From the hotel where I condescend to sleep to the various beautiful places in Yangzhou, I have to walk on the street, and of course I will see various streetscapes. My hotel is basically in the center of Yangzhou's old city, the center of the ancient Guangling City. Guangling City was the foundation laid by King Fuchai of Wu to build Han City. It gradually developed through the expansion of the Han and Tang Dynasties. Now you can still see traces left over from the past in Guangling District, Yangzhou, most of which are relics of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Every ancient city has a center. The symbol in the center of the city is generally a bell tower, which uses the bell to command the daily lives of all living beings in the city. The center of Guangling City is a Siwang Pavilion.

The Siwang Pavilion leads directly to the East Gate and West Gate horizontally; it leads directly to the South Gate and North Gate vertically. It is at the intersection of the Cross Street that runs through the north, south and east, so you can look around. In ancient times, there should have been bells and drums in this building. Over the years, after several times, the traces of bells and drums could no longer be seen. In fact, this Siwang Pavilion is not in the geographical center of Guangling City. It is far from the east gate and close to the north gate.

I walked north from here and reached the North Gate intersection not far away. This street is not called "North Street" like other ancient cities, but is called "Wenhe North Road", indicating that there was a Wenhe River here in the past. The Wen River is very ancient. Among the twenty-four bridges, there must be some bridges above the majestic green waves of the Wen River, right? On both sides of Wenhe North Road are buildings along the street that have long been looked down on by people, and there is nothing to show. If I didn't say it here, you wouldn't have thought that it was the ancient North Street in the city, and there was also a famous Wen River covered under the road. At the end of Wenhe North Road heading north, it is a rather large intersection. Because there are too many branches, I can't call it an intersection. I can only call it a crab intersection. This intersection should be the north gate of Guangling City. There is an east-west river. Locals call it Waicheng River. After crossing this intersection, it is called Beimen Waijie Street.

I definitely couldn't walk outside the city to see the old streets of the ancient city. I headed east from this intersection and walked along the south of the outer city. This road is called Yanfu West Road and also carries historical sites of salt transportation in Yangzhou. While walking, I passed a ditch flowing south from the Waicheng River. The name was very scary, called the Xiao Qinhuai River. In ancient times, were there parties every night? Now it is a ditch where the moon does not shine. Not far after this ditch, a red wall flashed out in the green shade on the north bank of the Waicheng River.

This is a temple. Temples in the south usually have yellow exterior walls. If they have red walls, they must have been built by the emperor in the north. A closer look will reveal that the plaque on the entrance ticket reads "Imperial gift to Tianning Temple". Last time, the post in Geyuan said that under the World Heritage "Grand Canal", there are also some related buildings in Yangzhou, and this Tianning Temple is one of them.

According to Yangzhou's own people, Tianning Temple has many years. It is said that Tianning Temple in Yangzhou began in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It was originally Xie's residence, and later Xie Zi donated it as a temple. It is a very tragic merit to donate your house to a monk to recite scriptures, and sleep on the road yourself. Donating your house to a temple. Therefore, the story is too tragic and tragic to convince the public. Under different opinions, someone came forward and decided: Yangzhou Tianning Temple was built in the first year of Zhengsheng (695 AD) during the Tang and Wuzhou periods. Zhengsheng Temple was first read and listed as the first of all temples in Yangzhou. The Grand Temple of the Huayan Sect is recorded in the local chronicles of Yangzhou in the Song Dynasty. Later, during the Kaiyuan period when Li Longji, Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, established Buddhism, Kaiyuan temples were built in various states across the country. Yangzhou also built a Kaiyuan Temple east of the city. After the beginning of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty also learned from it and built Tianning Temple in various states across the country. At this time, Yangzhou's local finances coincided with the death of thin horses. Although thin horses had long hair, they really couldn't build a new temple, so they expropriated the Zhengsheng Temple and changed it to Tianning Temple. This is the cause of Tianning Temple in Yangzhou, and it is also the reason why there are so many Tianning Temple in the world. The imperial gift of Tianning Temple should be a good thing done by Emperor Huizong of Song Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, Tianning Temple was stationed in the temple by Emperor Kangxi during his southern tour. What is a residence? Di is to control traffic for the emperor, that is,"clear the road", whip those pedestrians on the road and force them to make way. Staying means that the thugs who wield the whip have stopped, which means that the emperor will not leave. Therefore, the emperor's business of staying in the hotel during his trip was later called staying. Emperor Kangxi's residence in Tianning Temple seems to have added glory and color to the temple, but in fact, it is not like that. Emperor Kangxi must not be very satisfied with staying here, so he followed him with no additional benefits after leaving. The "Chici" in the name of Tianning Temple is different from the "Chijian" of some other temples. The Chici is to give the original temple a new name and the building remains intact; while the Chijian is to build or rebuild the temple according to royal standards with the approval of the royal family. You see, the gate of Tianning Temple in Yangzhou and the visible roof inside are still gray tiles. If the temple gate plaque has the words "Imperial Construction", all these roof tiles can be replaced with yellow glazed tiles. After Emperor Kangxi returned to Beijing, he told his grandson Hongli,"Yangzhou Tianning Temple is not very good." No official and unofficial history of the Qing Dynasty say where Yangzhou Tianning Temple is not very good. Qianlong refused to stay in Tianning Temple during his southern tour, but built a palace on the west side of Tianning Temple. This palace is not simply for the emperor to "feed three and pour two" in one day. It also has a garden built inside, where you can arrange to find spring when you wake up from a dream and spend the flowers in front of the bottle. Qianlong also built a building in this garden and stored a set of hard copies of "Siku Quan Shu". You are right, this is Wenhui Pavilion.

