Qipan Mountain
Wang Qiaodong
“Seven days in the cave, a thousand years in the world”, tells the story of Wang Qiao cutting wood in the mountains and meeting immortals, watching chess and rotten Ke. Because of this legend, literati in the past dynasties liked to call themselves woodcutters. The place where the story takes place is in Yumei Village, Tiemen Town, Xin’an County, about 50 kilometers away from Luoyang.
The day before yesterday was Sunday, and I went to Langke Mountain to visit the ancients, and I inadvertently spent a whole day. Qipan Mountain, Yumei River, Dongzhen Temple…… The legend of Wang Qiao’s encounter with immortals was produced here, and the victory of Rotten Ke has already become one of the eight scenic spots of Xin’an.
There is still Wang Qiaodong in the mountain
The name of Rotten Ke Mountain comes from the legend of Wang Qiao (a saying Wang Qian) of the Jin Dynasty who cut the wood and met the immortals, and watched the chess of Rotten Ke. The morning before yesterday, I set off from Luoyang New District, went to Xin’an County via National Highway 310, and then traveled about 17 kilometers southwest to Yumei Village, Tiemen Town.
“Rotten Keshan is here. There is Wang Qiao Cave on the mountain, that is, the cave is true, there are signs on the side of the road, you continue to go south, just turn east after seeing the signs. “When I asked for directions, the villagers were enthusiastic in pointing me.
So, I followed the path to the cave temple. This is a rather spectacular temple, the courtyard is quaint, there are several thousand-year-old cypresses, and a Taoist with white hair is talking with several people in front of the steps. After listening to my explanation, someone volunteered to take me to see Wang Qiaodong.
Wang Qiao Cave is in the southern area of the Dongzhen Temple, which is said to be the place where Wang Qiao practiced to become an immortal, which once collapsed and was later repaired. We entered through a low hole, and there was a statue of Wang Qiao inside, which looked handsome and still looked like a teenager. “At that time, Wang Qiao was sixteen or seventeen years old, his family was poor, and he made a living by chopping wood.” Fan Xiaobin, 69, said that his home is in the nearby village of Shuiyuan, and that he has been playing on the Lanke Mountain since he was a child, and is very familiar with Wang Qiao’s story, which he wrote about Wang Qiao on the cave wall. Among them, “the prince went to seek immortals, and Dancheng entered the nine heavens.” Seven days in the cave, the world has been a thousand years”, he saw it on the bluestone tablet in the village when he was young, and it was copied down at that time, and now the monument can no longer be found.
According to Fan Xiaobin, Wang Qiao’s family lives in Caizhuang Village, not far from here. Legend has it that one day, Wang Qiao went up the mountain to chop wood, and suddenly smelled a strange fragrance, so he put down the axe and rope in his hand, and when he looked closer, it turned out to be two white-bearded old men playing chess. He watched from the side for a while, and before he knew it, he was fascinated. The trees on the mountain were yellow and green, and he didn’t notice it. When he remembered the ‘business’ of chopping wood, he hurriedly turned back to get the axe, and the handle of the axe was already rotten.
Wang Qiao hurried home, but found that no one in the village knew anyone. Someone asked him who he was, and he said it was Wang Qiao, but the other party didn’t believe it, saying that Wang Qiao was his ancestor, and he had never returned after going into the mountains to cut firewood, and he had been gone for hundreds of years. When Wang Qiao heard this, he knew that he had met the immortals, so he hurriedly returned to the mountain to find the two old men and wanted to worship them as teachers. The two old men entered the cave without saying a word, and Wang Qiao also followed, but when he came out of the cave, he saw the fire outside, and he was scared, so he hesitated and didn’t dare to go out, so the two immortals left. Wang Qiao regretted it, so he gave up the dust, cultivated in the cave, and finally became an immortal. Later, people called this mountain Rotten Ke Mountain, and this cave was called Wang Qiao Cave.
There is a cave in the cave view
Around the Northern Song Dynasty, in order to commemorate the immortal of Wang Qiao, people built a large-scale Taoist temple at the location of Wang Qiao Cave in Langke Mountain, which is the true view of the cave. This Quanzhen Taoist temple was destroyed by the Jin people, and in the Yuan Dynasty, the royal family attached great importance to it, and issued three holy decrees to rebuild it as a place of royal prayer.
