Chapter 14 Taoyuan and Yuanzhou

Scholars all over China, probably since the Tang Dynasty, were destined to read one article, so they regarded Taoyuan as a paradise.Everyone knows that the place was discovered by Wuling fishermen. There are peach blossoms on the shore, and the grass is delicious. When the distant guests came, the countrymen would kill chickens and warm wine to welcome them.The country people are all survivors who avoided the Qin Dynasty and lived in seclusion. They didn't know the Han Dynasty, let alone the Wei and Jin Dynasties.For more than a thousand years, scholars' impressions of Taoyuan have not changed much, so whenever the country's health is weakened and turmoil occurs, there must be many people who want to be adherents.

As for the people who live there, no one thinks they are survivors or gods, and no one has ever met survivors or gods. Taoyuan Cave is twenty-five miles away from Taoyuan County.Take a small boat from Taoyuan County up the Yuanshui River. When the boat arrives at Baimadu, go up to the south bank. Forget about the distance and wander around for a while, the Peach Blossom Spring is in front of you.Although the peach blossoms in that place are not very moving, the bamboo forest is very interesting.There are huge bamboos like rafters and pillars, and poems carved by predecessors with a knife can be found everywhere.The new school students were not willing to give up, and carved more titles in English letters.Occasionally, one or two mighty warriors lurking in the bamboo grove will leap out from the side of the road when the opportunity arises, imitating the behavior of the heroes in the past, and making a profit to the tourists, which catches the tourists by surprise and makes them a little surprised.Taoyuan County is similar to the small counties in the middle of the Yangtze River. The most obvious purpose of entering the city gate is to promote stamp duty and some kind of public bond announcement.There are coffin shops, official medicine shops, teahouses and taverns, rice walkers, monks and priests, and matchmakers in the city. Most of the temples and ancestral halls are garrisoned by the army, and there must be an armed comrade standing guard outside the gate.The Earth Stack Smoking House pays taxes according to the regulations, and is protected by the local military and police.Representing local production, there are dozens of jade workshops on the side streets, dyed red and green with Mingshi, and carved into wine glasses and pen holders. The quality of the goods is mediocre, but the price is not cheap.In addition, there is a place called "Houjiang", where countless prostitutes regardless of public or private lives live, and they manage their careers very seriously.Some people live in bungalows with a vegetable garden, while others live on empty boats. Although the place is a bit dirty, it is poetic.These women used their lower bodies to comfort all walks of life in the military and government, and conquered cigarette sellers, wood merchants, boat owners and various passers-by on business trips to and from the Yuanshui River Basin.Hollow out every customer's wallet, maintain many people's lives, and promote local prosperity.As usual, the head of a county is a scholar. I knew from historical records that this is one of the oldest occupations for human beings. It existed before there were no counties. It is reasonable to set up some rules and regulations, collect a kind of tax from these people (and adopt a beautiful term called "flower donation"), and use this money to supplement local administration, security, or urban and rural education funds.

Since Taoyuan is a famous place, there are naturally many "elegant" people every year who admire the name of ancient Taoyuan. In February and March, they brought reference materials such as "Tao Jing Festival Collection" and "Poetry Rhyme Integration" and the Four Treasures of the Study to Taoyuan County. You detective wins.Before and after these people write poems in Taoyuan Cave, they must still have the opportunity to walk across the Houjiang River, guided by friends or experts, sit in one house or another, burn a pack of cigarettes, and drink a cup of tea.When you fancy a certain woman, you can ask the market, and for three or five yuan, you can spend a whole night on that filthy flower bed that has been used by thousands of people, pressing the poor woman's chest.As a result, several untitled love encounter poems were added to the Ji You poems, and allusions such as "Wuxia Goddess", "Hangao Jiepei", "Liu Ruan Tiantai" and so on were all quoted in the poems.After seeing Taoyuan Cave, if this person is usually very cautious, he would feel that he should have walked past the doctor immediately, so he hurried home.

