I took advantage of the weekend to go to Yangzhou for two days.

Wuxi to Yangzhou is about 160 kilometers away. It starts at 7:40. At 9:30, I am already sitting in the time-honored "Gonghe Chun" tea house in Yangzhou city, ordering a few small dishes and waiting to be served.

Eating morning tea has something in common in Huaiyang culture. Xinghua, Taizhou, and Jiangyan in Yancheng all have the saying of "having morning tea". When my aunt in Rugao City invited me that time, she also said: Come, tomorrow morning we will go to a soup dumpling shop near the park for morning tea! ", I haven't verified it. It's possible that this statement comes from the way Yangzhou people eat morning tea. After all, only when they have worries about clothing and money and leisure can they sit down and eat slowly, rather than soaking them in boiled water overnight and knocking on a salted duck egg to kill a breakfast.

The old man on the table next to him was wearing a white Hangluo coat and dark gray suit and shorts. In the weather of 41 degrees, the socks were neatly tied to the ankles, and the elastic soles were clean. He came over with a pot of tea and ordered a small steamed buns and ate them slowly with his wife.

There were also two old men at the next table who brought the medicinal wine to serve the vegetables. A ginseng grew, and the ginseng beard flew wantonly in the aroma of the wine.

Wuxi's Xiaolong steamed buns have full meat filling, which tastes fresh and sweet, and will be firm and juicy in one bite; Yangzhou's Xiaolong steamed buns have loose and more lively meat. It is not a strong bite, but seems to have the subtle crispy nature of water chestnuts in it, and the taste and color of the meat filling are much lighter.

Jade Shaomai, I thought the skin should be named because it was spinach green, but it was not; jade got its name from the stuffing it wrapped in, which is pure dark green, and the top of the Shaomai is inlaid with a slight goose yellow, which is the color of shredded carrot after steaming. The shepherd's purse stuffing does not have the dry taste of wild vegetables, and seems to have been steamed with vegetable oil. Wuxi cuisine has heavy sugar and thick oil and red sauce. Although it seems not healthy enough now, sweets make people happy to eat; Huaiyang cuisine is pure and pleasant, just like a small family in the 28th year, with light eyebrows, charm and elegance. It is natural.

Three fresh crispy rice crust is a dry-fried crispy rice crust. It is served with a bowl of hot sauce and dipped in it. The sauce contains four-color shredded silk, red (carrot), green (green vegetables), black (fungus), and white (mushroom).

Hot dried shredded silk is a dish that you need to order everywhere. It is just as delicious and refreshing, and one serving for each person does not feel burden on your stomach; there is a kind of "dumpling noodles" here, which are not dumplings. They are wonton and dough mixed in one pot. Maybe it is the delicacy of the meat used to make the wonton, and the boredom of making the noodles give the soup a soul meaning. The three delicacies wontons and shrimp wontons here are disappointing because there is too much pepper in the soup.

Although the oil cake is not good-looking, it tastes very good. On the surface of the red and green silk, there are layers of butter dough, which is slightly sweet. Ah Wu has already eaten it in two bites, and there are no photos.

Eating lotus root also gives you a variety. Freshly squeezed lotus root juice tastes grainy, and the taste is warm and slightly astringent; Sixi lotus root flour, four kinds of fillings, I only eat one of the taro paste flavors, which may be eaten too quickly; lotus root flour and red bean soup, matcha lotus root flour soup, are sprinkled with osmanthus on it. Take a color that looks good, the elegance of literati, and the matcha is a little sweeter.

My favorite is the lion's head. Go to the "Yangzhou Lion Building" on Dongguan Street to eat. Although the number of tourists coming to Yangzhou dropped sharply during the epidemic, this store was still full at 7 p.m. After ordering the food, it was found that although it was located in a tourist spot, the price was still very reasonable. As for the taste, the eyebrows are fresh! A small meatball, white and green, lies in a small bowl. It is cute and cute. It melts in the mouth. The meat is pink and the soup is delicious. I don't know how to cook it.

Order Wensi tofu for its sword skills. Cut a piece of tofu into wisps. The wisps are the arms growing out of the square tofu. They are boneless tentacles, rippling water plants, soft willow silk, and a piece of tofu that has transformed into an essence. Chefs who cook Huaiyang cuisine cannot be accomplished in half a year.

