Huangshan Tunxi Old Street is an old street that has perfectly preserved a large number of ancient buildings. It represents the commercial culture and life style of Hui merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. This is an existence of great historical research value. Let me share with you a detailed overview of Huangshan Tunxi Old Street. Tunxi Old Street is a well-preserved Huizhou (commercial) ancient street.
In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Huizhou merchants were extremely wealthy and famous throughout the country, creating a heyday of extensive and profound Huizhou culture;
To this day, the Tunxi Old Street in Huangshan City still retains the simplicity and elegance of the Southern Song Dynasty. With its Ming and Qing style, it is the best-preserved Huizhou ancient street in China.
Tunxi Old Street is a national key cultural relic protection unit. In 2009, it was elected as a "Famous Historical and Cultural Street in China" together with Beijing Guozijian Street and Suzhou Pingjiang Road.
Tunxi Old Street is located in the center of Tunxi District, Huangshan City, with mountains to the north and water to the south. It has a total length of 1,272 meters, including 1 straight street, 3 horizontal streets and 18 alleys. The entire streets and lanes, composed of more than 300 Hui-style buildings built in different years, are distributed in a fish-frame shape, narrow in the west and wider in the east.
Because Tunxi Old Street is located at the confluence of the Hengjiang River, Lushui River and Xin'an River, it is also known as the "Flowing Riverside Scene during Qingming Festival". Anhui's famous smelly mandarin fish
The formation and development of the old street are inseparable from the move of the capital to Lin'an (today's Hangzhou) in the Southern Song Dynasty. After successful businessmen from Huizhou returned to their hometown, they imitated the architectural style of Songcheng and built a lot of construction projects in their hometown, so the old street was called Songcheng.
When you walk into Tunxi Old Street, you will see small green tiles, white powder walls, horse head walls, and antique Huizhou buildings.
Most of the shops in the old street are single-bay, usually two floors, and a few are three floors. The shops are separated by horse head walls and covered with small blue tiles on the roof.
The old street is naturally formed according to the topography of the mountains and rivers. The street is slightly curved and the pavement on the street is brown red granite. The shops on both sides of the street are stacked in an orderly manner, all of which are brick and wood structures with whitewashed walls. Black tiles;
The window lattice and door lintels have brick and wood carvings with exquisite craftsmanship; between the houses are high horse-head walls, which constitute the beauty of the Huizhou architectural group.
Old street stores mainly sell Anhui’s famous native products, Anhui cuisine and the Four Treasures of the Study,
including: Huangshan Shaobing, edamame tofu, stinky mandarin fish, stone fungus, shiitake mushrooms, and bamboo shoots , pickles, Xiu Sao tarts, etc., as well as national intangible cultural heritage crafts such as Hui ink, She inkstone, Hui lacquer;
Qimen black tea, Tunxi green tea, Huangshan Maofeng, Taiping Houkui, etc. are famous Huangshan famous tea at home and abroad. Huangshan Shaobing on Tunxi Street
There are many museums on the old street, among which the Tunxi Museum is the only national museum. In 2012, it was transformed into the "Tunxi Old Street Community Museum
". Wancuilou, another museum on the old street, is China's first private museum in the shape of an ancient building. It covers an area of ??more than 2,000 square meters and combines the styles of Huizhou folk houses, gardens, mansions and shops.
If you want to have a deeper understanding of Huizhou culture, you can visit the China Huizhou Culture Museum.
In the museum, you can see the great landscapes of Xin'an, Huizhou and Huizhou people, Huizhou merchants in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Huizhou women, Southeast Zou Lu, Cheng Zhuqueli, Huizhou clans, Xin'an medicine, science and technology star, and study Treasures, Xin'an School of Painting, Huizhou Prints, Huizhou Seal Engravings, Huizhou Villages, Huizhou Houses, Huizhou Three Sculptures, etc. The famous Hui ink and She inkstones.
The preservation of Tunxi Old Street is not complete. It can only be said that the overall framework has been passed down relatively completely. The existing historic building is one-third of its original size.
