How big is the locust tree in Hongdong, which is called the "root ancestor"?

Homesickness, a strong feeling of home and country, is closely related to every Chinese son and daughter. It is the spiritual bond between the wanderer and the motherland. Take home as home, hometown as hometown, country as country, and the world as the world. As a bond of feelings of home and country, the locust tree in Hongtong has been passed down since ancient times, propping up the sky in the lower reaches of Kyushu.

There is an ancient locust tree that knows acacia. "Hong Tong ancient pagoda tree is a wonderful flower in the world, with many spectacular leaves."

Hong Tong Huaishu Cultural Scenic Spot is a national 5A-level scenic spot, a national intangible cultural heritage and a national key cultural relic protection unit. It is located in Hongdong County, Shanxi Province, where there is a strong culture of "seeking roots" and "ancestor worship". There are endless big locust trees here, which have a long history.

About the history of Sophora japonica in Hongdong: After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the Central Plains, which had just experienced the baptism of war, was desolate. Poor land leads to food shortage, people's displacement leads to labor shortage, and government revenue is also insufficient. The newly formed government is very unstable.

In order to maintain the feudal rule of the Ming Dynasty, the rulers adopted the immigration policy of imperial academy at that time, overhauled economic construction and vigorously explored the Central Plains. A huge immigration movement that lasted for 50 years began.

After the large-scale immigration began, the fiscal revenue slowly recovered, but unexpectedly, the "Jingnan Campaign" happened again. The disaster brought by the war destroyed the previous economic construction and made the Central Plains more desolate and depressed.

But at this time, Shanxi is a different scene. Shanxi, a land of feng shui, can be described as a disaster-free place. It was not affected by the Central Plains Rebellion, but the social order was relatively stable. People's lives are relatively smooth and their economic income is basically stable, so a large number of refugees from neighboring provinces have moved to Shanxi Province to live and work in peace and contentment here. According to records, at that time, the total population of Shanxi was more than twice that of Hebei and Henan, and the labor force in Shanxi surged and the economic construction was more prosperous.

This is an immigrant with the largest scale, the widest range of communication and the most rigorous organization in the history of China. There were as many surnames as 1230 in this period, and the number of households was about1400,000. In the past 50 years, Sophora japonica has been moved to and from 18 provinces and cities and more than 500 counties and cities on a large scale at least 18 times, mainly through Henan, Shandong, Beijing, the Soviet Union and other places. This laid the mass foundation of Sophora japonica as a symbol of home. Large-scale migration will inevitably lead to many residents leaving their homes, and people need great courage to leave the land where they grew up. Everyone wants to find something marked as a sign of homesickness, which can arouse everyone's sense of belonging to their hometown. Looking back, I happened to see the tall pagoda tree at the entrance of Guangji Temple, so I defined it as the "root" of my hometown.

Since then, Hong Tong Sophora japonica has been defined as a symbol of homesickness.

Many large-scale migrations have gradually formed the brand of homesickness in the hearts of China people. Today, hundreds of years later, as long as there are Chinese in the world, there will be descendants of Sophora japonica immigrants. Over the past 600 years, Sophora japonica has been constantly multiplying, being called "home" by China people, regarded as "ancestor" and condensed in "root".

Surrounded by trees, the shade covers several acres. Since ancient times, the pagoda tree in Hong Tong has been the place where China people seek roots and worship their ancestors, and it has become the soil for Chinese culture to take root and sprout.

Leaves fall to the roots, and the culture of roots and ancestors has been circulating for a long time.

The thousand-year-old Sophora flavescens here existed in the Song and Yuan Dynasties and has a history of at least 1000 years. Hundreds of years ago, its height reached 6.2 meters, its shape was strange, imaginative and extremely rare.

The first generation of Sophora japonica is a new plastic Sophora japonica re-polished according to the ancient Sophora japonica data recorded in relevant historical materials. Surrounded by "seven-year-old daughter-in-law", almost seven men and one woman hold hands together. The height of 1 is 5 feet. If calculated according to the height of men and women, this new plastic locust tree is nearly 40 feet in circumference and 13 feet in diameter, which is quite beautiful.

At that time, when the immigrants bid farewell to their homeland, they would use that ancient locust tree to express their homesickness, as if as long as the locust tree stood, their feelings for their homeland would last forever.

According to historical records, when the officers and men forced the people to go on the road, the people clung to the big locust tree in the courtyard. Those ruthless officers and men cut off the branches of Sophora japonica with swords to separate the immigrants from the big Sophora japonica, but the immigrants clung to them even if only the branches of Sophora japonica were left in their hands. After arriving in the land of new immigrants, this locust branch was poured into all the thoughts of hometown and relatives by immigrants.

Immigrants will also deliberately bury the cut branches of ancient Sophora japonica in the yards of new immigrants, carefully cultivate and irrigate them until they grow into new big Sophora japonica trees, in order to express their feelings of not forgetting their homeland.

Up to now, the festival of seeking roots and offering sacrifices to ancestors has been derived, which is similar to the unprecedented activity of seeking roots and offering sacrifices to ancestors based on the big pagoda tree in Hongdong, in response to the wave of reform. Chinese descendants around the world responded positively, bearing in mind homesickness, and overseas wanderers returned to their hometowns to worship their ancestors and pray for blessings.

To this end, the government of Hongdong County actively responded to everyone's call, followed the trend of the times, followed everyone's feelings of seeking roots and worshipping ancestors, and specially launched the activity of "building a stage for culture and singing opera for the economy", and held the first Hongdong Sophora root-seeking festival on 1994. Since then, it has become a custom of mourning and has been preserved.

There are more and more festivals around the theme of Sophora japonica in Hongdong, and its historical value is increasing day by day. ...

"Liu is coming to Huaishang, where you should have a feeling of leaving the country;" The water source is woody, and I still miss my hometown today. "For hundreds of years, Chinese descendants nurtured by Chinese Sophora have spread all over the world, comforting the deep homesickness of generations of homeless people.

Nowadays, there is an endless stream of descendants of Sophora japonica who come from overseas Wan Li to seek their roots and worship their ancestors. As long as the locust tree in Hong Tong is still there, this feeling of home and country will not be broken. The 450 surnames in the List of Surnames of Descendants of Ancient Huai are the deep feelings that can't be left behind from ancient times to the present, the cultural support for the Chinese nation to stand in the east of the world, and the historical imprint of thinking about the past and cherishing the present. ...