During the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, the Taiping Army invaded Yangzhou and burned several fires at the same time. Tianning Temple and the palace were destroyed, and Wenhui Pavilion and its books were also destroyed. Tianning Temple was rebuilt during the Tongzhi period. Because Emperor Tongzhi was weak and refused to go to Jiangnan, no one took care of the ruins of Tianning Palace and was finally abandoned. New China built a new Xiyuan Hotel on the ruins of Tianning Palace. Anyway, the Qing Emperor will never come again. It would be better to build a new house and let us all live in it. Tianning Temple was rebuilt in the 1980s. When I stood by the river and looked at Tianning Temple, it was closed due to the epidemic. I was scratching my head on the roadside when I saw a sign on the roadside wall that read "Yangzhou Ancient Alley Tour". This location used to have a city gate, which was named Tianning Gate because it was close to Tianning Temple, and the street where you visit the ancient alley is called Tianning Gate Street.

Don't think that Tianningmen Street is a street, but in fact it is very narrow and just an alley.

We visited a garden in front of us and visited He Garden. Several private gardens were also seen in Slender West Lake. Those were not private houses, but suburban villas. You can often see calligraphy and paintings by the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou in these houses and gardens. They are all bought by the owners and hung in the house for elegant dancing. Hundreds of years later, these house owners have long been forgotten by most people, and they can only hang themselves in the ancestral temple. However, the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou are still well-known, hanging in museums around the world and traveling around the world. When the Eight Devils of Yangzhou were alive, their lives were quite miserable. Zheng Banqiao and Jin Nong both lived in the guest house of Tianning Temple for free sleep and vegetarian food. Jin Nong made a little money selling paintings before moving out of Tianning Temple and living in the Jingshe run by the temple. One of the eight monsters in Yangzhou who can achieve financial freedom is Luo Pin, a disciple of Jin Nong. Xiao Luo has no painting or craftsmanship, especially "Ghost Interest Picture". Luo Pin, the one who owns a house in Yangzhou, is not the income from selling paintings, but from his ancestors. Luo Pin's former residence is in a dead end alley at the deepest corner of the fork in another alley not far from this alley. I had to go and see Luo Pin's former residence. I made seven turns and asked three elders and four aunts. Only then did I reach the dead end alley where people and dogs run parallel when it was too wide to walk dogs. Outside the gate of Luo Pin's house sat an aunt selling snail powder and was cleaning up a pot of snails. The door of this aunt's house was basically the same as Luo Pin's house. If it weren't for the sign of Luopin's Former Residence Museum hanging by the door, you would have thought that this was just an ordinary person's home. Look, the artistic life of the eight monsters in Yangzhou, not to mention the world of Miserables, is incomparable to the world of other people's lives baked in salt.

Back on the main road, follow Tianningmen Street, the road becomes narrower and narrower. Suddenly, I heard the long-lost sound of knocking on a foreign iron sheet. Don't tell me, if a small tinker welding foreign iron sheets came to this old street, it would definitely be the most suitable one. It really happened to me.

