Chapter 20 Tale of Five Cities

1. Kaifeng It is backed by the Yellow River and has a foot in the Song Dynasty. It looks like a nobleman who is no longer prominent, but still has extraordinary features in his eyebrows and eyes. The provincial capital is Zhengzhou, which is not.This is its luck.The old capital, which was once too difficult for water, handed over the busy modern errands to the neighbors in a free and easy manner. The person accompanying me said that the old place names recorded in the history of the Song Dynasty are all several meters below the ground in Kaifeng today.The Yellow River often bursts, and layers of silt accumulate, deeply hiding the dense footprints of the Song Dynasty.The ancient city of Pompeii is hidden too vigorously, the Chinese are gentle and refined, and even the natural forces follow the Romans, slowly coming layer by layer.The ancient capital of Kaifeng has been refreshed again and again with the brush of disaster.People fled and came again, recultivated, rebuilt, reawakened the charm of the ancient capital, and reawakened the prosperity of the market.Kaifeng's proudest prosperity can be seen in the "Along the River During the Qingming Festival".

Kaifeng is like our entire nation, standing up again and again on the desert of disaster, vowing to restore the former prosperity under the silt.However, everything under the mud belongs to memory, and memory is like a silver-gray dream without other colors.As a result, Kaifeng became a faded ruins. Only the tallest and strongest structures remained unburied.The steps are lost, but the body of the temple is still there; the tower is silted up and the ground floor is still indestructible.That day I went to Kaifeng with my friends, I don’t know how many steps I climbed, ancient pagoda, ancient pagoda, ancient pagoda, palace, palace, palace.I was tired, looked up and down, and said to my friend: "I really want to take a picture of the stone steps among the wild grass, and inscribe the time." My friend said: "Don't take pictures, one end of the camera will become modern."

It is true.The power of time can only be slowly climbed and experienced by physical strength, and cannot be easily viewed with a photo.Once relaxed, everything changes. Many ancient pagodas in China have banned people from climbing, but the ancient pagodas in Kaifeng are allowed to do so.There is no need to worry too much about the countless people crowded in the tower. Climbing the tower is a test of physical strength and will.The steps of the tower are very narrow, steep, and dark. You can’t stop without climbing to the window openings on each floor. When you reach the window openings, you will immediately have the desire to go up to the next level.The psychology of climbing the tower can constitute a strong suspense line, and the top of the tower is a supreme call.Or not into the tower.Entering it, climbing it, few people return halfway.Let the physically and mentally weak people look up quietly, the relay race of youth and life is going on every day in the tower.The ancestors who built the pagoda thousands of years ago inadvertently left two commanding heights, physical and psychological, to overlook whether the descendants of generations are promising and capable.When I climbed to the last floor, I really wanted to shout out of breath: "I report, my ancestors!"

Yes, only constructs far above reality have the ability to summon offspring. 2. Nanjing The golden powder of the Six Dynasties is enough to make it famous forever, not to mention the political tide of the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as the blood and blood of modern and modern times. Many things originally belonged to the whole country, but once they arrived in Nanjing, they became so strange that people could not let go of them for a long time.There were so many prostitutes in the past dynasties, how can they be as culturally accomplished and politically insightful as the "Qinhuai Eight Beauty" in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, which dyed a whole period of political and cultural history with gorgeous colors?There have been many peasant uprisings in the past dynasties. How can they be as powerful as Zhu Yuanzhang, who was buried in Zijin Mountain, and Hong Xiuquan, who made Nanjing the capital of Tianjing?There are so many ancient capitals in the past, how can it be like Nanjing, which has been bloodbathed by foreign invaders until modern times, and made historic battles under artillery fire, turning the world upside down again and again?

