Before looking at the bridge, let's get to know this Dahui Zen master. Master Dahui used to be a teacher in Zhao Shen, Song Xiaozong. When he was alive, he was "the best in the world" and was famous for "revitalizing the economy". Zhao Shen, Song Xiaozong, was regarded by later generations as the most successful emperor in the Southern Song Dynasty. He has been in office for 27 years, rectifying bureaucrats, building water conservancy projects, developing agriculture, and reducing taxes and services. Water conservancy projects, in particular, will send personnel to make unannounced visits every year. Those who cheat and fail to meet the quality standards will be punished, and the people will live and work in peace and contentment, which is known as "clean governance".
In the seventh year of the Southern Song Dynasty, that is, A.D.11year, Emperor Xiaozong wrote On the Original Road, which advocated "cultivating the mind with Buddhism, governing the body with the old, and governing the world with Confucianism". Also in this year, Zeng Wang, the magistrate of Chaozhou, led people to build a boat on the Han River, named Jikang Bridge.
"Chaobang, the sea is in the south", this is what Han Yu, one of the eight masters in Tang and Song Dynasties, said in his famous work "Sacrificing Crocodiles" when he was demoted to Chaozhou Secretariat. Chaozhou is an ancient cultural city with a history of 1600 years. Located in the north of Hanjiang Delta in eastern Guangdong, it borders Zhao 'an and Pinghe in Fujian Province in the east, Jieyang City in the west, Meizhou in the north, Nanhai and Shantou in the south, with a coastline of 1.36 km. More than 65% of the land is mountainous and hilly. Before Han Yu came here, it was once a desolate and remote place far from the capital Chang 'an.
"The letter is outside the cloud nine, and the setting sun is eight thousand Chaozhou Road. If you want to eliminate disasters for saints, you are willing to decline and cherish the old. Where is the home of Yunheng Qinling? The heavy snow hindered the horse's progress. I know you should be interested in coming far away so that I can collect my bones by the river. " Han Yu was demoted to Chaozhou for only eight months, but he devoted all his efforts here. He brought the advanced culture of the Central Plains to Lingnan, drove away crocodiles, built water conservancy projects, started schools and started farming, and was regarded as a god by local people. Chaozhou landscape was also renamed because of him. Chaozhou people changed the name of Bijia Mountain to Hanshan Mountain, and the crocodile creek at the foot of the mountain was also changed to Hanjiang River.
The Hanjiang River flows through Chaozhou, and the river is wide and impatient. It is "old at sailing, afraid of yourself". "It is predestined friends with people who come here; I have a clear conscience and am worthy of the people. " Han Yu, who cares about the people, has become a model for future generations.
In order to solve the traffic problems on both sides of the Han River, from the seventh year of the Southern Song Dynasty (11), Zeng Wang, the governor of Chaozhou, built Jikang Bridge with 86 pontoons, and it took a long time to make contributions until the ninth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1530).
Guangji Bridge is also called Jikang Bridge, Dinghou Bridge and Jichuan Bridge, but Chaozhou locals prefer to call it Guangji Bridge Xiangzi Bridge. It is one of the four ancient bridges in China, which are as famous as Zhao Zhouqiao, Lugou Bridge and Luoyang Bridge, and is famous for its unique style of "eighteen shuttles and twenty-four continents".
To the east of Guangji Bridge are Hanwen Temple and Hanshan Teachers College, and to the west is Chaozhou Ancient City. The essence of Chaozhou's human history, such as Guangji Building, Paifang Street, Jiadi Lane and Kaiyuan Temple, is concentrated here.
Guangji Bridge is praised as the earliest open-close bridge in the world by Mao Yisheng, a famous bridge expert in China. According to Tan Cui's "Chu Zhu Ting Lu Yue Naan" in the Qing Dynasty, "Jichuan Bridge is outside the East Gate of Chaozhou House ... and it opens in the morning and evening to play chess."
In layman's terms, it is this bridge that can be divided and combined. Every day from nine to five, the drama of "crossing the river to burn the bridge" is staged on time. When people pass by during the day, the east and west ends of Guangji Bridge become a whole; At night or in case of flood, untie the pontoon bridge fixed in the middle of the Han River and give way to the channel.
"If you can't reach the bridge at high tide, you will leave in vain." On Guangji Bridge, the most striking thing is the numerous pavilions and piers on the bridge. "Listening to the Tao" versus "enjoying the rain", "Zuo Tong" versus "You Da", "Looking for the forest" versus "Looking for the wind" ... Every plaque on the bridge pavilion is worth stopping to read.
Guangji Bridge is a floating beam composite structure, consisting of pier, Liang Shi and bridge pavilion, with Liang Shi Bridge and Middle Bridge in the east. The most amazing thing is that the Liang Shi Bridge is not bonded with mortar, but "chisels mortises and tenons to make it match", and all these are reinforced with mortises and tenons.
Walking on the Guangji Bridge, every stone at the foot seems to tell the story of chaozhou people's relay bridge construction. A.D. 1 174, that is, in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the pontoon bridge, which had just been built for less than three years, was destroyed by the Hanjiang River flood. When the successor Chang Wei repaired the bridge, the number of pontoons increased to 106, and a balcony was built on the west bank facing Hanshan, named Hanyang Pavilion.
Five years later, Zhu Jiang, the new magistrate who succeeded Chang Wei, built two more docks on the Han River and built a pavilion on each dock. The one in the east is called curling, the one in the west is called meeting, and the one in the middle is called Xiao Penglai, which opens the history of building pavilions on piers.