I stepped forward and started chatting with this old man. He claimed to be the only black and white blacksmith left in Yangzhou City. I thought to myself, wasn't this the "last rose of summer"? I asked him what he was processing, and he said that it was a custom-made stove for mutton kebabs. I asked why not use cheap black iron sheets? He pouted into the room and said that he found black iron sheet unattractive. While we were talking, several passers-by put down the soy sauce bottles in their hands and surrounded us. When I saw that I was looked up to by so many people, I was a little embarrassed and said that I could still do this craft for a few years, but I was just doing some work that big factories couldn't do.

Say goodbye to the black-and-white blacksmith, walk south and move forward again, and you will reach a street called Caiyi Street. Caiyi Street runs east-west. To the east, it leads to the Dongguan Gate of Guangling City. To the west, you will know that it leads to Siwang Pavilion. I walked along Caiyi Street in the direction of Dongguan, and the first Yangzhou sign I saw was this.

The former "Yangzhou Master" was very famous. What major does this Yangzhou Master do? Pedicure, haircut and rub. The past Yangzhou masters are all doomed now. The pedicure masters on this street have placed pedicure at the top of the sign, and pedicures are pushed to the next line. Haircut? There is no one on this street. If there were any, it would be Teacher Tony from Dongguan. It's even more difficult to take a bath. Where is there a bathhouse nowadays? They are all "dead party clubs".

Look here.

Yangzhou fried rice is not uncommon and can be sold in restaurants anywhere in the country. Yangzhou old goose is very rare. The Chinese people traditionally drink old hen soup, but later the Cantonese stopped drinking it. The Cantonese let everyone drink old duck soup. Is this old goose soup? People said no, they said that people in Nanjing eat salted ducks, and we people in Yangzhou eat salted geese. I wanted to try it, but I saw that there was a public toilet in the same direction below. Come on, I'm not hungry yet. Besides, I forgot to bring my medicine when I went out, so I walked forward. If I am very hungry in a place like this, I must watch the location and distance of the public toilet before eating, so that I can go conveniently when I want to eat halfway through or more than half of the meal.

This house is interesting.

Hong Kong egg boy. The egg itself is a baby, will it lay eggs again? It wouldn't be talking about hairy eggs, would it? Recently I heard that a high-tech paper is about the return of cooked eggs to hatch chickens. Modern technology is not the most advanced, only more advanced. Thinking about it this way, it is understandable that eggs are born.

A shadow wall is seen on the south side of the street.

There is a big house opposite here. Turning around, it is indeed an old building. Look at those signs, the store downstairs has been open for many years.

After passing this intersection at the old downstairs and further east, you will find Yangzhou's old street reservation, called Dongguan Street. Nowadays, there is such an old street reservation in all major cities. After it is turned over, it will show everyone the pretend old street, such as Nanluogu Lane in Beijing.

Yoho! Are there still old Beijing cloth shoes on the old streets of Yangzhou? It turns out that it sells belts in the hot sales promotion area. It seems that the sales of old Beijing cloth shoes in Yangzhou are really poor, forcing the store to sell trousers and belts.

Yangzhou Lion Head is of course a well-known Yangzhou specialty in the world. "Made purely by hand", could this Yangzhou lion head be stepped on? I wanted to go in and taste it, but it could be seen that his square benches were leaning against the wall. I didn't dare to go in. I didn't have the ability to eat against the wall.

"Bombing big squid." Chinese people call Home Party a home party. Is this bombing Home Fried? But wasn't this blown up on the street? It should be called Public Fried, which means "afraid of frying big squid".

As the saying goes,"Good wine is not afraid of deep alleys." This good tea is probably not afraid of deep alleys. To be honest, I'm afraid the business of this teahouse in the alley is still poor, so I want to hang a portrait of Lei Feng. It means that they are not selling tea, just to do good deeds without leaving a name.

Look at the "curved ruler counter" mentioned in Lu Xun's "Kong Yiji". This sells pickles."Pickles are wine, and the more you drink, the more you will get."

An old house with the words "Memorial Hall". A closer look at the sign, it is "Zhang Yuliang's Former Residence". Zhang Yuliang's official name is Pan Zhang Yuliang, and Pan is her husband's family name. In fact, her real name is not Zhang Yuliang, but Chen Yuqing. This is the old house where Zhang Yuliang was born. Later, he wandered around and studied painting with Liu Haisu. He finally lived in France and died there.