It has experienced many hardships and twists and turns in the last century. After liberation, some buildings were demolished for urban development and construction. It is the remaining one-third that tourists enjoy.
There used to be three streets in Tunxi Old Street. One main street, one river street, and one back street.
『
He Street』 is now Binjiang West Road. It once played an important role as a water port. The old people said that there used to be many small cargo sailing boats with masts in the river (not the same as the cargo ships in Shexian County), with deep water, shoals and trackers.
At that time, there was no Xin'an River Dam (i.e. artificial lake: Qiandao Lake) blocking the downstream. Huizhou merchants used waterways to transport tea, wood, four treasures of the study and other materials to various places, and daily necessities from various places were also transported by waterways. Back to local.
There are many households in the "Back Street" and many mansions of Huizhou merchants. That is now Yan'an Road.
The "Main Street" is the existing part of the street. There are various shops on the street, such as pawn shops, tea shops, medicine shops, restaurants, ink shops, four treasures of the study, etc.;
Various trade associations have been established one after another (in 1925, assistance activities were held for the May 30th Massacre), including the tea lacquer industry, cloth industry, traditional Chinese medicine industry, department store industry, jewelry industry, tobacco industry, clothing appraisal industry, and vegetable and noodle restaurants Industry and so on.
In 1915, Hu Kaiwenmo won the Panama Gold Medal, in 1922, the Yongming Electric Light Company was founded, in 1929, the Fu'an Yanglong Fire Fighting Association was established, in 1932, the Dacong Telephone Company was founded, and in 1934, the new Bank of China building was built in Tunxi Old Street. Completed.
The first open-air movie theater opened in 1937
The first, second and third roads also have different names. The nearest ones are called Shangzhongxiama Road. During the Republic of China, they were called Minsheng Street, Minzu Street, and Minquan Street. There is also an earlier call.
Historical events
In 1929, Zhu Laowu burned down Tunxi Street. Folk song "On the first day of the Qingming Festival, the bandits came to Tunxi. Tunxi burned bitterly and met Zhu Laowu. Tunxi burned poor and harmed Wang Zhongrong."
In 1939, Japanese planes bombed and dropped bombs.
In 1949, Liu Ruming’s troops burned down He Street. After liberation, major construction was carried out on River Street and Back Street.
So only the existing parts are left, and the overall framework is still completely preserved. The archway in the old street was originally a Ming Dynasty-style painted wooden archway, but was changed to a brick archway in the early 1990s. Major changes have been made around the archway.
Existing part
On the main street, the storefronts and shops are undergoing a major overhaul. It used to be a time-honored brand with a wide range of varieties; in the 1970s and 1980s, it was a street of four treasures of study; now it is a street of tourist products (the same as all over the country, too much homogeneity). In other words, tourists say that the modern atmosphere is getting stronger and stronger, and the unique temperament is missing.
The decoration design of Road 1, 2, and 3 is very problematic and nondescript. The light poles and floor tiles are particularly out of place.
Recent planning
The modern buildings on Binjiang West Road have been demolished (residents have been resettled on the left bank of Evergrande Binjiang), and the style of the River Street part will be restored (i.e. antique buildings that integrate ancient and modern times) . It makes people feel that Tunxi Old Street was built in modern times.
Restore display
There is a "Zhaobi Nostalgic" scenic spot (i.e. three large screen walls) in the Xin'an River waterfront scenic spot in Huangshan City. On the back there is a painting called "Xin'an Landscape Scenery" 》 relief, on the first screen wall on the east side you can find the historical restoration of the river street part of Tunxi Old Street.
The exhibition hall on the 2nd floor of the Huangshan Urban Planning Exhibition Hall (located in the Huizhou Cultural Corridor Museum Group on Yingbin Avenue) has a large scroll-shaped screen that restores the colorful historical streets of Tunxi Old Street. Culture, although not complete or accurate, is at least a patchwork of people's memories from a certain era. The scene in the video of pouring night incense in the early morning and the endless hawking sounds in Tunxi dialect still made my eyes shine.