Dream of Blowing Mount Tai Outside the Asian Games Dragon Boat Race Field
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Go up to Mount Tai and see Old Pan.
It took forty minutes to take the cableway from Donggeng Village in Louqiao Street, Ouhai District, Wenzhou City. The mountain rain is about to come, and the footsteps are hurried. At the peak of Mount Fengtai, the lotus tip offers a panoramic view of the Ou Sea.
Located in the middle of the Ouhai Sea, Chuitai Mountain runs south-north and is the extension of Donggong Mountain across the border between Zhejiang and Fujian. Donggong Mountain is the extension of Mount Wuyi. In the aftermath of the blowing Tai Mountain, several peaks undulate and stretch into a long ridge, known as the "Dragon Ridge" of Wenzhou.
Donggeng Village is located at the foot of Caotai Mountain, with rare preservation of some old houses with two or three floors, cement surfaces, and deep gray leakage marks, attracting people to come and go. In recent years, the entire Ouhai has undergone a new look, with high-rise buildings rising from the ground, becoming a modern city. Donggeng is a corner that has not yet had a chance to change.
At the top of Mount Tai, there are countless ancient temples. According to records, Wuliang Temple was first built during the Eastern Jin Dynasty and was originally named Wuliang Fanyin Temple. First, it was a Taoist temple, which has been in decline for thousands of years and has now become a Buddhist temple.
The crimson courtyard wall has faded away and stretches upwards along the tip of Lotus Mountain. The lotus peak is pointed, and the mountain mist envelops the mountain peak in front of us, unable to move, leaving a vast expanse of white. When Lao Pan arrived, the sky was hoarse and the rain was even stronger. We hid under a corridor, listening to the sound of rain hitting the mountains and fields.
Lao Pan is guarding a homestay on Mount Chongtai. More than ten years ago, he was still the owner of a shoe material factory. The factory works day and night non-stop, and the glue on the shoe materials, over time, makes my throat and nose feel rough and uncomfortable. After admiring the scenery, rain, and dew of Mount Fengtai, Old Pan shut down the shoe factory. Since then, he has spent his time building houses, planting trees, and raising peacocks on this mountain every day. Nowadays, flowers and trees are like a canopy, and peacocks flock together.
There are more than ten homestays, built according to the mountain terrain and located in a valley. There is another temple called Baiyun Temple located high in the valley, which can be seen from a distance. A mountain stream runs down from it. In the rainy season of Jiangnan in August, the mountain streams rise and roar. Jingshan Kong Ling left carelessly, leaving only the rushing waters of the mountain stream. Our conversation was drowned out by the sound of water and rain.
In the pavilion next to the mountain stream, several plump peacocks are also taking shelter from the rain, like humans. I have heard that Old Pan has been raising peacocks on Mount Chongtai for more than ten years. When the weather is good, peacocks wander around. As soon as they saw visitors from the mountains, they all stepped forward and opened their screens, more ostentatious than the flowers and trees planted by Lao Pan.
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Listening to the anecdote of Old Pan raising peacocks brings back another ancient story.
On Mount Chongtai, the legend of Prince Jin blowing the sheng to attract the phoenix has left behind a historical site of the sheng playing platform.
Prince Jin Yuan was the Crown Prince of the Ling King of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. When he was young, he sat quietly and played sheng, with beautiful music like the sound of a phoenix. Later, Prince Jin traveled to the present-day Yiluo River area and met the immortal Fuqiu Sheng halfway, so they went to Mount Song together. More than thirty years later, Prince Jin ascended with a crane. This is the legend of the Taoist "prince ascending to immortality".
Wang Zijin's birthplace is in Luoyang, Henan. But there are many legends about his association with Wenzhou. Apart from the blowing of Mount Tai in Ouhai, Wenzhou Yueqing means "clear and melodious music". Legend has it that Prince Jin rode a crane to this place, playing sheng and the music was melodious. The Wind Sheng Station on Mount Chongtai is now located in the signal tower of Wenzhou TV Station.
One year, Old Pan's peacock flew to this tall tower and couldn't come down. It flapped its wings and shook its tail, giving off a beautiful echo of "blowing sheng to attract phoenix". For a while, it became a beautiful topic in the mountains.