As for the goddess who has received such "elegant" people from the outer roads, she may have received three Mayang sailors one night before, and will have to accompany two Guizhou cowhide merchants the next night.As usual, these women might be accompanied by a straggler, a county office bailiff, or a public security bureau secretary.Or a local hooligan will occupy it for a long time. When the guests come, he will spend the night in the smokehouse, and then return to the woman to burn the cigarettes after the guests leave. The number of prostitutes accounts for a large proportion of the city's population.So it seems that for various reasons, their age is more unlimited than other metropolises.Some people are over 50 years old, and they are not willing to give up. They come to participate in this kind of life struggle with their sixteen or seventeen-year-old granddaughters, and they take turns to receive sailors and military camp fire cases every day.There are also those who are only fourteen or five years old, and the milk odor has not yet come off, and they serve the guests there overnight.

Their skill is to burn opium smoke and sing some popular ditties. If the visitor is a person who runs around, they have to sing military songs and party songs, as well as new songs of current movie stars, to socialize and increase interest.Some of their incomes are twenty or thirty foreign dollars at a time, while others are only one yuan or eighty cents a night.It doesn't matter if these people have a disease.He was really seriously ill and couldn't do business to earn a living, so he went to the pharmacy to get an injection from time to time, 606, 303 for a few injections, or asked Fang Lang to make side medicines, and cinnabar and tuckahoe for a while. If you can support it, you will never sit down and eat a simple meal.Until she fell ill and had no hope at all, she was asked to use the door panels to carry her to the side of those old women who lived alone in empty boats, and let her breathe her last breath.When they died, their relatives cried out loudly, spent all their money to ask monks to recite scriptures, and then asked someone to buy a coffin with a four-headed coffin on credit, or borrowed "Dajiayi" to buy a pair of thin boards, and it was over as soon as they were buried in the soil.

There is already a road in Taoyuan, which goes directly to Wuling (Changde), which is known as the throat of Xiangxi. Every day, eight or ten new passenger cars run on the road at a certain time.It is about ninety miles away from Changde, and the fare is one yuan and zero.This highway goes directly from Changde to Changsha, the capital of Hunan Province. The car journey takes about four hours and the fare is about 6 yuan.When the highway was opened to traffic, some people said that this highway was of great economic significance in Hunan Province, which meant that it would be much more convenient for the transportation of "special goods" exported from Guizhou Province.This person doesn't seem to know that the special goods need to pass three hundred to five hundred loads each time, and there are only a dozen cars going back and forth on the road a day. If the special goods are not refined, how much can be transported every day?Regarding the refinement of special goods, in the propaganda of strict smoking bans in various provinces, who would have the guts to engage in such illegal activities.If in a certain shop in Taoyuan County, someone manages to buy some yellow powder medicine as a way of chatting, and if you ask casually, you will understand that the source of the goods has a background.Believe it or not, the big brains among the major shareholders have the "age" and "son" generations, as well as the supervisors along the river and the famous people in Shanghai.And it is clear that the production is not Taoyuan County.Sixty miles up the river, there are 20 machines for processing day and night. When transporting for export, it may go directly to Hankou by ship, but there is no need to use road vehicles to transfer to Changsha.

It can really be called Taoyuan's famous product, and it is worth noting that it is a domestic chicken with chicken eggs.This huge and majestic creature with red crown like fire can be found everywhere in the streets and alleys, often weighing 10 to 20 catties.When passers-by first see chicken eggs in this place, they must think duck eggs or goose eggs.Secondly, there is a small boat in Taoyuan, which is light, stable and clean, and it can be called second to none in Yuanshui. A traveler from other provinces, if he wants to study the distribution of the Miao people in Hunan from Yongsui, Gancheng, and Fenghuang in western Hunan, or from western Hunan to Youyang and Xiushan in Sichuan to investigate the production of tung oil, and to Tongren in Guizhou to investigate the production of cinnabar mercury , go to Yuping to investigate the types of bamboo materials, and pay attention to the handicraft production of flute and paper making. You can hire a small boat from Kuixing, Taoyuan County, and go upstream along the Yuanshui River to reach the destination directly. Luggage went ashore and dropped off at the store without any difficulty.

