Comment on Wuyuan

This is a hilly and mountainous area, located at the junction of Anhui, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces. The grey walls and tiles, Shuikou people's homes and ancestral halls between Qingshan Xiushui make people seem to have entered ancient Huizhou. The strewn at random trees, winding rivers and alleys extending in all directions outline the most beautiful villages in China.

Wuyuan, on today's map of China, is a county in Jiangxi Province. It belonged to Huizhou 1200 before 1930s.

Huizhou in history includes Xiuning, Shexian, Jixi, yi county, Qimen and Wuyuan in Anhui today. Therefore, Wuyuan, which belongs to Huizhou in past dynasties, has been branded with a deep imprint of Huizhou in its village architecture and regional characteristics, and has become one of the representatives of Huizhou culture. "Qingshan Qingshui Qingquan, a rare pure land; Huizhou custom Huizhou opera has a thousand-year-old charm. " Nowadays, Wuyuan still stretches the waist of the continuous mountains and extends its arms deeply to the hinterland of Huangshan Mountain, which seems to show its nostalgic attitude intentionally or unintentionally and a natural maintenance of ancient Huizhou.

Wuyuan has many mountains. Among the rolling mountains in the northwest, there is a mountain called Shigong Mountain, and a river originating from it is called dancing water. So the place where Wu water flows is also called Wuyuan. The main stream of dancing water winds from northwest to southeast, with a total length of only over 60 kilometers. Although Wushui is very short, most of the reach can be transported by bamboo rafts, so it is an important water economic channel in the local area.

As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Wuyuan belonged to the "Wu Chu Branch Source", that is, the place where the Yangtze River valley meets Wu Chu. Zhangda, the tallest in Wuyuan County, happens to be the source of the "tributary of Wu Chu". From here to Wu State, under the ridge is today's Zhangqian Village in Xiuning County, then to Chu State, and finally to Hongguan Village in Wuyuan.

Wuyuan, located in the mountainous area of southern Anhui, is the place where the officials and gentry of the Central Plains fled the war and retired to nature. During the Jin Dynasty in the early 4th century, the late Tang Dynasty in the late 9th century and the Southern Song Dynasty in the12nd century, three large-scale population migrations from the Central Plains began to form scattered villages in the mountainous areas of southern Anhui.

But there are few mountains here, especially Wuyuan, which is described as "eight mountains and a half, a field and a half, a waterway and a manor". There are more and more immigrants, but less and less arable land. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many people went out to do business in order to make a living, thus forming the famous Huizhou merchants gang in China history. A considerable part of the wealth of Huizhou merchants returned to their hometown to buy fields, build luxury houses, repair streets and lanes, and build ancestral temples. Mountains and rivers have blocked the years of war smoke, leaving these beautiful villages like Xanadu, which makes future generations marvel and sigh.