Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 516: Building the plank road openly, secretly destroying Chencang

This can be done.

Two days ago, when Xu Yue found Fang Minghua and formally invited him and Lu Yao to go to Tianhan together, Fang Minghua smiled and said that he could not write reportage.

But Xu Yue laughed and said, "You don't have to write it. Just go to Tianhan with Lu Yao. This is itself a very good material for a documentary report. I'll find someone to write it!"
So this trip to Tianhan came about.

Hearing Xu Yue say this, Fang Minghua smiled and nodded. He thought, "You have to write something when you come here, right?"

I also visited the place where I worked in Baiyin last year. The scenery of the Northwest is also worth writing about.

Fang Minghua and his companions waited for a full hour at the small station before they saw a train from Kunming to Yanjing rumbling past the platform. A few minutes later, their train slowly set off.

After crossing the Qinling Mountains, the view became wider and entered the basin. On both sides of the railway were green wheat seedlings and golden rapeseed flowers. The alternating yellow and green was extremely beautiful, and Lu Yao sighed repeatedly as he saw it.

This was naturally very fresh to him, who grew up in a loess cave.

"Oh my God. As the saying goes, seeing the scenery is worse than hearing it, but I think what I see is more beautiful than what I hear?

It was past ten in the morning when we arrived at our destination, Tianhan Station.

The three of them got off the train and were met on the platform by someone holding a sign that read "Welcome Comrades Fang Minghua and Lu Yao, Vice Chairman of the Qin Province Writers Association, to Tianhan."

Not a staff member of Tianhan Writers Association.

This time Fang Minghua and his colleagues discussed privately that it was just a private trip and set several rules: one, not to disturb literary friends; two, not to alarm the authorities; three, after finishing the interview, return to Xijing.

The people who met us at the station were the deputy director of Tianhan Pharmaceutical Factory named Li and a staff member.

Tianhan Pharmaceutical Factory is one of them, and they are also one of the sponsors of this trip to Tianhan.

By the end of the 1980s, with the development of the commodity economy, many companies began to focus on publicity, and it became a fashion to find writers to write documentary reports for the company or even its leaders.

Historically, Lu Yao once wrote a report for a certain enterprise, but at that time he was doing it to earn some writing fees because he was short of money.

But this time, I was just helping a friend.
After introducing each other, Director Li and the staff attentively helped the three people carry their travel bags out of the station and got into a red Santana.

"Chairman Lu, Chairman Fang, and Editor-in-Chief Xu, please stay at our factory first and have a simple lunch at noon. In the afternoon, our Director Tang will host a symposium, and then we will visit the workshop. Tomorrow we will visit the ancient Han Terrace and the Baohe Plank Road."

In the car, Director Li told the three people about the arrangements for the next two days, and naturally everyone had no objections.

Tianhan Pharmaceutical Factory is located in the northern suburbs of the city. In the car, I heard Director Li say that their factory was built with the help of Xijing Pharmaceutical Factory during the Third Front Construction period in 1970. The first batch of entrepreneurs came to Tianhan from Xi'an and other places and started the arduous business of building the factory and producing at the same time. Now the enterprise has developed into a medium-sized pharmaceutical enterprise of considerable scale, with good benefits and a small reputation in the industry.

Fang Minghua and others drove to the factory and found that there were branch schools, technical schools, and hospitals everywhere, just like a small society.

Living in the factory's expert building, although the lunch was a light meal, it was still very rich. Fang Minghua especially liked the local rice noodles, but they were called "noodles" in Tianhan. I heard that it was authentic to eat them steamed in the morning and paired with a bowl of local vegetable tofu. Fang Minghua drooled when he heard this.

Fortunately, Lu Yao couldn't drink, and there was a discussion in the afternoon, so Fang Minghua avoided drinking.

In the afternoon, Director Tang of Tianhan Pharmaceutical hosted a symposium to welcome Fang Minghua and his party. At the meeting, Lu Yao made a speech.

Of course, it was to praise all the employees of Tianhan Pharmaceutical Factory for their hard work and dedication to the benefit of the people. Another task was to advertise the "Chinese and Foreign Documentary Literature" magazine run by his good friend.

Fang Minghua felt that Lu Yao had good eloquence and had the potential to be a leader.
There was a sumptuous banquet in the evening, and early the next morning Director Li accompanied them to visit the ancient Han Terrace and Baohe River.

This is what Fang Minghua longs for.

Sightseeing is one thing, but when writing a travelogue, the focus is on these cultural relics. The first place we went to was the Baohe Plank Road.

Baohe River is located north of the city, less than 20 minutes' drive from Tianhan Pharmaceutical Factory. Fang Minghua and his team quickly arrived there in a Santana. Now this place has become a huge reservoir called Shimen Reservoir.

The three followed Director Liu up the ladder to the dam. In front of them was the reservoir, extending into the mountains. Next to it was National Highway 316, and the Tianhan urban area was faintly visible behind them.

