Xijing Ancient Road opening hours: open

Xijing Ancient Road attractions introduction:

I have long heard that there is a Meiguan Avenue at the foot of Meiling in Nanxiong County, Guangdong, which is connected to the Tang Dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, Zhang Jiuling, the Xian Prime Minister of Qujiang, was ordered to dig it, but he did not know that there was another Xijing Avenue in Ruyuan, and that the Xijing Ancient Road existed 690 years earlier than Meiguan Avenue. One leads to Xi'an, and the other crosses Meiling, traces the Gan River, crosses the Yangtze River and follows the canal directly to the Central Plains, revealing the migration of China's political and economic center from the northwest plateau to the Central Plains. "When a concubine rides in the world of mortals and laughs, no one knows that it is lychees coming." Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty was so pleased with Concubine Yang that he did not hesitate to use a fast horse relay to transport fresh lychees to Chang'an, Xijing. However, Concubine Yang is not the only one who likes to eat lychees. Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty, who was very happy with his achievements, also liked to eat them.

After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty pacified South Vietnam, he ordered 100 lychees to be moved from Guangdong and built a magnificent Fuli Palace outside Chang'an City to plant them. However, due to the climate and soil, none of them grew, so Emperor Wu ordered them to be transplanted. In anger, he killed dozens of Shou Shi. As a result, various places in Lingnan regularly paid tribute to the court every year. At that time, there was no passage from north to south, so they could only float up the sea from Minhou County, Fujian Province. However, the sea was very windy and rough, and shipwrecks often occurred.

In 26 AD, the imperial court decided to dig a north-south passage from today's Yingde to Linwu County in Hunan Province via Qujiang, Ruyuan, and Lechang. The distance was more than 160 kilometers, including Ruyuan. The territory is more than 90 kilometers. The land of Lingnan, which dates back more than 1,800 years, was covered with primeval forests and rhinoceros and wild elephants roamed. In addition to the "stacked mountains, it's as if you climb the stairs" on the road, the terrain along the ancient road is very different, and the climate is completely different within dozens of miles. However, through the The mountains and ridges are paved with hemp stones more than one meter wide. You can imagine the difficulty of the construction project.

After that, stagecoaches delivering lychees and other fresh fruits to the imperial court kept traveling northward on this ancient road day and night. Because the road was long, rugged and dangerous, there were also pests and beasts on the road. Many people, horses or Died due to fatigue or poisoning by poisonous insects. In the 15th year of the Eastern Han Dynasty (AD 103), an enlightened county magistrate came out of Linwu County, Hunan. He risked his life to report to the court, begging the court to exempt Lingnan lychees, longans and other fresh fruits from paying tribute, admonishing that "the promotion of these two things to the palace may not necessarily prolong life." ", the imperial court approved. In the long years that followed, the Xijing Ancient Road underwent repairs in successive dynasties and became a "highway" for transmitting information and transporting goods. Nowadays, most of the Xijing Ancient Road has been destroyed, and only two sections of 2.5 kilometers each remain in Ruyuan.

I was walking on a section of the ancient road in Monkey Ridge. This section of the ancient road between Hongyun Town and Daqiao Town is like a snake circling in the barren mountains. It is entirely made of stones and strips of stone. It is only more than 1 meter wide. When you go up the stairs, you can see the stamps on some stone slabs that are clearly visible and deeply worn. They are the marks left by the constant trampling of horses' hooves. I think of the time when Han Yu, the great poet of the Tang Dynasty, was buried with Buddha's bones because of his admonition. When he was demoted to Chaozhou, "a letter was sent to the nine heavens in the morning, and eight thousand people were demoted to Chaoyang Road in the evening." When he was passing through the Ruyuan section of the ancient road to the west of Beijing, it was snowy and windy, and the road ahead was bleak! The local people admire this good official who "wanted to eliminate evil things for the sake of sage and was willing to cherish his old age". Relics commemorating him can be seen everywhere today, such as "Xinhan Pavilion" - the place where the heart yearns for, and "Yangzhi Pavilion" - ——High up the mountain, there are also the stone tomb of Han Wen Gong's clothes, the Han Wen Gong's ancestral hall, etc. Wandering by the Yangzhi Pavilion, the locals told a story that "since ancient times, good and evil are the same as ice."

In the second year of Xianheng in the Tang Dynasty, Tang Gaochong abolished the Wu surname of Wu Minzhi, a member of the Wu Zetian family who was a high-ranking official in the imperial court and had misbehaving, restored his original Helan surname, deprived him of all his official titles, and exiled him to Leizhou in Lingnan. , he passed through the ancient road to the west of Beijing in Ruyuan County. How could Wu Minzhi, who was accustomed to fine clothes and fine food, withstand such torture? When he was dying, he was strangled to death with a horse rein by the escorting soldiers when he arrived in Qujiang County, and his body was abandoned on the roadside. . The Xijing Ancient Road has been forgotten by people, and a piece of history has also disappeared, but all this should be remembered.