point in the alternate period of Xia Dynasty and Shang Dynasty in China (about16th century BC, or17th century BC). Shang Tang led the army to defeat Xia Jie in Mingtiao (now Fengqiu East, Henan Province). Since then, Shang Tang has created the foundation of the Shang Dynasty for 500 years. This war is also a classic example in China's history, in which the tactics of "cutting the plot, cutting the enemy, cutting the soldiers, and using the room" were comprehensively used to finally achieve a quick victory.
With the flow of the long river of history, wonderful stories are constantly being staged here. Let's focus our attention on the spring and autumn period when the situation is changing and the princes are fighting for hegemony. In 482 BC, Lu Aigong, the monarch of the State of Lu, and Jin Dinggong, the monarch of the State of Jin, dated Fu Cha in Huangchi (now southwest of fengqiu county, Henan) and prepared to hold an accession ceremony. Fu Cha was very excited after receiving the notice, because Lu and Jin are old vassal states, and they are quite influential among them. After receiving the invitation from these two old vassal states, Prince Fu Cha was overjoyed. Fu Cha was eager to improve the status of Wu. He mobilized all available soldiers in the country and set out for Huangchi with unique armor. At this time, when Gou Jian, Wu's sworn enemy, learned that Wu's strength was empty, he secretly assembled 30,000 elite soldiers at the border of wuyue. When Wu Jun's elite was exhausted and Gusu was left with old, weak and beaten soldiers, he attacked and occupied the capital of Wu at lightning speed. When Fu Cha, the king of Wu, came back, he found that the king of Wu had been killed and the capital occupied, so he had to make peace with Yue. Yue saw that Wu still had considerable strength, and agreed to make peace with Fu Cha. Since then, the balance of power between wuyue and China has changed. In 473 BC, Gou Jian finally defeated Wu, and Fu Cha committed suicide. Yue swept away the shame of Wu Xue in one fell swoop. On February 24th, 1995, 1995, China Post Department issued a set of stamps entitled The Art of War, the fifth set of which was based on the theme of "Huangchi Meng Hui" and quoted the famous saying in Sun Tzu's Art of War-"One good deed deserves another." On the day when the stamps were first issued, I excitedly went to fengqiu county Post Office to stamp and made a "foreign stamp".
During the period of hegemony in the Spring and Autumn Period, Fengqiu was not only the battlefield where the vassal states fought each other, but also staged an earth-shattering and life-and-death love story here. This is the story of "acacia tree" which is widely circulated among the people in our country. At that time, Song Kangwang took a fancy to his roommate Han Ping's wife Shi and forced Han Ping to die. He built a green mausoleum to coerce Shi to yield, but Shi did not immediately jump off the green mausoleum and commit suicide. Xi asked to be buried with her husband after his death, but Song Kangwang not only refused, but also deliberately buried him across the road. However, soon two catalpa trees grew in the two graves, and the two trees intersected, so people called them acacia trees. King Kang of Song ordered the tree to be cut down, and Yuanyang appeared on the tree and instantly became a butterfly. The legend of romanticism has been circulating for a long time, which is also the source of China's classical myth and legend "Liang Zhu become a butterfly", which is more than 1000 years earlier than the story of Liang Zhu become a butterfly. Throughout the ages, many scholars and poets have also written praises for it. In Wang Bo's poem Ode to Spring, he wrote: "The gossamer branches are empty, and the flowers fall beside the acacia tree." Li Shangyin's poem "Yongqing Lingtai" says: "Don't let Han Rudie fly to other flowers."
Next, we accelerated the pace of historical progress, and came to the late Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, where wars continued and coups were like clouds. In 960 AD, a wonderful drama in the history of China is about to begin. Just after the Spring Festival this year, both Zhou Zhen (now near Zhengding, Hebei Province) and Dingzhou (now Dingxian, Hebei Province) reported that the armies of the Northern Han and Liao countries had jointly attacked the Later Zhou Dynasty. The latter Zhou Dynasty was very powerful and asked the imperial court to send troops to help. The following week ordered Zhao Kuangyin to lead his troops to fight in the north. Later, the border crisis proved to be a lie about military intelligence, which only paved the way for future mutiny. On February 3, when the army arrived in Chen Qiaoyi (now Chenqiao Town, southeast of Fengqiu, Henan Province, when Chen Qiao was still on the south bank of the Yellow River, less than 20 kilometers away from Kaifeng), Zhao Kuangyin launched a mutiny. The soldiers dressed him in yellow robes and people made him emperor. So he immediately led his troops to Li's capital. Emperor Gong of Zhou ascended the throne as Zen and acceded to the throne. In this way, the Da Song Dynasty was quietly born without cruel killing and endless bloodshed, and it is rare to establish a powerful dynasty without bloodshed in our history. Changing the country name to Song, changing Yuan to the first year, and making Kaifeng its capital, created the foundation of the Song Dynasty for more than 300 years. Zhao Kuangyin made China move from chaos to governance and from division to unity. This is that famous "Chen Qiao mutiny" in history. The mutiny in Chen Qiao took place in the land of Fengqiu. Due to the geographical location, fengqiu county was under the jurisdiction of Kaifeng Prefecture in the Northern Song Dynasty, and it was indeed an important place in both capital and capital. At that time, the north gate of Kaifeng City was named after Fengqiu, which was called Fengqiu Gate. At present, there are still relics in Chen Qiaoyi, including a yellow robe and a big hall, as well as a pagoda tree that has been tied to Mahuai for thousands of years. According to legend, "Ma Tiehuai" is the place where Zhao Kuangyin tied his horse. Unfortunately, the tree died at an early age, leaving only the trunk and some branches. Nevertheless, when people see its thick trunk and vigorous branches, they will still be moved by its extraordinary bearing and heavy sense of vicissitudes.