As far as the backbone of the Chinese nation is concerned, it stood up in the Yellow River Basin.The north is where the foundation of the feudal dynasty was. Once in Nanjing, the situation became weird due to the invasion of Chu Feng and barbarian customs.Of course, Nanjing also needs to receive the Yellow River civilization, but it is close to the Yangtze River. This big river has a different character from the Yellow River.The strangeness of Nanjing should be attributed to the powerful collision of two great rivers and the heterogeneous gathering of a huge ethnic group. This kind of collision and gathering, the surging waves are loud and powerful.Therefore, the grandeur of Nanjing City is unparalleled, deeply engraved with the grand and tragic experience of the war between the North and the South.The vines and kudzu on the ancient city wall beside Xuanwu Lake can still be found, the ruins of the Ming Dynasty Palace can still be found, the bells of Jiming Temple can be faintly heard, the stone men and stone horses of the Xiaoling Mausoleum of the Ming Dynasty stand tall, the water of the Qinhuai River has never dried up, and the Confucius Temple The shops are heavy and dense, the autumn leaves of Qixia Mountain fall every year, the posture of Zijin Mountain remains unchanged for thousands of years, and the tree-lined roads to Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum and Linggu Temple are always so fascinating.

Other ancient capitals condense history into palaces; Nanjing dissolves history into nature.In Nanjing, there is no purely academic visit, nor is there any play that can abandon history.Beijing is an overly extravagant gathering, Hangzhou is an overcrowded precipitation, Nanjing is neither extravagant nor overcrowded, it is generously open up a school of mountains and rivers, allowing people to read and understand the major issues of Chinese history.I have told my friends in Nanjing many times that Nanjing is one of the proper destinations for a Chinese literati who is equally passionate about landscape and history.Except that the summer is too hot and the language is not very pleasant, I never hide my love for Nanjing.

Among the eternal famous poems in my heart, many are related to Nanjing, especially Liu Yuxi's "Stone City": Mountains surround the homeland and surround them, The tide hits the empty city and returns lonely. To the east of the Huai River, the old moon, In the middle of the night, I came over the female wall. Poets more than 1,000 years ago have developed the nostalgic meditation to such a grand style, and with the addition of 1,000 years, the city of Nanjing is really overwhelming. 3. Chengdu For the entire territory of China, it is a great consolation that there is a Chengdu hidden in the southwest of the mountains.

The first time I entered Sichuan, I entered along the Baocheng Railway.I have been looking at the Loess Plateau for so long, and even my eyes are pale.Occasionally seeing a sidewalk or a stone house in the mountains will make the spirit shake suddenly, but they will soon disappear, and there will always be a mountain without a blade of grass, slowly retreating with the sound of rumbling wheels, endlessly.There are also steep mountains, but they fall in a gray-yellow monochrome, and they can't be seen at all.The Creator must have taken a long nap and dumped all the gray and yellow on the palette here.

At the beginning there were tunnels, one after another, and the sound of the wheels was deafening when passing through the tunnels, so I didn't care about it, anyway, I have looked around many times, but there is no hope of green.However, why are there so many tunnels? Just rushing out of one and then rushing into another immediately, the number is innumerable.I finally felt that with such a grand prelude, something big was about to happen.Sure enough, I don't know which tunnel came out, and the whole car cheered: Outside the window, a beautiful scene falls from the sky.The mountains are full of green grass, clear waterfalls are splashing, yellow flowers are dazzling, and even the rocks are wet and covered with moss.Rows of orange trees outside the car window are green and golden, and the huge oranges seem to be picked by reaching out.The land is black and oily, the houses are densely packed, and both people and animals are prosperous.The Creator woke up, rubbed his eyes and regretted his negligence, and seemed to make up for it here.

From then on, we didn't want to leave the car window for a moment until the arrival of Chengdu. With Chengdu as a destination, ancient travelers can feel at ease to experience the hardships of traveling thousands of miles into Sichuan.Although the road to Shu is difficult, with Chengdu here, no matter how difficult it is, it is elegant, and even thin and weak scholars can bear it. Everything in Chinese civilization is not lacking in Chengdu.It is far away from the southeast and the sea, and rarely dissipates anything, only knowing that it gathers tightly, living a thick life, rich and comfortable.There are so many mountains guarding it, although it has undergone various collisions, it has not been involved in the catastrophe that blanketed Kyushu Island, nor has it served as a large battlefield for thousands of miles.Just because it is very safe, it retains an unfailing humor from generation to generation; just because it is less exciting, it will always have a spicy habit; just because it has the desire to fly over the mountains, it has raised a large number of talented writers .

