Recollections of West Hunan by Shen Congwen

Recollections of West Hunan by Shen Congwen

Author:Shen Congwen
Language: zho
Format: epub
Tags: ①英语-汉语-对照读物②散文-作品集-中国-现代
ISBN: 9787544709309
Publisher: 译林出版社
Published: 2009-07-01T00:00:00+00:00


■ Fenghuang

Here is an outline of Fenghuang from one of my past writings.

Anyone curious enough to look up a map made a century ago will find a dot marked Zhenhuang in a remote spot between north Guizhou, east Sichuan and west Hunan. Like other dots on the map, in fact it denoted a small town of several thousand households. But the existence of all towns, and their prosperity or decline, are determined to a great extent by the communications, local products and economic situation. This place, however, is an exception to this rule. Its centre, this lonely border town with its round city wall of big, solid, rough-hewn stones, is encircled by over five hundred Miao villages with garrisons between them. Dozens of granaries store tens of thousands of bushels of government grain each year. There are also approximately five hundred forts and two hundred barracks. The forts, built of big stones, stand on the tops of the winding mountain ranges, while the barracks are excellently disposed by the post roads, spaced out evenly, a considerable distance apart, in three neighbouring counties covering a radius of hundreds of li. This was according to a masterly plan drawn up a hundred and eighty years ago to cope with the Miao tribesmen driven back to that territory who often revolted. Two centuries of the tyrannous rule of the Manchu government led to so many revolts that each public road, each fort, was stained with blood. Now all this has changed. Most of the forts are in ruins, most of the barracks are occupied by civilians; and half the minority people have adopted Chinese ways. But at sunset or dusk, if you climb a height in that town which stands impressively alone surrounded by mountains, gazing at the ruined forts near and far you can still conjure up a faint picture of the past when bugles, drums and torches raised an alarm. Because the military centre has moved elsewhere, and everything is fast changing and progressing, this progress is putting an end to all past misunderstandings and vendettas...

There are various different local authorities, the highest being deities, the next officials, with below them the village heads and the attendants of spirits who practise magic. The people here are honest and law-abiding, believing in spirits and afraid of officials. Every family in town is pressed into military service and can go each month to the barracks to draw a small silver stipend and rice ration; they can also ask the authorities for some of the public land confiscated two centuries ago and cultivate this themselves.

This place's original name was Zhenhuang; this was later changed to Fenghuang Garrison, and after the establishment of the Republic it became Fenghuang County. During the Qing Dynasty, the commanders of the Yongjing Garrison and of Zhenhuang were stationed here. After the 1911 Revolution, the governor of west Hunan and the commandant of Chenyuan still had their offices here. In addition to the grain in the granaries, the state had to spend roughly eighty thousand taels of silver a month on this little hill town.



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