There is also a tea drink that is also extremely elegant. It's called "Green Wave Lotus". Green tea base, frozen horseshoe bursting beads, mini duckweed (probably copper coin grass) and small pink lotus flowers stand on the tea jelly, making the picture beautiful. With a cup in hand, the scorching heat disappeared. I really wanted to recite a few ancient poems about lotus flowers. I thought about it and finally couldn't.

To go to Slender West Lake, you pass through several dormitory areas at Yangzhou University. Yangzhou University was our former goal, but after comparing Jiangsu University, we still favor the former. Why are universities named after provinces and located in southern Jiangsu not as good as universities named after cities in northern Jiangsu? There is no reason-maybe it's bias.

Slender West Lake is not a complete lake, but a water surface connected by irregular water systems. The length, width, and volume are not astonishing. What is amazing is that once you arrive here, you seem to become "chasing the past" and recall the literati and poets who have been here, or the poems they left behind:

My old friend bid farewell to the Yellow Crane Tower in the west, and fireworks fell in Yangzhou in March. -- Li Bai

I have dreamed of Yangzhou for ten years and won the reputation of being a brothel. -- du mu

The spring breeze is ten miles across Yangzhou Road, but it's not as good as rolling a bead curtain. -- du mu

I would like to ask the friends in Jiangnan, who is like me and intoxicated Yangzhou? -- Su Shi

The world is three-part bright moon and night, and two-part rogue is Yangzhou. -- Xu ning

With a hundred thousand yuan wrapped around his waist, he rode a crane down to Yangzhou.

And "On the bright night of the twenty-fourth bridge, where does the jade man teach to play flute?" Under the high temperature of 41 degrees, the sky is as blue as a wash. The wind blows, and the water surface is slightly rippled. Such a breeze must have blown Du Mu's clothes. A talented person who became famous when he was young, was informal, and had a reputation for poetry and poetry, used the laughter of Goulan and Wa She to hide his anger and anger against his lofty aspirations.

It is said that Li Bai is a rich second generation. Although he does not have a hundred thousand yuan around his waist, he does not lack money. After staying in Yangzhou for half a year, he was unable to match the expenses here and left-this shows the prosperity of Yangzhou City back then.

Did this prosperity attract the Qing army and become a feast that cannot be ignored on the way to the south? In the second year of Shunzhi (1645), the Qing army besieged Yangzhou City on a large scale. Soon after the city was defeated, the Qing army slaughtered and plundered without sealing the sword for ten days. History said that Yangzhou had ten days, which was extremely tragic.

Yangzhou City, which has been prosperous for several generations, was "piled up with corpses, hands and feet resting on each other, blood entered the water and blue ochre, turning into five colors, and the pond became flat.""Front, rear, left, and right, were burned everywhere." Except for a few who escaped before the city was broken and some who survived after the Qing army entered the city, almost all of the residents were massacred. More than 800,000 bodies were collected by monks alone.

After the city was broken, Shi Kefa surrendered his neck and died. It was summer at that time and his remains could not be identified. His adopted son Stevie and the people then replaced him with Shi Kefa's clothes and buried him in Meihua Ridge outside the city.

Prosperity and ruins, charm and intensity, strangely blend into the character of this small town. In the same year, in Jiangyin, the Qing army also encountered fierce resistance for 81 days. When we know that the capital has been lost and the situation is over, what kind of spirit is it that supports these ordinary people who speak Wunong soft language, are either immersed in reading, are good at business, or are accustomed to enjoying themselves, and seem to only want to live their own small lives well, have become heroes who dare to give up everything?

If we do it again, will our ancestors who have passed away have different choices?

Buddhist compassion remains the same. From monk Jianzhen's eastward journey in the Tang Dynasty to local monks in the Qing Dynasty who collected the corpses of people behind a sea of blood, the teachings, or enlightenment, given by Buddhism were a kind of infiltration, sometimes without the use of language or other media. After Monk Jianzhen failed in his fifth eastward journey, he was blind and still crossed eastward to Japan again at the age of 60. This time, he succeeded and spread Buddhism and Sinology at Todaiji Temple in Nara until he passed away more than 10 years later.

The young monk, who became a monk in his 10s, went to school and his Buddhist attainments became increasingly improved. He died in a foreign country and was revered as an immortal and called the "Great Monk of the Tang Dynasty". With such a life script, if you open the beginning, how can you guess the end?

