Zhangxian County, Gansu, Ming Dynasty craftsmen left behind the bridge-building technique, simple and useful! The people who have traveled said: I did not expect

Guiqing Mountain: Broken Stream Immortal Bridge Legend

A bridge across the two mountains, with corridors, bars, tiles, eaves, carved beams and painted buildings, colorful, so exquisite bridge, very rare in the Long.

The bridge, called the broken stream fairy bridge. Looking from the bottom of the mountain, exquisite, exquisite, really have a few fairy atmosphere.

1. Guiqing Mountain

These years, tourism has become a large-scale industry. Once y hidden, unknown places, under the bombardment of advertising, gradually become out of the boudoir, showing their charming side.

Guiqing Mountain is such, although the mountain in the Song Dynasty is even a famous mountain. But really into the people's field of vision, it is in the last two or three decades. In Zhang County, there are two mountains, can not be left out, one is Shayang Mountain, the other is Guiqing Mountain. A summer day, we embarked on the path of the broken stream fairy bridge.

Out of Lanzhou to the east, through Dingxi, to Longxi, we will head into the mountains. Zhangxian mountainous, all the way, we are in the mountains, wait until the county, I realized that the county town of salt wells are also surrounded by mountains in the ravine, stretching not.

In Zhangxian County, we have long been in contact with friends to meet, a few pleasantries, and then rushed to Guiqing Mountain. At this point, we are in the mountains, the highway is in the mountains through, look around, this is still surrounded by mountains, even if it is wide, but it is only two mountains sandwiched between the river. In order to survive, the townspeople had to open up the land to the hills. Someone wrote: "the road is not away from the northwest rocky shore, plowing more to the Bishan head." It can be seen that there are a lot of mountains and rocks here.

Zhang County is located in the West Qinling and Longzhong Loess Plateau transition zone, since ancient times, this is a nomadic and farming people fighting for the key, known as Longnan key, the ancient records say that the east dimension of the Qinlong, the west barrier tomato Rong. The West Qinling Mountains leave a rich natural heritage here, and the Silk Road has left a rich historical and cultural heritage here.

These introductions have given us a little more to look forward to. We've heard of Mount Guiqing many times, but it's the first time we've actually walked into the mountain. Zhangxian friends, Guiqing Mountain Scenic Area, including the "Zen Lin Guiyue", "Broken Stream Xianqiao", "Wash your eyes clear pool", "Western Scenery "Western Scenic Spot", "Three Peaks Surrounding the Cui", "Stone Stacks through the Clouds" and other scenic spots. Of course, our key target is still the Broken Stream Immortal Bridge.

In fact, there are some detours from Zhangxian County to Guiqing Mountain. Most of the people in Lanzhou choose the route from Lanzhou directly to Guiqing Mountain. But we have to meet with our friends in Zhangxian County, so we can only go around to the county town. There are two routes from the county to Guiqing. One out of the county 35 kilometers to the new temple township, and then eastbound, all the way to see the drip cliff, the Buddha word cliff, live tiger temple and other attractions, the whole process of about 60 kilometers, the second route from the county to the village of BaManGuiQingShan forest field, this road is a little farther, about 70 kilometers. We naturally chose the first route.

2. Tie Niu Zen Master

At this point, it is already past noon, sitting in the car, drowsy, half asleep, half awake, more than an hour later, someone said to wake up, wake up, open your eyes to see, in front of you have been a group of peaks, the green trees in the sky.

Guiqing Mountain can have today's scenery, and a person inseparable. He is the iron ox Zen master. This is a senior monk in the early Ming Dynasty. It is said that the Iron Ox Zen Master Department of Zhangxian four tribal township Maliantan Yangji Temple people. In fact, his name was not Tie Niu. This is a persistent monk, 14 years old monk, 16 years old cloud travel, and then returned home, saw the Guiqing Mountain area beautiful scenery. So, the idea of building a temple in Guiqing Mountain came up. To build a temple requires a lot of money, he only around to make money.

At that time, the war had just been pacified, the government at all levels to stabilize the people's hearts, pacify the people, teach the people, and still can not take care of, where the funds to support him to build the temple it?

So, he remembered King Su. Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Dynasty, in the reorganization of the central institutions of the country at the same time and the feudal sons of the king, so that they "control the key to control the sea". From the second year of Hongwu (1369) began to implement the "system of kings", the twenty-three sons were divided into different parts of the country, nine of them were sealed to the Great Wall along the fortress area, respectively, Qin, Jin, Yan, Dai, Su, Liao, Qing, Han, Valley and other nine kings.

Sealed in Ganzhou (now Zhangye) Su Wang Zhu Li is Zhu Yuanzhang's fourteenth son, born of a concubine concubine, initially appointed Han Wang, Hongwu twenty-five years (1392) changed to Su Wang, the royal residence was initially located in Zhangye, the first year of the Jianwen year (1399) moved to Lanzhou. After moving to Lanzhou, King Su made use of the financial and material resources at his disposal. In the place near the Yellow River, he built a large-scale palace of King Su, and at the same time, he assisted the local government to carry out large-scale construction of Lanzhou city. With the present central square as the center, the inner city with a circumference of 6 miles and 200 paces was built. In order to satisfy the life of the princes and nobles, they also built a large number of living facilities in and around Lanzhou city. Today there are estates of King Su in Neiguanying in Dingxi County and Maying in Tongwei County. On the other hand, King Su was the most powerful figure within a few hundred miles, and with his support, it was relatively easy to ask for favors from others.