A small Taoyuan boat can only carry one or two guests.As usual, a helmsman is required to manage the stern and move the ship left and right. Stretch the sails, slack the rigging, and catch the breeze in the valleys of the river.Put the cable to pull the boat, measure the width of the river and the water potential of the river, and stretch the bamboo cable.In addition, it is necessary to stop the workers, look at the water when going up and down the beach, and remind the helmsman to avoid stones, rough waves and currents before accidents.Such a person must also have courage, strength, and experience.The sails are opened and lowered very quickly, and the ropes are pulled down immediately.When the sailing boat was moving like an arrow, he squatted on the bow, shouted and roared, and laughed at the lagging boats.When one's own ship lags behind and is scolded by others, he still has to scold back, and when others sing, he has to answer with singing.When two ships collide to reason, don't let others take advantage.When fighting, first pull out the pole and hold it in your hand.When a ship is forced into the rapids and rocks, no matter whether it is winter or summer, one has to quickly and bravely strip off his clothes, run into the rapids, and try his best in the water to get the ship out of danger.The helmsman was not doing his duty due to an accident, so he climbed over the top of the ship and over the stern to be a temporary helmsman.If there are young sailors on board, they should take care of them and give them advice.There is also a duty that cannot be shirked, that is, in all faults, each should occupy the same end of the boat with the helmsman, insult each other, and continue to move the boat forward. Apart from these two, the boat still needs a young sailor to take care of chores. Status, washing rice, cooking, chopping vegetables, washing dishes, doing everything.When sailing a boat, if you should row the oars, you should help you to row the oars;Most of these young sailors should pay attention to everything during their studies to gain experience and skills.In addition to learning to watch the water, watch the wind, memorize stones, and use the oar, he also learned to be beaten and scolded.All kinds of weird and strange words are repeated in my ears all day long, and I will keep them in my memory well, and I will use them to insult others when I grow up.There is no wind blowing up, and one person is still carrying the fiber board, dragging a bamboo cable, and pulling the boat forward on the desolate river bank path.When the boat is moored by the pier, it has to be well-behaved.Regarding their economic situation, most of the helmsmen are employed by the ship's parents for a long time, and the average cost is eight cents to one dime a day.There are people who have been hired for a long time, and if they are young and experienced, their salary is similar to that of the helmsman.If it's just a short-term round trip, you can get an average of 10 or 50 cents a day if you go up, and you just do your best to eat rice when you go down.

As for young sailors, the duration of their studies depends on their age and ability. Some of them get two cents a day for pocket money, and some of them live on the ship for three to five years.When he was on the beach, he was accidentally thrown into the rapids by the penny in his hand. He was not good at swimming and drowned in the water.The helmsman handed over the remaining clothes of the deceased to the relatives to explain the situation of falling into the water, and burned a few hundred yuan paper, and the procedures were clear. A Taoyuan boat, with such three sailors, plus one who needs to travel, is patient, not too lonely, and can take twenty or thirty passengers, the boat moves up and down a clear and transparent Yuanshui River up.The first recorded person to be a passenger on this small boat in this river should be the crazy Chu Zhuchen, Qu Yuan.In his own article, he said: "Wang Zhuxi in the morning, and Chenyang in the evening." If his article is still worthy of citation, we can still compare "Yuan has Zhixi and Liyoulan" and "Cheng With these words, it is estimated that he may have taken this kind of boat back then and traveled upstream to Yuanzhou, where vanilla and fragrant flowers are produced.Not far from the upper reaches of Yuanzhou, there is a Baiyan River. Zhicao grows in the small valley, and it can still be seen everywhere today.This orchid plant takes root in the crevices of cliffs, or spreads to the branches of pine trees, with long leaves fluttering and flowers drooping in long strings, which is beautiful.The shape of flowers and leaves is softer than that of Jianlan, and the fragrance is weaker than Jianlan.Those who visit Baiyanxi can take a small boat. If the people on the boat can reach out, they can reach out to pick flowers at will, and they will form a bunch in no time.If the cliff is too high, you can also use a penny to knock down the flowers, let them fall into the whirling stream of the clear stream, and then pick up the flowers from the stream.In addition to Lanzhi, there are many vanilla and fragrant flowers that breed under the cliffs by the stream.That kind of endless black cliff rocks, that kind of clusters of fragrant and dazzling flowers, that kind of small whirling stream, combined into an indescribably charming holy place!If there is no such place, Qu Yuan will be a little more crazy. According to my opinion, his articles may not be able to write so beautifully.

