Chapter 93 Restaurant in Xinghua Village

Around the Ching Ming Festival in 2003, I went to Chizhou, Anhui to attend a pen meeting.I got off the train in Anqing first, then took a taxi and took a ferry across the Yangtze River, and Chizhou was on the other side.It took only twenty minutes for the boat to transport a dozen cars to the other side.The taxi driver chatted with me and asked me if I had been to Chizhou.I said I never came.He saw that I was wearing a pair of glasses and looked like a scholar, so he asked an elegant question to get closer, "You must have heard of Du Mu, right?" "Is that the poet from the Tang Dynasty?" I didn't expect the driver to know Du Mu.

"That's right, it's the one who wrote 'It's raining during the Qingming Festival'. And let me tell you, that poem was written for Chizhou." "According to what you said, Xinghua Village is in Chizhou?" To be honest, before that, I always thought that Xinghua Village was in Shanxi, because there is a brand in Fenjiu called Xinghua Village. "Xinghua Village is in the west of Chizhou City. There is an ancient well there, and the wine that Du Mu drank was brewed from this well." The driver saw that I was very interested in it, and said, "Let me take you to have a look, anyway."

I did not object.The literary feelings in my stomach have been teased.At this time, it is the Ching Ming season, and the land in southern Anhui is full of golden rapeseed flowers one after another. It just so happens that a spring rain has just fallen. I seem to be the incarnation of Du Mu who came from afar, and the taxi driver has become a contemporary guide. The shepherd boy, he wants to take me to Xinghua Village.That famous village is probably waiting for me under the shade of apricot blossoms. Before I came here, I wondered why this tourism pen meeting was held in the remote Chizhou.After listening to the driver's introduction, I understood everything.

I didn't bother to go to the Dajiuhua Hotel first, but went straight to visit the Gujing Cultural Park of Xinghua Village (part of the restoration project of Xinghua Village) built by the locals. In the sixth year (844-846), he served as the governor of Chizhou. During that time, he also wrote a large number of poems. Among them, "Qingming" was obtained by the local official from a spring trip to Xinghua Village in the west of the city: "It rains heavily during Qingming, and passers-by want to die. May I ask where is the restaurant? The shepherd boy points to Xinghua Village."

Du Mu asked the shepherd boy where there is wine sold, and an eternal swan song has been holding his breath and hidden in the apricot blossoms waiting for him to pick it.He should not only be grateful to the shepherd boy, but also to thank the wine.Wine was the catalyst for the inspiration of poets in the Tang Dynasty. More than half of the vast Tang poetry exudes the aroma of wine.The prosperity of literature and art in the Tang Dynasty seems to be attributed to the marriage of poetry and wine.Compared with Li Bai, Du Mu is at least a relatively sober poet; but after all, he has had a "Yangzhou dream every ten years".Did he come to Chizhou before or after waking up from the dream?He braved the misty drizzle and walked towards Xinghua Village. His name, like Li Bai, was destined not only to be included in the history of Chinese poetry, but also in the history of wine.Even wineries in Shanxi use his poems to advertise.

I have drank Xinghuacun wine from Shanxi, and it tastes really good.Like many people, I mistakenly believed that Du Mu wrote "Qingming" in Shanxi.I didn’t know until today that there are at least two Xinghua Villages, and this one in Anhui is the most authentic one. It is the birthplace of Du Mu’s poem. I found the ancient well of the Tang Dynasty in the garden—also known as "Huanggong Well" and "Xiangquan Well".The wine that Du Mu drank when he wrote "Qingming" was brewed by an old man surnamed Huang. Inexhaustible.I leaned over the well circle and looked down. The well water is still not dry.Don't underestimate this humble old well. There is not only wine, but also poems in it.Du Mu is a great passer-by in Xinghua Village.He made a village famous by leaving only one poem.

Next to Huanggong Well, there is now a brewery, which fills the whole courtyard with the fragrance of wine.Next to it is the Huanggong Wine Cuisine, which sells newly baked Huanggong wine.I strolled in and had a drink.I bought two more small altars and prepared to take them back to the north as a gift to a poet friend who is good at drinking. Alas, if wine is not intoxicating, everyone is intoxicated.I dreamed back to the Tang Dynasty through a glass of wine, and I was full of reverie about the Tang Dynasty. Xinghua Village has also produced local celebrities.In the Qing Dynasty, Lang Sui, a native of Xinghua Village in Guichi, edited twelve volumes of "Xinghua Village Chronicles" after eleven years, which is the only village chronicle included in the largest document "Siku Quanshu" in ancient my country.Therefore, Xinghua Village is the only village in the country with a village history, and it is also known as "the world's first poetry village." There are more than a thousand ancient poems and essays describing Xinghua Village.

In Xinghua Village, I not only think about this question: Is wine the matchmaker of poetry, or is poetry the matchmaker of wine? Du Mu is a well-known matchmaker in Xinghua Village.