Iron Niu Zen Master then made up his mind, to the king of the Sukhumvit. King Su is not an ordinary person, to him, naturally, not to the ordinary people, to pay attention to the method. He went to Lan County (Lanzhou in the Ming Dynasty for Lan County, under the jurisdiction of Lintao Province) came up with a way. Folk legend has it that Zen Master Tieh Niu sat in meditation for seven days and seven nights in front of him, chanting sutras day and night. His perseverance moved King Su. King Su summoned the Zen master, sat down to discuss the road, praised him like an iron ox, tough and persistent "Iron Ox Zen Master" has since been named. Naturally, King Su also supported a sum of money for the Zen master to build the temple.

Some materials show that this is the beginning of the construction of the temple in Guiqing Mountain. Under the auspices of Zen Master Tie Niu, Zhongfeng Temple and Broken Stream Xianqiao were built in Guiqing Mountain, and the incense grew stronger. Iron Ox Zen Master also has a good martial arts, he often in a grove of swords and sticks, after practicing, in a clear pool to wash his face and wipe his body. Later, people called the grove the Zen Grove, and the pool where he washed his face was also endowed with more magic, which was said to cure eye diseases. Now, the grove has become a scene of Guiqing Mountain, "Zen Lin hanging moon", and the wash pool has become a "clear pool to wash the eyes", which has also given birth to a legend.

3. Broken Stream Immortal Bridge

Since ancient times, the world's famous mountain monks accounted for more. There are many monks in the famous mountains. In the friend's lead, we follow the mountain road and up. The mountain on the Long, although the altitude is high, but the steep cliff is relatively small, and the southern kind of "wall of thousands of refuels without leaning" compared to the mountain, the mountain on the Long is much better to climb. However, the mountain road of Guiqing Mountain, breaking our inherent thinking.

Through the Zen forest, the mountain all the way up, our eyes also appear, a variety of strange peaks and steep cliffs. The mountain here is very different from the mountains elsewhere. The journey, stop and go, and finally arrived at the Zhongfeng Temple. This is a flat area of 20,000 square meters. There was once a temple, Zhongfeng Temple, which was built in the 45th year of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1566 AD). In the last century, thirty years ago, there were 4 big bells in the temple. Deep bells, often echoing in the mountains and forests, from time to time startled a flock of cold crows, more show the emptiness of the deep mountains.

The opposite side of Zhongfeng Temple is the West View, and between Zhongfeng Temple and the West View, there is an unfathomable cliff. The Broken Stream Immortal Bridge was built here. The bridge is extremely beautifully repaired, the information shows: the bridge was first built in the first year of the Ming Longqing (1567 AD), the entire bridge is 13 meters long, 1.65 meters wide, 2.3 meters high, six pairs of columns divided into five, the lead to the head of the bridge to build a square, 1.52 meters long, the two eaves spacing of 2.6 meters, the bridge corridor roof for the heavy eaves hypogee, the bridge is from the ground to the vertical height of 500 meters. We tried to walk up, only to see the following, white clouds, it is frightening.

Zhangxian friends said, Guiqingshan Bridge has been rebuilt 17 times, but the rebuilders have never changed the style of the architectural structure of this bridge. Qing Jiaqing years, Henan governor of euphonium Wang Xian had written a Guiqing Mountain Bridge door couplet: "scratch open Cui Roach suspected that there is no way, step to the immortal bridge has a different day."

The mountain road is steep, Xianqiao at the top. The time and effort spent on building a wooden bridge in such a difficult place must not have been small. In the era without reinforced concrete, the firmness of every wooden building depends on the size of its main wood, for example, the life span of a house depends entirely on the life span of the beams. And such a wooden bridge its lifespan naturally also depends on the sturdiness of the wooden beams that carry it across the mountain stream. The bridge is 13 meters long, then at least two, the length of about 20 meters, 20 centimeters in diameter beams. This thick wooden beams from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain is obviously a very difficult project.

In the eyes of modern people, in the absence of cranes, no helicopters, not even large iron components, to transport the beams of Xianqiao to the top of the mountain, it is simply unimaginable, and it is clear that there must be hidden secrets.

If people take all the trouble to transport the beams to the top of the mountain, how to carry the beams across the cliff, which is another problem.

In fact, there are not many secrets here. Modern people who are used to seeing modern machinery always ignore the wisdom of the ancients.

This is a story I heard over and over again, and it tells of the superior wisdom of the ancients. The ancients did not have to struggle to carry wooden beams, and the life of a wooden bridge is usually about 50 years. When a new bridge was born, people have to be near the bridge, planted many pine trees, these pine trees to decorate a landscape. Second, to protect the bridge. Most importantly, they make the bridge beams. Keeper of the mountain carefully take care of these pines, make sure to let them, straight and upright, towering into the clouds. After forty or fifty years, the pines grew old and the bridge grew old. So, people cut to the bridge two pine trees, let it fall on the cliff, the wooden bridge beams instantly become, easy to the extreme. In this way, the most difficult problem of building a new bridge was solved, and the other problems were not a problem.

A bridge, so erected successfully. Broken Stream Immortal Bridge demonstrated the ancient people's wisdom of bridge-building, so that modern people are also ashamed of themselves. When we ignore the ancients, we discard the tradition, and the modern technology that we have mastered is only skin deep.