The history books are being turned page by page by us. It is like a river flowing quietly. Although it is silent, it keeps moving forward and never stops. In this way, it has been flowing into our world and around us. Maybe history will make people feel a little heavy and boring. We need not take history too seriously. As long as we remember what we should remember and forget what we should forget, it is enough to believe that tomorrow will be a new starting point for our lives.
The story is not over yet. I still have something to say about my hometown. Don't worry, this is my most concentrated writing recently. I am very interested in telling stories and telling my heart. If no one is listening, I want to tell myself.
I don't know why. Since ancient times, the land in Fengqiu has been barren, wars have continued, officialdom has been dark, and people's livelihood has been depressed. Gao Shi, a frontier poet in the Tang Dynasty, worked as a county magistrate in Fengqiu for a short time (it is said that he is equivalent to the current county public security bureau director), and he is very uncomfortable with the life in Fengqiu. Gao Shi, who is famous for his great ambition of "looking at the door and being independent", was awarded a humble little official like Wei. Moreover, "how many days will it take to be an official" and "Yunshan Road wants to be poor" make him unable to make great achievements and feel disappointed. Soon, three years after he arrived in Fengqiu, he left his post because he couldn't stand "greeting officials" and "flogging Li Shu". In the meantime, he wrote poems such as "Coming to Heshan for the First Time", "Heshan", "Climbing the North Tower". Gao Shi's poems have been loved by the world for thousands of years and are still widely circulated today. Because he is the police chief of our county, I also love him and his poems. His famous sentence, "Mochow has no confidant in the road ahead, and no one in the world knows the monarch", has been sung through the ages and is inspiring after reading it; And his determination and generosity "the cause of the disaster should be the south acre of land, and the world will pay for it" makes people feel sad.
Gao Shi can be printed, "Official Tour in Hexi" and "Waves Walking Between Liang and Song Dynasties". But I can't "wave my hand here" like him, because I was born and raised here, because my roots are still deeply rooted in this land. No matter how barren and closed she is, I will always be a child who grew up drinking her milk. No matter how far I go, I will eventually return to her arms. This is probably the wanderer's feelings for his hometown!
I feel very heavy when I write here, because there seems to be nothing exciting and relaxing in the history of my hometown. All the stories are so heavy and sad that people can't continue to watch it calmly. Let me put it another way. I said something else.
Let's start with the climate here. We have a typical continental monsoon climate in the warm zone, with four distinct seasons and suitable hot and cold. This climate has also created some unique hometown specialties. What I want to talk about most is honeysuckle with origin mark, which is also commonly known as "Erhua". I won't say much about its function. This is a good medicine. Because the climatic conditions in Fengqiu are particularly suitable for planting honeysuckle, the quality of locally produced honeysuckle is quite excellent among similar products. Moreover, honeysuckle has a long history of planting in Fengqiu, and now the planting area is expanding, so Fengqiu is well-deserved to be awarded the hometown of honeysuckle. I didn't expect that the "two flowers", which were originally used to prevent wind and fix sand and improve soil, have become a precious specialty today, which is really embarrassing. I remember when I was a child, some people planted a large area of honeysuckle and had to hire someone to pick it during the picking season. We primary school students go to help in groups after school, and people give five cents for every catty they pick. Smelling the faint scent of honeysuckle among plants, I thought that I would have money to spend on pocket money in the future, so not to mention how excited I was. We enjoy everything here like happy butterflies. Now that I have grown up, many things have changed unpredictably, and the good times like this are gone forever.
Speaking of specialties, I also want to talk about the famous food in my hometown. Among them, roast chicken, curly tip, vermicelli and pomegranate have long been famous and widely loved by people. If you have a chance to visit my hometown, don't forget to taste these specialties. Although they are not precious things, they are the most common part of our life, just like our days, without gorgeous decoration, just passing by.