After passing the Pan Yuliang Memorial Hall, you can see the eight-character shadow wall on the south side of the road, which is the gate of the Yellow House in Geyuan. I entered Geyuan and went around for a long time. I passed through Geyuan and went out from the north gate, leaving the famous travel article "Spring Breeze, Yangzhou Road 3: Geyuan." The street from Geyuan is Yanfu East Road. If you continue to walk east, you will reach the easternmost end of Dongguan Street. There is indeed a Dongguan City Gate here.

The city gate was the location of the city gate in the Song Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty should have been a Tucheng. Now the brickwork outside this city platform is in the Ming Dynasty style, and the tower tower is in the imitation of the Song Dynasty. According to the instructions next to it, this city gate still existed in the early Republic of China. There was a large pit next to it, which was said to be the site of the city gate in the Song Dynasty. Therefore, the city gate being rebuilt now is the gate of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In fact, the city tower above it is more appropriate to imitate the Ming and Qing Dynasties. After entering the gate of Dongguan, I look back again.

You can see the high fire walls of old houses on both sides of the street. This street is still Dongguan Street. Take a look at the department store closest to Hyundai on the left of Dongguan.

Sixi Tangyuan.

The Sixi Tangyuan that impressed me most was the four-color dumpling made in Xinjiekou, Nanjing in the 1970s. It was located across the road from Xinjiekou Department Store and now at the Jinling Hotel. It was banned when the Jinling Hotel was built. In recent years, I have asked old Nanjing people about its whereabouts, but no one knows.

When the four-color dumpling is served out, four rice balls of different colors and the same size are soaked in one bowl. They are not the size of the northern Lantern Festival, but are almost the size of the northern Sixi meatballs. There are four different fillings in it, including pork, sesame seeds, bean paste and an unknown sweet thing. Nanjing's four-color dumpling is deeply remembered, as is another store in Nanjing that year, a time-honored crab yellow dumpling in the northeast corner of Old Gulou Square.

This Lai's Four Xi Tangyuan in Dongguan Street, Yangzhou seems to have four types of fillings: home-cooked sauté, boiled dried shredded silk, duck blood vermicelli and lion's head. I love all four things, but I can't imagine the taste of making them into stuffing and wrapping them in glutinous rice balls. His house seems to also sell wontons. I wonder if they are cooked in one pot with glutinous rice balls. I didn't dare to try this innovative glutinous rice dumpling.

This is also an old shop below. I don't know if it is "Xi Yu Chun" or "Spring Yu Xi", a snack bar. It must be Xi Yuchun,"Those Chunni who can't escape are really poor"?

The old shop above seems to be not old enough. I saw another shop next to it, and the door was very old.

His house is called "Baoshui", and he said that it is also excellent in soup dumplings. I went in and ordered a cage of crab roe soup dumplings and served it with a bowl of fresh meat wontons. The dumplings were traditional small steamed dumplings, not large dumplings the size of a palm. They tasted quite good. But it is still a lot worse than the one I ate in Nanjing back then. Back then, I ate crab roe in August in Nanjing, but this time it is March. The difference in taste is due to this and it is not in season. That bowl of wontons is really adequate. I would say it was a pot of wontons. This wonton tastes average. The southern wonton tastes better than the northern ones. That's because its soup is better. Therefore, dumplings are for eating stuffing, and wontons are for drinking soup. The chicken soup wontons in the south are really chicken soup, but the chicken soup wontons in the north are really diluted ten times. Now, even Yangzhou wontons use chicken essence to forge chicken soup. However, the filling in this pot of wonton is indeed fresh meat. Don't deceive me. A family of three old Beijingers sat down at the adjacent table. Each of them ordered a bowl of wontons, a drawer of soup dumplings, and several snacks. I quickly told them to change three bowls of wontons into one bowl. Three bowls are really too good here. According to the way they eat, they turn around and hold the wall. Don't say anything, they can't even stand up.

When I finished eating and came out, the sun was already setting in the west.

Tourists are all looking for food everywhere.

The loneliest shop owner during dinner time.

It seems that there is a reason for his loneliness. His shop and pedicure shop are open together, how can he not be lonely? People don't know what he's cooking in the pot.

This is the most prosperous restaurant on the street below. When you go up, you will find that it is nothing more than crude food.

It seems that everyone is now trying to maintain health, eating only coarse tea and rice, and not even drinking alcohol. The door to the tavern below seemed empty.

After the meal, it's time to see the fragrance on your face. It's food and clothing and lust.

In the past, Suzhou Rouge Yangzhou Powder was said, so many cosmetics and powder shops were opened on this street. It is said that the most famous one in Yangzhou is the following one.