In the seventh year of the Song Dynasty (1 180), the Taishou King built another pier on the west bank of the Han River and a bridge between the pier and the riverbank. Since then, Jikang Bridge has become a combination of pontoon bridge and beam bridge.
In the following years, Chaozhou's successive prefects continued to build piers at the east and west ends, then took trees as bridges, put down the urns of bricks and stones, and built pavilions on the piers as resting places for businessmen, officials and people.
Lanterns hanging on pavilions, swaying with the wind, are not only auspicious. In the tenth year of Xuande in Ming Dynasty (1435), Roy, the magistrate of Chaozhou, comprehensively rebuilt and strengthened the Jichuan Bridge, which had been in disrepair for a long time. The craftsmen put beams on the piers and used them between wood and stone. They put thick plates on the beams and bricks on the plates. They strung the floating boats at the rapids in the river with three iron ropes weighing 4,000 kilograms, and built 126 pavilions on the bridge and 12 pavilions among the pavilions. After completion, there are 9 holes in pier 10 in the west bank, with a length of 165 meters; The east bank is 13 pier 12 hole with a length of 287 meters; In the middle is a pontoon bridge with 24 ships connected side by side, 9 1 m long. For a time, merchant ships sailing on the Han River shuttled.
Li Ling, the envoy of Jiangxi Province in the Ming Dynasty, reproduced the prosperous scene at that time for us in his Fu on Guangji Bridge: "The first floor is five feet, ten feet and one pavilion; China's tax is crumbling, and the list is engraved with gold. Dark and white, uneven tiles, high eaves and high teeth. ""At dawn, shops rushed to open, tea kiosks and wineries fluttered in the wind, and people boarding the bridge jostled each other.
In the ninth year of Jiajing in Ming Dynasty (1530), Qiu Qiren, the magistrate, reduced six pontoons to meet the needs of navigation and flood control, thus forming the pattern of "eighteen shuttles and twenty-four continents".
"People who study Guangdong contribute a lot." Chaozhou people personally felt the convenience that this bridge brought to their lives, hence the name "Guangji Bridge", which has been in use ever since.
In history, there have been many fires in Guangji Bridge, and few people know Zheng Chenggong's estimate of burning Xiangzi Bridge. According to "Haiyang County Records", in the seventh year of Qing Shunzhi, Zheng Chenggong besieged Chaozhou City, which could not be captured for a long time, and Guangji Bridge was destroyed by fire. General Cai Yuanxiu. "
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Zheng Chenggong did a righteous deed in South Australia, and Fujian suffered from famine year after year. In order to solve the food supply, Zheng Chenggong chose to attack Chaozhou.
In the seventh year of Shunzhi (1650), after Zheng Chenggong led the army to win Puning, Jieyang and Huilai successively, he could not capture Jieshi for a long time and turned around and besieged Chaozhou Fucheng. However, Hao Shangjiu, the company commander of Chaozhou Town, defended the city for more than 50 days.
At this time, his subordinate Chen Binjin offered a plan to cut off Guangji Bridge and provide backup for the defenders. Zheng Chenggong ordered the bridge to be set on fire, and the Guangji Bridge was also set on fire, leaving only a few piers for future generations to comment on.
For thousands of years, Guangji Bridge has been damaged by wars, floods, fires, earthquakes, etc., and was later repaired artificially. Nowadays, Guangji Bridge has long lost its traffic function and has become a must-see attraction for Chaozhou tourism. Visitors can spend 20 yuan money to buy a ticket, walk on the bridge, and get a close look at the vicissitudes of this ancient bridge.
From Guangji Building to the east, we walked onto the bridge and recovered an iron cow sculpture made of pig iron at the junction of the pontoon bridge. During the Yongzheng period, when Zhang Ziqian, the magistrate of Chaozhou, was repairing Guangji Bridge, he originally put an iron cow at the east and west bridge heads, which meant "saving the bridge from the water". As a result, one of them was washed away in the flood water in the 22nd year of Daoguang (1842), and the other was melted into molten iron in the 1960s. It is said that the iron cow washed away by the flood was later found in Meizhou in the upper reaches of the Han River. How did the iron cow weighing 1000 kilograms go upstream? It is puzzling, so there is a folk song "Chaozhou Xiangqiao is so romantic, 18 shuttle boats are on 24 continents, 24 are on the 24 th floor, and two iron cows escape".
After the iron cow sculpture, walking down the steps is a pontoon bridge composed of 18 wooden boats connected side by side. The pontoon bridge is paved with wooden boards, which is more than 5 meters wide. Walking on it, I can't feel the shaking at all. The tour guide said that every day at 5: 30 pm, the pontoon bridge would be removed on time and reconnected at 9: 30 the next morning. So, how is this bridge separated?
In order to find out, I came to Guangji Bridge again and waited. At five o'clock in the afternoon, the pontoon began to hanger-on, and two big ships came in the distance.
I saw several staff members untie the rope on the wooden boat, fix it on the big boat with three pontoons as a group, and then drag it away from the on-site waters. The whole process of dismantling the bridge only took more than ten minutes, which was completely unexpected.
For more than 800 years, the surging Hanjiang River has witnessed the ups and downs of Guangji Bridge. The ever-changing ancient city of Chaozhou will be engraved on the ever-lasting Guangji Bridge forever. Not far from her, there are the busy Hanjiang Bridge and the colorful Jinshan Bridge.
I don't know if Master Dahui was inspired by Guangji Bridge when he wrote this sentence: "Crossing the bridge will be demolished". But the story of chaozhou people, which lasted for hundreds of years, was deeply branded in chaozhou people's heart and melted into chaozhou people's blood.
A city, a bridge. In everyone's heart, there is a bridge engraved in the depths of memory. And where is the bridge in your heart?