"This is actually the Baogukou of the Baoxiadao Road, which was an ancient mountain road that crossed the Qinling Mountains. The Baoxiadao Road starts from Baogukou in the south, which is here, and ends at Xiegukou in the north at Xieyu Pass in Mei County."

Director Liu pointed to the hillside on the west side of the reservoir and said: "In 266 BC, after Fan Ju became the prime minister of Qin State, he decided to build the Baoxiang Plank Road and vigorously develop the traffic between Qin and Bashu, and finally "make the world fear Qin".

"At the end of the Qin Dynasty, the world was in chaos. Liu Bang, the King of Han, ascended the altar here and appointed generals. With Han's base here, he "openly repaired the plank road and secretly crossed Chencang" and went straight to Guanzhong, defeated the Overlord of Chu, and unified the world."

"The allusion of repairing the plank road in the open and marching through Chencang in secret comes from here." Director Liu said finally.

"I heard that Zhuge Liang also took this route during his Northern Expedition?" Xu Yue interrupted.

"Yes, it is this road. Zhuge Liang went to Qishan six times, and the last northern expedition was from Xiegu, that is, he went north from Baoxiade to attack Wei. Unfortunately, he failed in the end. Zhuge Liang is buried at the foot of Dingjun Mountain, and there is also his ancestral hall there. You can go and have a look." Director Liu continued.

"Unfortunately, due to the construction of the Baohe Reservoir, the water level rose and the stone gate of the plank road, Jiangjunpu, Baosipu, the cliff carvings of "Plank Road Pingge" and other ancient sites and plank road relics were submerged in the reservoir. The plank road you see was actually built in recent years."

"What a pity, what a pity." Lu Yao sighed repeatedly.

"It's a bit of a pity, but the construction of the Shimen Reservoir can irrigate 27 mu of fertile farmland, of which 16 mu is in Tianhan. It can be said to benefit the local area. The gains and losses depend on your perspective."

Director Liu sighed, and everyone fell into deep thought.

"Director Liu, I remember that Cao Cao of the Three Kingdoms seemed to have written a character here, called "Gunxue?" Fang Minghua asked as he thought of something.

"Editor Fang is indeed knowledgeable and talented." Director Liu said, "The two words written by Cao Cao were written on a huge rock in the river. Our city museum specially sent stonemasons to chisel the two words "衮雪" off the rock in the river and transported them to the museum for preservation. The general's platform we will visit when we return is part of the museum, and you can see it."

The group walked along the dam, watching and listening to Director Liu's introduction, and enjoying the beautiful scenery all around. Before they knew it, it was noon. They tried the famous local "Baohe Fish" at a small restaurant below the dam, and then drove to the city museum in the urban area.

The museum is composed of three historical sites: the Ancient Han Terrace, the General Worship Altar, and the Horse Drinking Pond. The Ancient Han Terrace is the site of Liu Bang's palace here, the General Worship Altar is the ancient altar where Liu Bang appointed Han Xin as a general, and the Horse Drinking Pond is said to be the place where Liu Bang's army in the Western Han Dynasty drank water when they were stationed in Hanzhong. These are all important historical sites of the museum.

In the museum's exhibition room, Fang Minghua saw the "Gunxue" stone tablet.

The large Han Li characters look vigorous and powerful.

"The two characters 'Gunxue' are taken from the calligraphy masterpiece 'Thirteen Pieces of Han and Wei Dynasty', which is the only authentic handwriting of Cao Cao that can be seen," explained Director Liu.

"According to legend, Cao Cao stationed his troops at the mouth of Baogu to plan state affairs. Seeing the Baohe River rushing down, hitting rocks and flying flowers, he wrote the word "Gunxue" with a brush. His followers reminded him, "The word Gun is missing three water dots." Cao Cao clapped his hands and laughed, "How can a river be short of water?" This became a beautiful story that has been passed down through the ages. It was later engraved on a huge rock in the river and circulated."

Fang Minghua stood in front of the stone tablet and looked at it for a long time.

Lu Yao thought he was appreciating calligraphy - in addition to writing, this guy also likes calligraphy and painting, and he is now practicing calligraphy frantically at home.

Let's not disturb him, shall we?

Lu Yao and Xu Yue followed Director Liu to see other cultural relics, leaving Fang Minghua standing there in a daze.

In fact, Fang Minghua was not appreciating Cao Cao's calligraphy, but was thinking about his own travel notes - aren't these two words "Gunxue" a very good subject?
Gunxue, "Three Caos", "Seven Sages of the Jian'an Period", "Jian'an Style". Some people call it the "awakening age" of Chinese literature, because from this time on people began to realize that literature has its own value and independent status.

Ancient monuments, literature, history and ideological value are linked together through this stone carving.

Oh, isn’t this cultural essay?
(End of this chapter)