Chengdu is a rich and partial storehouse of Chinese history and culture.There are many topics here, so there are so many teahouses, and the talkative Chengdu people have prepared a wide variety of snacks for themselves, chewing and tasting them together with history. A large part of the scenic spots and historical sites in Chengdu are the relics of foreign wanderers.Chengdu people are very generous, they carefully preserve them, and pay respects to them.Compared with Chongqing, Chengdu has much stronger sedimentation power.It is this precipitating force that builds its stability.Chongqing is a little too noisy. Chongqing also has obvious strengths. Its Chaotianmen Wharf faces the Yangtze River vigorously, pointing to the sea in the distance, and the vitality of the whole body echoes in this direction.Quiet Chengdu lacks this kind of pointing. The ancient Chengdu people shed tears and bid farewell by the Wangjiang Tower, untied their cables and waved their oars. The eternal problem in Chengdu still exists today: how to go from deep to broad? 4. Lanzhou I often hear people say that the most difficult thing to adapt to in the Northwest is food.But what impresses me most about Lanzhou are two delicacies: beef noodles and white melon. Therefore, this long and narrow ancient city on the upper reaches of the Yellow River left me with two flavors: thick and sweet. Lanzhou beef noodles are very particular about the ingredients. It must be the best yellow beef leg meat, cooked carefully, then cut into small cubes, mixed with shallots, dried peppers and peppercorns; the thickness of the noodles depends on the customer. , then pour an appropriate amount of beef broth, and cover the main ingredients that have just been fried.A large bowl is full, and the noodles are clear, shiny, and fragrant.The taste is heavy but not greasy, smooth and hot.Give another small bowl of fresh soup, if you still need beef, you can cut it into another plate, the slices are dry and tender, and served with garlic chili sauce.When eating beef noodles in Lanzhou, most people eat more than usual. My friend from Lanzhou, Mr. Fan Kejun, is a person who has gone through all kinds of hardships. He often takes me to a shop to eat beef noodles.Master Ma, who is in charge of the spoon, is very old. When Mr. Fan came, he took care of everything himself, and there was no room for any mistakes.Mr. Fan told me softly that this master Ma is really a chivalrous man, even though he only cuts meat and cooks noodles every day, you can trust everything in him. More than 30 years ago, an actor who came here to eat noodles every day was suddenly wrongly arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to a heavy sentence.His wife, relatives and friends all left him, and no one came to visit during the Chinese New Year.He never imagined that it was Master Ma who appeared in front of the bars, holding a bag of dry-cut beef, silently holding it up.This continues every year for a full 20 years. Twenty years later, the actor's unjust case was cleared, and he returned to the stage, becoming famous all over the city.No matter what method he used to invite and thank him, Master Ma didn't accept it at all. He only smiled lightly when he came to eat beef noodles every morning. Just as I was talking, Master Ma's beef noodles had been cooked and served, and I could taste the deliciousness of Lanzhou with just one bite. In terms of flavor, white melon and beef noodles constitute a strong contrast.This kind of melon must be cut into long strips when eaten, and the mouth is full of coolness, and the taste is not strong. It melts in the throat after just a few chews, and immediately feels moist and refreshing.It is said that Bailan melon is a foreign variety, Lanzhou accepted it, and soon made it famous in China.Although Lanzhou is located in the remote northwest, it is known as the hometown of melons and fruits.As long as it is a good melon and fruit, most of them can survive in Lanzhou, and they will add a sweet taste.When the train passes through Lanzhou Station, the carriages will be filled with all kinds of melons and fruits as if by magic, and the impatient passengers will immediately pick up their knives and eat them. The fragrance of melons and fruits also reverberates in the folk customs of Lanzhou.Slightly different from the imaginary appearance of the Northwest, the atmosphere here is quite clear and open.The clothes are trendy, the shops are trendy, the streets are generous, the calligraphy and painting are beautiful, the singing and dancing are flourishing, and the audience's interest in watching the theater is also free and easy.I watch Peking Opera, Yue Opera, and Qin Opera. Even if I act in a foreign drama, the box office value is still very high.To go to Dunhuang, you must pass through Lanzhou, so there are many foreign tourists in Lanzhou.A major shortcoming of Lanzhou is that the airport is too far away from the urban area, which is extremely inconvenient; but the English proficiency of the female announcer at Lanzhou Airport, in my opinion, is higher than that of the national airports, which brings a kind of comfort to international friends . This is Lanzhou, where the flavors of opposites are in harmony, bringing comfort to the northwest plateau and comfort to long-distance travelers.The fact that the Chinese nation can dig a deep well where the fountain of life gushes out in such a remote place shows that their physical strength is still strong after all.There is a festival in Lanzhou there, and we will feel a little proud when we cross the plateau that has been helpless for thousands of years. 