Is Changjing Ancient Town in Jiangyin worth visiting?

There is another newcomer in the water town resort - Jiangyin Changjing.

The prosperity of Changjing Ancient Town is not far away.

When we came to this ancient town with streets built near the water and a city formed by the streets, we saw old shops with ancient walls and gray tiles, small bridges and flowing water, giving it a familiar flavor of vicissitudes of life.

Facing the river is a stone revetment of the same color. The narrow street is paved with stone slabs of the same color. On the stone revetment, there is a stone river beach of the same color. The stone steps run along the river either facing east or west. Stretching into the water, there is a well dug on the stone bank, with the same stone well railings.

It seems that the river beach is crowded with women washing their clothes. They are saying hello across the river, Wu Nong, a young man from a family, is talking softly, and the exclamations of the boatmen are splashing as they pass by. The proud laughter and the high and low voices of the vendors... Jiangnan Ancient Town wakes up to this noise in the morning, and the old streets are filled with the aroma of fried dough sticks. All this, amidst the hustle and bustle of modern civilization, still remains today. Still vaguely there.

Changjing is called Dongshun City in Jiangyin. According to the "Fengtu Ji" compiled by Zhou Chu of the Western Jin Dynasty, Shun once lived here, slash-and-burn farming, and civilized the ancestors. Since then, it has opened up The ancient civilization of Changjing and the ruins of Dongshun City have become a sight to this day.

Therefore, the ancient town of Changjing has a saying that "Shun Zi lived in the south of the Yangtze River and the Yinxi vassal extension was vaguely 5,000 years old. The east city runs through the Jingshui, cutting thorns and thorns to open up forty miles of rivers and mountains." Changjing The prosperity of Changjing began in the Song Dynasty. Because Changjing is located at the central node connecting the Yangtze River and Taihu Lake, with a developed water system and convenient transportation, it gradually formed two major markets in the north and south, so it was named Dongcheng.

During the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, the river was opened again, turning the three rivers into one water. The east and west were connected to the river, and the two sides of the river gradually became streets and markets.

There are two streets, facing each other across the river and running east and west. The two streets in Henan and Hebei are connected by four bridges and form four lanes.

The street is shaped like a dragon's body and its legs are shaped like a dragon's feet. The head is east and the tail is west, and there is a tendency of soaring clouds about to fly.

On a drizzling afternoon, we walked on this precious stone street. Most of the shops facing the street are two-story buildings, tightly together, and there is a street every other The narrow and long alley, the narrow streets and the Ming and Qing style eaves cleverly form a "line of sky". The small buildings on both sides are so dependent on each other that you can almost hold hands across the street.

The facade houses all have shops, and the shops vary in size. Looking through the corridors of the facade, there are always several deep courtyards, and some even have a deep courtyard hidden inside.

Most houses have basements, which are rare buildings in Jiangnan water towns. Perhaps it is because the terrain on both sides of the Jingshui River is high and the groundwater level is low.

There are many shops on Shiban Street, including rice stores, cloth shops, bookstores, teahouses, pharmacies, north-south groceries, inns, bathrooms, tailors and other shops. There are 7 pawn shops alone. The wealth of Changjing lies in It is very famous with a radius of hundreds of miles, and "has become a large town in the southeast of Jiangyi".

On March 3, 1903, a special guest came to Shiban Street. He was the emperor’s teacher, Weng Tonghe, the Prime Minister of the Qing Dynasty.

Changjing Zhang Shenyu Store is famous for its tea and snacks such as water chestnut cakes, snowflake cakes, sesame cakes, crispy cakes, flat beans, pink salt beans, and spiced peanuts.

The prosperity of Changjing Market is well-known far and wide. In this old street, people from all over the country come to buy necessities. Women buy oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, clothing, shoes and hats, and cosmetics. Men Buy hookah and old wine, hoes and rakes, coir raincoats and bamboo hats; everything from daily necessities to production tools.

When we went there, this street had long lost its former prosperity, with only a few small restaurants still open.

One of them is called "Old Hotel", facing the street and river, and the people in the restaurant will talk about the old days of the town.

Of course, this old hotel on Shiban Street is still doing a prosperous business.

At the east end of Shiban Street is the 80-year-old Dafu Silkworm Breeding Farm. It has a huge courtyard, a building of the same color from the early Republic of China, and a two-story semi-open long building (including a semi-basement). , all the buildings in the courtyard are connected by winding corridors, with small courtyards scattered among them, which are deep and elegant.

Although it is midsummer, there is still a cool breeze when walking into the breeding workshop.

This was once the largest silkworm breeding farm in the south of the Yangtze River, with an annual output of more than 50,000 high-quality hybrid silkworm seeds, which were exported to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Xinjiang under the "Sailboat" brand.

Judging from the two maps of the ancient Silk Road on the wall, silkworm seeds, silk and silk were transported from the rivers and lakes of the Jiangnan water town to Luoyang and Kaifeng via the Yangtze River and canals, and then to Chang'an and out of the Western Regions. to the continent of Western Europe.

After leaving the gate of Dafu Silkworm Breeding Farm, facing the river is a declining ship wharf.

Standing on the pier, I thought about the time when the Changjing River was connected to the Yangtze River. When the tide rose at the Yangtze River estuary, the river tide poured into the inland river. Especially at high tide, the river water surged into Changjing, just like a hurricane coming from the west. Rolling up thousands of piles of white snow.

There is a poem to prove it: Changjing water has been long for thousands of years, and there is a tide connecting Jiangpu below.

In the morning and evening, spring and autumn, the divine fish jumps into the abyss and swallows.

Suddenly a huge wind came from the west, boiling and angry as loud as snow.

Although the sound of the tide, the shadow of the sails and the roar of the crowd have faded away, Changjing’s pioneering celebrity style is still spread by people.

Shangguan Yunzhu, a generation of movie stars, was born on March 2, 1920, in an old brick-and-timber building on Shiban Street, which has now become the Shangguan Yunzhu Memorial Hall.

It is on this narrow stone street that many celebrities have walked out, including Zhang Dayu, the father of "two bombs and one satellite", astronomer Shen Xuan, and isotope expert Zhang Ligang.

Anti-Japanese strategist Bao Hansheng.

Growing up by the Jingshui River in Yiwan, the traces of history and the accumulation of culture impact your senses and stir up your soul all the time. You will spontaneously have an impulse to collect the beauty of history. , the beauty of culture and the beauty of people immersed in history and culture, this is the beauty of Changjing. ”