Many legends about Prince Jin in later generations mistakenly refer to playing the sheng to attract the phoenix as playing the xiao to attract the phoenix. Sheng Xiao is very different. The saying that sheng can attract phoenixes is first formed by the combination of bamboo tubes with different lengths and pronunciations in the shape of sheng. The long tubes extend out like the tail of a phoenix. There is a legend that the original sheng was made by N ü wa and named Sheng Huang. Sheng is derived from this as "life", corresponding to the three living things of Taoism.
During the Zhou to Spring and Autumn period, sheng was a common instrument in court music. At that time, the court had specialized "sheng masters". Sheng is in the murals of the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang, and is also one of the main musical instruments used in banquet, soaring and other scenes.
Sheng is divided into small and large sheng, and the small sheng is called "he". The "big sheng" is quite well-known, which is the "yu" in Mr. Dongguo's "making up numbers". It is said that many people use the yu to play at the same time, with a force of wind, rain, and thunder.
Since ancient times, music has played a crucial role in Taoism. Sheng is the immortal music played on Mount Tai, the sound of illusions and ideals. When Prince Jin drove away with a crane, the lingering sound still lingered. It is interesting that in real history, the musical elements of Mount Tai can indeed be tested.
In the early autumn of the third year of Yongchu in the Southern Song Dynasty, Xie Lingyun came to Yongjia County as the prefect. When he arrived at Mount Qiutai, he left behind a saying: "There are tall tung trees in Qiutai, all surrounded by a hundred. The solitary tung trees in Yiyang are considered inferior.". "Yiyang Lone Tree" refers to a good zither made of good wutong trees on the south slope of Yishan Mountain. The record means that the wutong trees on Chuitai Mountain are better than those on Yiyang Mountain for making zither.
About eighty years later, another prefect of Yongjia County, Qiu Chi, was playing the Taishan Falong Qin and gifted it to his friend Liu Yun, who was serving as the prefect of Wu Xing. The poetic meaning of "Qiu Chi gifting the qin and playing on the platform to produce tung trees" was passed down in a straight stream.
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Looking down from the height of Mount Fengtai, the city is surrounded by green mountains. After heavy rain, the clouds above surge, and black and white gray clouds change endlessly like ink droplets. As our friends who lead us up the mountain imagine, before the sea recedes, the stunning waves around Mount Tai crash on the shore, and the prince stands on the Wind Sheng Platform. Music plays, attracting colorful phoenixes.
Ouhai was once a sea area. In the Classic of Mountains and Seas, it is recorded that "Ou resides in the sea", hence the name Ou Sea. This island, which was originally submerged in the sea, has undergone several long geographical changes of "sea invasion and retreat" over five thousand years, and human activities on this land have gradually evolved into what it is today.
The person who first introduced the legend of Prince Jin "blowing sheng to attract phoenixes" to Mount Chongtai may have remembered Penglai, Yingzhou, and Fangzhang Island in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas". Using this as a metaphor, Prince Jin "came to" Ouhai "from Luoyang, and Mount Chongtai became the" Immortal Mountain on the Sea "of ancient Yongjia County. People from Gu Yongjia County, or those who come to Gu Yongjia County, imagine going to a farther sea to find Xiandao and meet immortals.
Why can the story of Prince Jin go so far?
Behind the legend of "Prince Fei Sheng", according to relatively reliable historical records, the real prince Jin died young at the age of only 18, but was highly praised by emperors throughout history. The title of "Prince Sheng Xian" was conferred by Empress Wu Zetian, and during the Five Dynasties period, he was conferred the title of "Yuan Bi Zhen Jun". Emperor Huizong of Song also conferred the title of "Yuan Ying Zhen Ren".
I prefer the prince Jin portrayed by literati.
Sheriff Xie Lingyun, who praised the wutong on Mount Tai, wrote a song "Prince Jin Praise": "The prince is clear and open again, and there is a lot of noise in the area. The noise is just like seeing the public on the floating hills, and we are in dispute with each other." The gratitude for indulging in mountains and waters is inseparable from the natural inaction of Taoism. What the poet yearns for is to escape from the hustle and bustle of the mortal world and hide in the quiet mountains and forests, just like Prince Jin and Duke Fuqiu.
Li Bai's pursuit of Prince Jin went from north to south. Before the age of thirty, he wrote "Four Poems of Feelings". The first sentence was "I love Prince Jin, and I have found the way to Yiluobin", with a sincere desire for the Tao. The fifth sentence was "The two immortals have gone far away, and my dreams are empty and earnest." However, he lamented that time flows like water. Li Bai's writing about Prince Jin is about himself, about his ideals and disappointments.