5. Guangzhou After all, I have to talk about Guangzhou. On the New Year's Eve of the year before last, I was stranded in Guangzhou because I couldn't buy an air ticket. Many friends took pity on me and invited them to their homes to celebrate the New Year.I also took the opportunity to go to each house in turn. Walking into the living room of every house, there are big flowers all over.There are all kinds of colors, so many names, too many to remember.My favorite is the kumquat trees planted in large pots, with dark green leaves and golden fruits, all shiny.A female writer took off two coins, handed one to me, and threw the other into her mouth.Her husband said with a smile: "If it's not until the New Year, she will eat it up!" And the New Year is tomorrow. That afternoon, some friends came to invite me again, saying that they would go to the flower market in the evening, which was very lively on New Year’s Eve; in the afternoon, they would go to the suburbs to see the flower garden.On the way to the flower garden, there are cars full of flowers.People in Guangzhou don't like flowers picked from broken branches. They are used to potting plants with roots and transporting them in pots.Many flowering branches are tall and dense, covering the roof of the truck cab. From a distance, you can see groups of flowers flying in the sky, which is amazing.These flowers will rush to every household, and people pour wine and blessings among the flowers.I think, compared to other parts of the country, Guangzhou people have more right to say: Spring Festival is here! Unfortunately, after returning from the flower garden, I got the ticket and rushed to the airport immediately. The New Year's Eve flower market in the evening finally failed. On the plane, my mind was full of flowers in Guangzhou.I think that people in the inland mostly use red paper and firecrackers to decorate the Spring Festival. The spring and auspiciousness there are artificially laid.Only Guangzhou insists on transporting floats for a season to bring the real life of spring into the house, so the celebration is the most honest and thorough. It is said that even in the most turbulent years, the flower market in Guangzhou never stopped.Just like Guangzhou people drink morning tea, go there every day, leisurely, regardless of the ebb and flow of the tide and the rise and fall of the clouds. From a certain point of view, the flower market and morning tea are just small decorations in life, and there are so many major social events, how can they be so intoxicated.All kinds of harsh orders traveled thousands of miles and arrived in Guangzhou, but their prestige is already weak, and it is even more difficult to find them when they are spun into flowers and tea. "What's going on in Guangzhou?" someone shouted.The Guangzhou people didn't seem to hear it. They muttered a difficult Cantonese dialect, turned around and called to sniff the petals, and picked up the teacup again. Guangzhou has always been far away from the capital, facing the sea.This orientation makes it a natural opposition to China's thousand-year-old feudal tradition.The thousand-mile stage horses are exhausted after running here, and the sea-going ships that are sailing southeast Asia are preparing to set off at the wrong time. When the post-horse really disturbed people, Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Huang Zunxian, and Sun Yat-sen stood up here, speaking loudly to the north.When the fire broke out, he would pack up and go north generously to make matters worse.The Northern Expedition, the Northern Expedition, Guangzhou has always been the starting point of the Northern Expedition. Going north often fails.Then come back, still drinking morning tea, visiting the flower market, leisurely like a normal person, living a secular emotional life. In recent years, Guangzhou seems to be speaking to the north again, with its busyness, openness, and bravery.But this time the speech was different from the previous ones. It didn’t have to temporarily abandon the morning tea and the flower market, and let the generous words mix with the fragrance of tea and flowers, drifting away into the distance. A literati like me sometimes feels lonely when walking on the streets of Guangzhou.It’s not that I don’t have friends. In Guangzhou, I have many students and friends, but they are also lonely.We are all looking for and looking forward to something. The creation of it cannot be done in a hurry like the crowds in the market, and its efficacy is not like morning tea and flower markets, which only satisfy daily and seasonal consumption.