There is currently no musical fountain in Jiubanqiao.

Beside National Highway 323, about one kilometer south of Tong'an Town, Pingle County, there is a village surrounded by mountains and rivers. The two green hills behind the village resemble two galloping horses, facing a seven-story turret on the east side of the village that looks like a horse-harnessing stake.

The villagers named the village Taocun with the homophonic pronunciation of the word "Tao" in the horse-trapping stake, which means the village where Pegasus is trapped. A sand river passes through the village. On the Shajiang River, an ancient bridge spans both banks, known as the "Nine Ban Bridge".

The Jiuban Bridge is located on the Shajiang River in front of the village. There are 5 groups of bridge decks, and every two stone strips are one group. Logically, there should be 10 stone strips in each of the 5 groups. Interestingly, 4 groups of the entire bridge are complete, but only the middle slab has only one stone.

Thus, Ten Banqiao became "Nine Banqiao". This incomplete bridge deck is not convenient for pedestrians to walk, but also affects the beauty of the entire bridge. But for hundreds of years, the villagers have left it alone, and no one has done anything to complete it. I don’t know if future generations are lazy and let things take their own course, or if there is some mystery behind them.

To explore the legacy of Jiubanqiao, we came to Taocun one evening in late autumn. I saw a simple stone bridge flying across the Shajiang River at the west end of the village. There was an inscription "Guangfu Bridge Story" at the head of the bridge. The stele records that the name of this bridge is Guangfu Bridge, also known as Jiuban Bridge. It was first built in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in the third year of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty.

Jiubanqiao crosses the winding Shajiang River from east to west. The bridge is about 50 meters long, 5 meters high and 1.2 meters wide. It is a straight-shaped flat stone bridge. The bridge deck is composed of nine granite stone strips about 10 meters long, 0.5 meters wide, 0.4 meters thick and weighing several tons.

There are no railings or handrails on the bridge. The five piers under the bridge are all skillfully stacked with bluestone blocks of the same size to support the bridge body. There is no cement mortar between all the stones, and they are all supported by the mutual extrusion of the stones, making them regular and firm.

After hundreds of years of wind and rain, it is still well-preserved. It is the longest existing stone slab bridge in Pingle County and the earliest stone bridge to be built.

The construction of Jiubanqiao benefited from the arrival of an immigrant family from southern Guangdong, and also witnessed the rise and fall of an immigrant family. According to the 72-year-old Su Lanfang in the village, there are currently four families living in Taocun, namely Su, He, Liao and Tao.

Among them, the surnames Su and He are both descendants of Su, who are said to be descendants of the great poet Su Dongpo of the Song Dynasty. Deqi Gong was born as a military attache. He once served as an official in the court. He had excellent martial arts skills. He often led troops on expeditions and made many military exploits. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, because of being framed, the court implicated nine tribes.

After her husband risked his life and asked his cronies to send back a secret report for her to escape, his wife took all the salary her husband had saved as an official in the court, her three sons and some people from the Su and He tribes along the waterway. Then, after going through hardships, we came to Pingle.

The eldest son Neng Jingong lived in Pinglemi Mountain Ferry, the third son Nengren Gong settled in Babu, Hezhou, and the second son Neng Shungong took his mother to live in Pingle Luohan Street. All year round, they make a living by fishing.

One day, they fished along the Guijiang River and Chajiang River in Pingle, and then passed through the Rongjin River and arrived at the Shajiang River in Tong'an. Seeing the beautiful scenery of the sandbanks on both sides of the river and the plump fish in the river, they settled here.

Old man Su said that when their ancestors first settled in Taocun, there were already people named Li and Zhang on the riverside who had pioneered wasteland and made a living here. Fortunately, the Li and Zhang families were simple and kind, and they lived in harmony with the Su and He families who arrived later, and became neighbors to each other.

Since then, the Su and He families have thrived here for generations, and the population has increased day by day. Later, the Li and Zhang families who lived here accepted the invitation of their own family and moved to Yuanyuan Gusuge to develop together.

Before immigrating, the Li and Zhang families transferred the land they cultivated here to the Su and He families at a low price. With fields and mountains, the Su and He family were like a fish in water. They worked hard day and year and finally lived a stable life.

The descendants of Su and He who settled in Taocun inherited the legacy of their ancestor Deqi Gong and often taught future generations to take care of each other. So far, the descendants of Su and He have lived here for fifteen generations. There are four families with the surnames Su, He, Liao and Tao in the village, with a population of 2,000.

On the bank of the Shajiang River next to the ancient bridge, there is an ancient road about 1 meter wide. The ancient road runs through Tong'an and Yuanyuan, leading up to Guilin and down to Wuzhou. Mr. Su said that in the past, villagers who traveled north or south via ancient roads came to Shajiang. Because there was no bridge on the river, they had to step on stones and wade across the river.

During the flood season, the river surges and the current is so fast that the stones are submerged, making it impossible for pedestrians to cross the river. At this time, the descendants of Su and He who settled here worked hard and gradually bought up family properties, and their families became increasingly prosperous.

In order to facilitate timely and safe travel for villagers and merchants, the philanthropic He Yuanwai funded the construction of a bridge made of strips of granite slabs on the Shajiang River, which is now the Jiuban Bridge.

A bridge, a story. According to the elders in the village, in order to build the bridge, He Yuanwai spent a huge sum of money to buy Dachong Mountain, which is about ten kilometers away from the village and is rich in granite.

Then, about a hundred young and strong men from the village were hired to quarry, polish, and transport the stone in Dachong Mountain. However, in ancient times with backward transportation tools, it was not possible to transport 10 large stone bars that were 10 meters long and weighed several tons completely from a mountain ten kilometers away to Shajiang River by manpower alone.

So the craftsmen first drilled a hole in each big stone, then tied a rope or loaded the stone on a wooden cart, and then pulled the stone together.

There is a legend that the bridge was finally built, and the five sets of bridge decks were neatly and regularly erected on the river. A strange young man who participated in pulling the cart asked everyone: Do you want this bridge to last forever or not? Perfect? Everyone answered in unison: "Long time!"

As they spoke, there was a loud bang, and stones fell into the river. The ten stone slabs that had just been erected on the bridge turned into nine. " Hence the name "Jiubanqiao".

About 6 meters east of Jiuban Bridge, there is a road pavilion named "Guangfu Pavilion" built in the eighth year of Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty. The road pavilion covers an area of ??about 10 square meters and is made of blue bricks. The arched door looks like an ancient gatehouse and has the inscription "Guangfu Pavilion" written on it.

There are drum-shaped and long stone benches for passers-by to rest. Outside the pavilion, there is a stone tablet for the reconstruction of Guangfu Pavilion. The inscription roughly reads: Guangfu Pavilion was built by the ancestors of Taocun to facilitate tourists passing through the place to rest and avoid wind and rain. In order to make the ancient pavilion immortal, the villagers donated money to rebuild it.