More than a decade later, at the age of 41, Li Bai bid farewell to his friend Yuan Danqiu by composing the "Phoenix Blowing Sheng Song": "Do not learn to play the Sheng Prince Jin, but once you encounter a floating hill, you will not return it." Yuan Danqiu was a recluse, and he also appeared in Li Bai's "General Drinking": "Cen Fuzi, Danqiu is born, when you are about to drink, the cup will not stop."
When composing the "Phoenix Blows Sheng Song", Yuan Danqiu accompanied Princess Yuzhen and her delegation from Luoyang to seek immortality and enlightenment, and arrived in Puyang where Li Bai was located. The route was basically consistent with Prince Jin's birth in Luoyang and his pursuit of immortality and enlightenment in the Yishui and Luoshui areas.
Seven years later, Li Bai traveled south and spent his entire life seeking enlightenment. He reached the closest distance to the sea and also the closest he had ever been to Mount Fengtai.
Ascending Tiantai Mountain to write "Tiantai Xiaowang": "The Tiantai is adjacent to the four Ming Dynasty, with the Huading towering over a hundred Yue. The gate is marked with the red city glow, and the tower is perched on the Cang Island moon. With a precarious view, one can climb straight down to see the Ming and Bohai Seas. The clouds hang down and the great Peng flip, and the waves and huge Ao disappear. The wind and tide are turbulent, and why do gods and monsters move? Seeing miracles without a trace, the heart of the good way never rests. Climbing a stick to pick the vermilion seeds, taking medicine to refine the golden bones. Feather is born, and one can lie in the Peng Que for a thousand springs?"
In the first four sentences, there is the sea, the moon, and imaginative great Peng and giant whale, as heroic as before. In the last four sentences, he sighed that he couldn't find any trace of immortals, and then asked how to grow feathers and go to Penglai for leisure?
At the Guoqing Temple in Tiantai Mountain, he may have "met" Prince Jin again - Prince Jin is already the Dharma protector of Tiantai Sect, the Galan God. In the Buddhist niche, the statue of Prince Jin is dressed in Taoist attire.
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After the sea handed over this land to the people on the land, mountain springs poured into the surface, and the ancient Ou Sea became the Venice of the East with a dense water network. A friend led us along the road to stroll along the Tanghe River. More than twenty years ago, he settled in Wenzhou from Lishui, and the locals all rowed small boats to go out, go to the countryside, watch movies, go shopping... At that time, every household had boats, and everyone had access to water.
We got off on a wide bridge, walked to the side of the bridge, and looked down at the dim river. The pond water was quiet. The water quietly retreats on this land, with towering buildings and interconnected roads in the new city, bustling with traffic. Water surges, an ancient way of life slowly fades away, and aquatic life condenses into specific seasons.
Recently, the dragon boat race at the Hangzhou Asian Games was held at the foot of Mount Qiutai. Standing on the high platform of Laopan Homestay, you can see the green dragon boat pool at the foot of the mountain. Ouhai is the hometown of dragon boats in China. The custom of dragon boat race has never stopped since the Tang and Song Dynasties.
Not long ago, coastal cities in Zhejiang welcomed the opening of the sea, with fishing boats racing to set sail. People living by the seaside still go to the sea, blowing up Mount Tai, entering ancient temples, praying and praying for peace.
When driving down, Old Pan drove very fast. He is extremely familiar with this road, but it is also a concern for him. A winding and winding path that sways people in all directions. It's difficult to walk on the road and do business on Mount Tai.
The phoenix is far away, the peacock is here, and there are also many mountain birds. Egrets and mountain sparrows, perhaps even Old Pan, have also been imbued with the fairy spirit of blowing Tai Mountain. They are not afraid of him. Eat his fruits and pick up the fish he raises. It's like this every year.
The legend of Prince Jin has been heard by Old Pan since he was young. As modern people, of course, they no longer believe in stories of immortality, nor do they have the delusion of eternal life. Fortunately, blowing wind, electricity, rain, and dew on Mount Tai can alleviate some worldly difficulties.
At night, we arrived at the Tanghe River again, waiting for a residential ship to travel between Rui'an and Ouhai. This ship is full of vegetables and fruits, and the boatman makes a living by trading vegetables and fruits on the ship all year round, hardly ever disembarking. We leaned in and tried to search for a subtle wave of water that was still rising in a hidden and quiet ancient painting.