Slender West Lake and Daming Temple are connected together with a joint ticket; both places are worth taking a slow look and tasting carefully. One is the natural landscape and the other is the essence of humanity. The architectural style of Jianzhen Memorial Hall is particularly worth spending more time, with a distinctive Japanese courtyard style. The dazzling courtyard paved with white stones, the stone towers in the courtyard, and on the Hanshou corridors on both sides, the windows on the walls of the corridors are not Chinese-style brick windows, but Japanese-style wooden railings, vertical wooden fences, deep red lacquer, low and dim. It is said that this is the architectural style of the Tang Zhaoti Temple where Monk Jianzhen lived in Nara, Japan. The "Japanese" style we now call, the dry mountains and rivers, and the silent wind may all be part of the culture passed down to Japan from the Tang Dynasty.

At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the sun was very strong. Going west through the Daxiong Hall, you can't reach the rockery. Deep in the shade of green, there is a building "Pingshan Hall". In the hall is hung "The Story of the Drunken Man Pavilion" by Ouyang Xiu copied by Su Shi. The "Pingshan Hall" is taken from "The distant mountains come to level with this hall." Standing in front of the hall, the distant mountains are close to the trees, I can vividly remember this poem. It's really a great courage to keep in mind. Back then, when Ouyang Xiu, who called himself a drunkard, was the prefect of Yangzhou. He held a banquet with guests here and drank wine. He wrote:

My family has a collection of 10,000 volumes, collecting a collection of 1,000 volumes of relics of gold and stone from the three generations. There is a piano, a game of chess, and a pot of wine. As an old man, I am older than these five things. Isn't it a June 1?

It's easy and easy. How lucky it is to be able to grow old safely among these five things when the official world is ups and downs.

I have been to Yangzhou a few times, but I have never visited Slender West Lake every time, but I have gone to Geyuan and still go. This time I lived on Dongguan Street, and Geyuan was next door, so I got up early and visited Geyuan again.

Huang Zhiyun, the old owner of Geyuan, was a salt merchant who had been doing business for many years. In order to avoid worries for his family, he planted bamboo all over the newly built garden, meaning "bamboo is a tribute to peace", which also coincides with the word "bamboo" in his name. Because the word "ge" is flipped and pressed, shaped like a bamboo leaf, it is named "Geyuan".

Although the salt merchants at that time were doing business, they were not only Bai Ding who knew silver coins. They did things like scholars.

There are four views in the park. In spring, stalagmites are planted in the bamboo forest at the gate of the garden and break out of the ground, meaning "a beautiful scenery that I can't bear to hide, but it's the most affectionate bamboo that brings rain",'Cherish Spring ".

In summer, Taihu Lake stones are stacked into summer clouds, paying attention to "thinness","leakage","wrinkled" and "transparent", and paying attention to change. There is a pavilion on the rockery called the "Crane Pavilion". It is said that it is the place where the owner raises cranes. The pool in front of the pavilion looks very small, but the depth of the water is 3 meters.

Wrong, wrong, it is not "Crane Pavilion", but should be "Pine and Crane Pavilion". The word pine is not written, but a pine tree is planted. This pine tree is used to match the word "Crane". This is intentional.

In autumn, Anhui Huangshi is stacked into rockery, with maple trees planted in the mountains, and Huangshi has red leaves to choose its autumn color. There is a pavilion on the mountain. The owner stands here and can see from afar the docking of his own ships in the canal.

Winter scenery is particularly attentive-there is 24 wind-sound holes on an aisle wall in the house and courtyard. In winter, the wind passes through it, whistling sounds. The walls are close to the garden, and wintersweet and elm trees are planted. It takes more than a year to travel here-the rockery here is made of Xuancheng stones.

The study room was also placed in this corner, standing on another rockery. Reading is a matter of cultivating one's own character. It should be quiet, attentive, and less disturbing. Therefore, there is no door in front of the study room, and a small road is set up behind the house that winds up.

Just one question: How much does such a garden cost? Is there still a girl who can serve tea and water? Or the woman who cooks? In modern times, how many people can afford the maintenance cost? Food is without meat, and living is without bamboo. This realm needs to be maintained with the money of generations!

Don't laugh at me, because I have never seen the bad things of money. I only know how to covet its use and admire its exchange value. You have to wait until you have experienced all the prosperity before you realize that simplicity and emptiness have its own charm and beauty.