Nowadays, in front of Wang Qiao Cave, there is a tall “rejuvenating Xin’an Cave Zhenguan Monument”, which was erected in the Yuan Dynasty, which should be the earliest existing inscription of the Cave Zhenguan. The front of this stele records the legend of Wang Qiao Chengxian and the process of rebuilding this view in October of the second year of Yuan Wuzong (1309 AD), and the author is Zhang Zhongshou, a famous calligrapher in the Yuan Dynasty. The back of the stele is engraved with a list of many donors, and Fan Xiaobin pointed to one of the names and said, “This is my ancestor.” ”
Since the Yuan Dynasty, the Ming and Qing dynasties have also rebuilt the Dongzhen Temple, and the original architectural style has been retained. There are dozens of inscriptions of the past dynasties preserved in today’s view, or embedded in the wall, or standing on the ground, some of them are still written in Mongolian script, and the historical value and artistic value are very high. However, Fan Xiaobin said: “There are many fewer inscriptions now!” In the past, there were ancient monuments everywhere under this mountain, and in the 50s of the 20th century, they were all used to build reservoirs. ”
Before I knew it, at noon, the Taoist chief invited us to a fast meal, and I gladly obeyed. Passing through the two courtyards from south to north, the thousand-year-old cypress and the tall hall of the cave view came into view again, and I found that there is a cave here: for example, although the ancient cypress with towering branches has dried up, the scenic spots such as “cypress top tank” and “Huai cypress bridge” are still there; Sanqing Hall and Jade Emperor Hall not only have simple buildings, but also exquisite murals for people to enjoy…… As a cultural relics protection unit in Henan Province, this Taoist temple has a long history and rich historical and cultural connotations.
In front of the Sanqing Palace, Fan Xiaobin also told an anecdote: “Kang Youwei once came here with Zhang Fang to play, and after he read the inscriptions such as ‘Purple Qi Comes from the East’ and ‘Sanqing Treasure Palace’, he said, ‘This person must not die well’.” Sure enough, the person who wrote the inscription died in his 30s from the ‘knife runner’, and it was a man surnamed Yang in Tiemen Town. ”
Although the rice is simple, it tastes very good. Everyone basks in the sun and chats about the past in this quiet place, and time seems to stand still. For a moment, I felt that this was the desirable life of a “man in the cave”.
The Yumei River is accompanied by the Rotten Ke Mountain
Dongzhen Temple is located at the southwest foot of Langke Mountain, there is a spring water from the mountain gurgling down, converging into a small river, flowing to the northwest around the Taoist Temple, and finally flowing into the Jian River, this is the Yumei River named after Yumei Village.
The water quality of the Yumei River is very good, clear and sweet. Legend has it that Wu Zetian was the emperor in Luoyang that year, and he also sent people here to get water for cooking tea and brewing wine in the palace. Locals say that another peculiarity of this “backward river” is that the yolk of the ordinary duck egg is blue-yellow, while the duck eggs on the banks of the Yumei River are golden. With these two points alone, Yumei River is enough to make people proud.
Accompanied by the Yumei River, the Rotten Ke Mountain has already become a famous Taoist holy place in our country because of the legend of Wang Qiao’s encounter with immortals, and the Rotten Ke Victory is also one of the eight scenic spots of Xin’an. Of course, there is more than one Rotten Keshan in the country, in addition to Rotten Keshan in Xin’an County, Quzhou in Zhejiang, Luochuan in Shaanxi, Gaoyao in Guangdong, Wuxian in Jiangsu and other places. Zhang Zhongshou, who wrote the “Re-revival of Xin’an Cave Zhenguan Monument”, was a native of Qiantang (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang), and he wrote in “Rotten Keshan Poems”: “I was born in the mountains and rivers of the south of the Yangtze River, and I heard that there is Keshan in Sanqu…… I also heard that the Han Dynasty went to Henan Mansion, and there was a rotten Keshan very ancient. It can be seen that Xin’an County has a long history and popularity.
At the entrance of Wang Qiao’s cave, I saw the famous landscape of “falling trees into stones” in Langke Mountain, “the mountain stones are like rotten trees, and there are leaf marks when they are cut.” This stone is placed in the water, and the water can soak up to the top, so the locals call it “Shangshui Stone”. However, this kind of landscape is not all over the whole Lanke Mountain, but only exists around the Wangqiao Cave at the southern end, so it is particularly peculiar and precious.
“The Rotten Ke Mountain is not high, three or four miles long from north to south, and there are several mountains. Among them, the place where Wang Qiao watched chess was called Qipan Mountain, which was on the edge of Shuiyuan Village. Fan Xiaobin said. So we bid farewell to the Taoist of Dongzhen Temple, came to Shuiyuan Village in the north of Yumei Village, and quickly climbed to the top of the mountain.
Passing through a cotton field and walnut grove, I looked northeast in the direction Fan Xiaobin pointed, and saw a jutting boulder in the half-man-tall artemisia grass and thorns, which is said to be pressed down on the chessboard, hence the name Qipan Mountain. “Qipan Mountain is actually Lanke Mountain, and Caizhuang Village, where Wang Qiao’s family was located, was on the east side of the mountain.” He said that he used to do farm work on this mountain, once met a person, talked a lot about Wang Qiao, and couldn’t sleep at night after returning home, and since then he has been fascinated by this legendary story and the landscape of Rotten Ke Mountain, and summed up the eight views of Rotten Ke Mountain, including “falling trees into stones”.
It was getting late, I left Rotten Ke Mountain, drove back to Luoyang, and when I passed under the Qipan Mountain, I saw that the silhouette of the boulder became very small, as if a chess piece was inlaid on the mountainside – “Rotten Ke” has already become another name for Go, and the Qipan Mountain here and now is it more appropriate? (Reporter Zhang Guangying, text/photo)