Here I want to talk about roast chicken, because it is not only a specialty of our hometown, but also a craft handed down from generation to generation in our family. The roast chicken in our family is actually the roast chicken at the crossing, because the elders said that my family moved from hua county to Fengqiu that year. I calculated that it has a history of at least 200 years, because there are hundreds of people in our Zhang family now. Daokou Town used to be an important ferry on the canal. From then on, it can go north to Beijing and Tianjin along the Weihe River, and Huaiyan will go north from then on. Businessmen used to gather here, and it was lively and prosperous. It is also for this reason that Daokou roast chicken is famous all over the world, and the saying is widely spread. Because of this craft, the descendants of the Zhang family went to various places to make a living. Now they can eat authentic roast chicken in many places, such as Cangzhou, Hebei Province and Luoyang, Henan Province. After liberation, the production technology of roast chicken was announced to the public, so more people could make roast chicken, and more roast chicken came to people's tables and became people's food. I think this is really the good fortune of roast chicken. However, in my opinion, if you want to eat delicious roast chicken, it's better to be authentic. The self-proclaimed ancestral producer of Daokou roast chicken must be surnamed Zhang, and I can't guarantee that the others are authentic. Because Zhang has been cooking roast chicken for hundreds of years, he has unique experience and methods in making technology, cooking technology and cooking temperature, which is difficult for others to master at the moment. Because the production process of roast chicken is complex, the technical requirements are very high, and cooking takes a certain time, people can eat roast chicken with rich flavor, crisp fragrance, soft rotten taste, salty taste, fat but not greasy. The roast chicken cooked by my family, especially the roast chicken cooked by my grandfather, still drools when I think about it. I have been exposed to the production process of roast chicken since I was a child. Although I know how to make it now, my skills and experience are not good enough, and the taste is not very good, so I have to talk to you about its making process. When making roast chicken, you pay great attention to skills, that is, its slaughtering process is different. Nowadays, many people can't kill chickens (hehe, maybe it's not necessary now, and we can talk alone if someone wants to learn), but if you use this skill when killing chickens, you can make the chickens not jump and bark, obey and cut a knife on your neck. The cooked chicken is delicious only after the chicken has been bled. After the chicken is slaughtered, the chicken feathers should be removed, the internal organs should be taken out, soaked in clear water, and then the chicken should be thoroughly cleaned before it can be molded. Have you found that the roast chicken is very beautiful in shape, unlike other chickens, it is not killed, and it has no aesthetic feeling to throw it into the pot and cook it and take it out. Roast chicken needs certain tools for molding. First, cut some chicken ribs on the chest with a knife, and then put the chicken wings through the chicken's mouth. At this time, choose a suitable sorghum stalk (this is the most authentic and primitive way to roast chicken, you must have never heard of it) and put it in the chicken breast. Finally, the two thighs of the chicken are fixed under the chicken breast, so that the beautiful prototype of the roast chicken comes out. After the shape is made, the chicken should be fried in the oil pan. Before frying, chicken should be coated with honey or syrup to play a role in coloring and enhancing flavor. Of course, the frying process also needs some skills, which is very different from our usual fried food. The fried chicken is golden in color and very beautiful. Chickens of the same shape are crowded together, and people can't help but take a bite. Don't worry, the roast chicken is not ready to eat. The last step is to boil in a soup pot. Of course, there are eight kinds of spices in the pot: tangerine peel, cinnamon, cardamom, angelica dahurica, clove, Amomum villosum, Amomum villosum and Alpinia officinarum, which are called "eight spices" in our family. Moreover, the soup is old soup, and the uniqueness of roast chicken lies in this soup, which is mysterious and wonderful. More importantly, if the roast chicken is cooked with firewood, its taste will be more mellow and rich. When my grandfather cooks roast chicken, he boils the pot at night, then puts the fried roast chicken in, covers it, cooks it again, then cleans all the firewood in the stove, leaving only some red charcoal, and slowly heats the roast chicken in the pot. When I got up the next morning, I lifted the lid. Wow, that smell is beyond words. You don't have to taste it with your mouth. You just need to smell it. I believe your mouth is full of saliva and you will never forget it. So every morning, this smell fills my yard and the whole street. When I was a child, it was also a great happiness to smell this smell every day, not to mention that I could often taste this delicious food. I still think I am the happiest person in the world until now. But to my great sadness, my dearest grandfather passed away not long ago last year. From then on, I'm afraid I'll never taste this intimate and familiar delicacy again. Maybe I will never have such a happy moment in my life from now on.
So much is irrelevant. However, my attachment to my hometown is also based on my incomparable love for my hometown. I think everyone, like me, has a unique feeling in their hearts-feelings for their hometown and home.
I hope you can also tell me your love and attachment to your hometown, and I am willing to share it with you.
(The pictures in this article are all from the Internet)