Who read my record, if fascinated by vanilla and fragrant flowers in Yuanzhou, actually chartered a boat from Taoyuan to go to Yuanzhou, hoping to study and solve several vegetation problems in "Chu Ci" on the spot.When you get to the south gate of Yuanzhou, you may accidentally catch a glimpse of a black spot on the gate, and you want to understand it out of curiosity, but you don't know who to ask for a while.What he saw was just a new bloodstain, not a monument.Around the time of the Qing Dynasty, a young man surnamed Tang in Huangzhou, a graduate of Beijing Agricultural University, led more than 20,000 peasants and a group of young students from four townships in the two counties of Huangzhou, Yuanzhou, with the qualifications of special commissioners for party affairs. With all kinds of farm tools, go to the city to petition.The defenders of the city had already received an order from the chief not to allow the petitioners to enter the city.So the two sides naturally clashed.On one side are flags, sticks, shouts and anger, on the other side are condescending, a machine gun and ten rifles.Since the streets were so narrow, the commissioners who stood at the forefront, together with more than 40 young students and farmers, all died at the gate of the city.Seeing that something was wrong, the rest of the farmers dropped their farm tools and ran away.The body of the special commissioner was then nailed to the wooden board of the city gate by the soldiers with a bayonet for three days.After three days, they, together with other victims, were thrown into the clear stream praised by Qu Yuan to feed the fish.Over the past few years, the locals have been sent to donate labor during the repeated civil wars, and they have spent their days in dealing with the servants, and they have gradually forgotten about this incident.

When the boat from Taoyuan arrived at Yuanzhou Prefecture, the helmsman carried the luggage of the guests ashore, and when they returned to the boat after asking for the wine money, these sailors would take pleasure in walking through Cobbler Street outside the South Gate.That place is similar to Houjiang in Taoyuan, and there are many people who run the oldest professions. The place is not a commercial port, and the price is more reasonable.Pay fifty cents to close the door once, and you can get a pack of buttered and cleaned tobacco when you board the boat. That was the rule ten years ago.Considering the current situation of expensive things, everything is of course different. The cost of paying may be a little more, and the hospitality who collects money may have already switched to "beautiful brand" instead of "shangjingsi".Or someone suddenly met a sailor on Cobbler Street, and asked the sailor: "Boatmakers, 'Fat water doesn't fall into other people's fields', you let others use what you have at home, and you have to spend money to use others. Is it worthwhile?" The sailor would definitely pat the suede pocket on his waist, and replied with a smile: "Master, 'the wool comes from the sheep', this money is not from my Taoyuan people, it's good money." He only answered the second half, but there is no need to mention the first half.I am in Yuanzhou, more than six or seven hundred miles away from Taoyuan, and he has no control over Taoyuan. Because of this philosophy, the life of sailors seems to be much more free and easy than that of "elegant people".If there are no taboos in what I say, no one will suspect that I am "protecting the proletariat". I also want to say that their behavior is better than those who have read some "Zi Yue" and brought "Five Hundred Fragrant Poems" to Taoyuan to find a secluded visit. Afterwards, the "elegant people" who asked for experience in Jiang later came, and they were actually much more moral. Written in Beijing in March 1935