On the morning of March 26, 2021, the car passed the Wuzaogang Bridge on Ruipu Road, Pudong, Shanghai, and occasionally saw the Yongji Bridge at the east entrance of Shenzhuangtang Xiantang Port on the west side. I couldn't help but remember that it had been a long time since I had visited this ancient stone bridge, built in the 11th year of Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty (AD 1672), and the Shenzhuang Old Street where it was located
After I finished, I wanted to take a walk and take a look when I wanted to smoke.

Shenzhuang has gradually become a village since the Yuan Dynasty. Shen Weisi (also known as Gongchang), the younger brother of Shen Wansan, the richest man in the south of the Yangtze River at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, once purchased a manor here. It was large-scale and quite famous. It was called "Shen's Tian Village", and Shenzhuang was named after it. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the Republic of China, Shenzhuang was like a water town market town on the west bank of Xiantang Port in Nanhui. After its brilliance, it returned to dullness. After the middle of the last century, Shenzhuang gradually became sparse and reduced to two ordinary villages belonging to different towns: Shenzhuangtang is the boundary river, and to the north of the river is Shenxi Village, Zhoupu Town, Nanhui, Shanghai, or Pudong. To the south of the river is Shenzhuang Village, Hangtou Town (Xiasha). The ancient market town style of the Jiangnan water town is gradually disappearing.

As a former water town market town, there are still relics to be found in Shenzhuang Street along the north-south direction on the west bank of Xiantang Port and the Yongji Bridge across Shenzhuangtang. One evening in January 2011, I made a special visit while passing through Shenzhuang from Zhaojialou Ancient Town in Pujiang. Because it has not been protected or even listed as a demolition scope in recent years, the ancient water town on the edge of Xiantang Port has long lost its former scenery. Shenzhuang Street is fragmented and left to fend for itself. Old buildings are disappearing, and the blue brick-paved spring road is also gradually fading.

On the evening of April 5, 2021, I walked into Shenzhuang again. After not seeing each other for many years, under the atmosphere of rumors of demolition, the market town of Shenzhuang Water Town has become even worse and has become dilapidated.

Cross the winding alleys from Ruihe Road into Shenzhuang Street, and go straight north to Yongji Bridge.

This granite single-hole stone arch bridge located at the intersection of Shenzhuangtang and Xiantang Port was funded by Zhang Bicheng and has been around for nearly 349 years.

Yongji Bridge is 35 meters long, has a span of 22 meters, a net span of 7 meters, a width of 3.5 meters, and a height of 3.8 meters. There are 23 stone steps at both north and south ends. The bridge hole has 6 stone slabs horizontally and 7 stone slabs and 6 pillow stones vertically.

The name of "Yongji Bridge" is engraved on the beam stone of Yongji Bridge, and auspicious clouds are also engraved on both sides.

The bridges engraved on the north, south and east and west sides are all "Nanwu Amitabha".

Time has changed, and it is difficult to appreciate the quiet and far-reaching scenery of Yongji Bridge and "Hongqiao Night Moon", one of the "Eight Scenes of Hesha".

The style of Shenzhuang Ancient Town has been reduced to fragments, and only the corner of the southeastern edge of Yongji Bridge can be seen.

Standing on the Yongji Bridge, you can see high-rise apartment buildings on the east and west sides of Xiantang Port and on the north and south sides of Wuzao Port in the east of Xiantang Port; Shenzhuangtang under the Yongji Bridge has been silted up, and the northern section of Shenzhuang Street and Shenzhuang West Street north of the Yongji Bridge have disappeared and replaced it with Huifeng Apartment Buildings in Taoyuan New City.

Along the Yongji Bridge, new and old, day and night, time is like flowing water. The vicissitudes and changes are silent. The scene of the ancient market town of the water town has gradually disappeared.

I remember when I arrived in Shenzhuang in January 2011, I traveled eastwards from Shenzhuang West Street at the intersection of Shangnan Highway in Shenzhuangtang, and turned southward from Shenzhuang Street to Yongji Bridge. At that time, Shenzhuang West Street and the northern section of Shenzhuang Street north of Yongji Bridge were still there although they were already deserted. There is also an ancestral hall of the Zhu family that once served as a school building for Shenzhuang Primary School on the West Street of Shenzhuang. You can still vaguely see Chairman Mao's quotations written in the 1960s and 1970s on the walls. The northern section of Shenzhuang Street was also called "Pawn Street" in the old days because there were many pawn shops on the street. Of course, in 2011, the northern section of Shenzhuang Street had no trace of Pawn Street, leaving only a few farmhouses in the tens of meters long market.

Leave Yongji Bridge and head south along Shenzhuang Street. There are only a few scattered households left in the middle section of Shenzhuang Street between Yongji Bridge and the west end of Shenzhuang Bridge in Xiantang Port on Ruihe Road. Many houses along the street have become vacant or abandoned houses.

Lane 114, Shenzhuang Street, this somewhat dilapidated old house with "one main and two wings" is called "Qixiu Hall", also known as "Xilu". It was built in the winter of the Bingchen Year of the Republic of China (1916) and was completed in the autumn of the Dingsi Year of the Republic of China (1917). It was jointly funded by Zhu Xiangfu (also known as Zhu Zihao), an industrialist in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, and Zhu Shuyuan, an educator.

This Chinese-Western building has experienced many vicissitudes. It has once been stationed in the army and has also served as a hospital, mushroom factory, hardware factory house and private house. It is said that only the Yongji Bridge and this Qixiu Hall will remain in Shenzhuang Street after demolition in the future.

Bypass the west end of Shenzhuang Bridge and come to the south section of Shenzhuang Street. Except for one or two scattered two-story old buildings that used to be shops, most of this section of street have transformed into ordinary farmhouses and no longer have the style of a market town.

The red word "demolition" written on the wall can be seen everywhere in the streets and alleys of Shenzhuang. It seems that even though only fragments of the town style of the water town are left, Shenzhuang Street will no longer exist. In the dusk, take another look at the Yongji Bridge and the silhouette of Shenzhuang Waterfront beside Xiantang Port. This is the last shadow of the ancient market town of Shenzhuang Watertown when it is about to disappear.