Xie Fuchun was a shop in the Daoguang period. They said it was the first cosmetics shop in China and had a long history. Don't wait for a while, wait for a long time. There are thousands of gold in the country, and no bad brooms are sold.

Ancient Yangzhou beauties had a full meal, applied rouge and powder, and had to wear silk and satin? You can't just put it on your body casually, you have to pay attention to a style. What style? This is the following one. No matter how beautiful the beauty is, she will look unparalleled in this.

Dongguan Street was the most prosperous street in Yangzhou in the past. Those who could buy premises on this street were all large households. The Huang family in that garden is a big family, right? Zhang Yuliang's family must have been rich, at least bigger than the Yangzhou Eight Devils Luo Pin's family who lives in a dead end alley. Look at the one below, the Hu mansion next to the Huang House in Geyuan.

This "Hu" is talking about Hu Zhonghan. This is his old house. During the Republic of China, he opened a bank in Nantong. During the Republic of China, banks were no longer able to defeat banks. There was no choice, so Hu Zhonghan had to close the bank and become a manager in someone else's bank. The bank manager worked very hard, and Manager Hu became sick from exhaustion. Manager Hu returned to his old house in Yangzhou to recuperate, but he didn't know when he sold out the house.

Manager Hu's house is not bad, but someone rebuilt it. Look at the Xu family's house below. Not only is it dilapidated, it doesn't even know what words "s" represent.

The old house on the south of the street below is named after my description and is called the "South Street Bookstore".

According to the introduction, the owner of this house is called Ma Yueguan, a big boss of the Yangzhou Salt Gang in the early Qing Dynasty before Huang Zhiyun in Geyuan, and he was also very powerful. Ma Yueguan loves reading, and he has built a collection of books in the Little Linglong Mountain at home. The Ma family had quite a lot of books. When Qianlong compiled "Siku Quan Shu", his family donated many books, more than Ningbo Tianyi Pavilion. The Ma family fell relatively early. When Huang Zhiyun made his fortune, the Ma family had already declined to the point of selling houses. The Huang family took over the Xiao Linglong Mountain Pavilion of the Ma family and then moved to Geyuan to build a book collection building. I walked to the door and wanted to go in and have a look, but the doorman asked me to go to the side door to check in. It turns out that this place is now an inn, and you have to read at night to visit it. Forget it, this night's reading was not a one-night effort. I'll go.

Walking back to Siwang Pavilion, it was already dark.

There is a Yiyuan Hotel next to Siwang Pavilion. When I asked local people about delicious Huaiyang restaurants, they most recommended this one as a good, big restaurant and very authentic. The next day, I tasted it at the restaurant on the second floor of Yiyuan Hotel. There was a steamed crab meal lion head, a large boiled dried shredded silk, and a bowl of Wensi tofu soup. The taste was really good. This Wensi tofu is shredded tofu. How thin is it? It's definitely not as thin as a girl's hair, which is about as thick as an old man's beard. A single brother at the next table had a plate of salted geese. I exchanged a small bowl of Wensi tofu for him to try it. The taste was also good. This salted goose and salted duck are completely different things. The salted goose should be eaten hot. It has been cooked for a long time, the meat is very rotten, and it is very delicious. Salted duck has a light taste, but this salty goose has a strong taste. I can eat both. In Yangzhou, I also ate the delicious soft fish belly of another restaurant. It was many times better than the fried eel paste made by Huaiyang Cuisine Restaurant in Beijing. The fried eel paste of Beijing Huaiyang vegetables has the taste of penicillin. I don't know if it was put by the chef or the fish farm. In order to block the taste of penicillin, the chef added a large amount of pepper noodles. What do you call that? The service in Yangzhou's big restaurants is absolutely poor, maybe as bad as Tianjin Goubuli. The service in small restaurants is good. It seems that the service gap between selling rice for public service and selling rice for private service is the same across the country. Fortunately, the taste of Yangzhou restaurants is absolutely good. Anyway, I don't eat waiters, I eat vegetables, and I put up with those waiters. Hmph, don't let me meet you on the street!

By the way, there is now a high-speed train between Beijing and Yangzhou, from Beijing south to Yangzhou east. The previous sleeper train from Beijing to Yangzhou was stopped.

Yangzhou is really good, the scenery of Slender West Lake is really good, the ancient garden buildings are really good, and the Huaiyang cuisine tastes really good.

(To be continued)