The three trees

The three trees that impressed me most in Quanzhou were the Prickly Tree that came across the ocean to Quanzhou, the ancient mulberry inside the Kaiyuan Temple, and the thousand-year-old banyan tree that grew on the stone.

One

Bai Yansong once said that Quanzhou is a city you have the opportunity to visit at least once in your life, Quanzhou alias prickly pine, prickly pine the two words, deeply burned in the days of Quanzhou people - Quanzhou has prickly pine port, prickly pine road, prickly pine park, prickly pine pavilion. The people of Quanzhou love the thorn tree, so the thorn tree is the city tree of Quanzhou, and the thorn tree flower is the city flower.

The acanthus tree is native to India and Malaysia, also known as the sea tree, mountain hibiscus, hollow tree, wood ivory red, etc., is the species of trees brought by the Quanzhou people to do business at sea, but in the end who is the first person to bring back the acanthus tree, there is no way to find out. However, the achievement of Quanzhou for the acanthopanax reputation, history is clearly recorded, he was called from the effect.

He was a native of Yongchun during the Five Dynasties, lost his father when he was young, and was a good reader, especially good at reading military books. He was very diligent and thrifty, and wore cloth. He was appointed to many official positions, one of them was the sectional governor of Qingyuan Army, and he was the assassin of Quanzhou, and later he was crowned the king of Jinjiang. He expanded the city of Quanzhou and ordered his generals to plant acanthus trees around the ring of Quanzhou. At the beginning of summer, the flowers of the Acanthopanax were in bloom, and the scenery was picturesque with red flowers outside the city of Quanzhou. He ruled Quanzhou for seventeen years and removed everything that was detrimental to the people. He was so respected that a family temple was built in his hometown to commemorate him.

I came to Quanzhou, pay special attention to the prickly tree, but learned that the coastal typhoons, prickly branches fragile and easy to break, in recent years to greening with other species instead. But I heard people say, in Quanzhou City, Hui'an County, Shanxia Town, mountainside village, there is an old party member named Yang Yongcheng, he used his pension to buy acanthus saplings, planted on both sides of the village road. More than thirty years, he planted a total of more than 5,000 trees before and after the bristlecone, and now more than 3,000 living bristlecone become a local wind and soil a scenic corridor.

I am a stranger to the bristlecone tree. I know the oil tree, its seeds can be extracted from industrial oil. Is it still the same as the paulownia? I grew up familiar with the paulownia, which is the great husband of the northern plains. Every day, I have to walk through the sycamore forest. In March and April, I like to raise my little face to look up at those swaying in the breeze, dense purple and pink trumpet flowers.

After learning about it, I learned that the bright, big red color is the characteristic of the acanthus flowers. When the flowers are in full bloom, such as the burning clouds in the sky. Quanzhou has a scholar Chen Xiaofeng who is also a businessman and a writer, known as Mr. Xiaofeng. He said to me, "Back then, foreign merchants called the silk, ceramics and tea produced in Quanzhou as prickly pine." Walking with him on top of this ancient land of Quanzhou, I suddenly felt that those ancient buildings were like the buds of the prickly pine, harboring a delightful vitality.

At 132 Wanshou Road, Nanmen, in the city of Carp, I was pierced by a gaze. The gaze came from a bronze-colored bust of Li Zhi, a brilliant thinker, writer and historian of the Ming Dynasty, in the small courtyard. The great master of the Taizhou school of thought advocated that literary creation should start from a "child's heart" and express true feelings. He also advocated equality between men and women, opposed to the emphasis on agriculture and business, and opposed to false Taoism. He believed that the common people had something to respect, and the noble people also had something vulgar ......

At the Li Zhi Exhibition Hall and Li Zhi Memorial Shrine in Xiangtang Village, Liuzhen Town, Nan'an City, I saw a full-body statue of Li Zhi, built on a small hill. He gazes like a torch, looking into the distance. At the foot of the hill, trees and trees of trillium were in full bloom, giving me the illusion that they were fiery red acanthus flowers. After listening to the introduction of local cultural scholars, I sincerely feel that Li Zhi's glorious thoughts are the gift of this land, which is why it has deep roots and a long history, and also carries the fireworks of the people at heart.

And Quanzhou, like a gorgeous open acanthus flower, every spot, every building, every river, every mountain in Quanzhou, is an indispensable petal. Local people say that when the acanthus flowers are in bloom, many Taiwanese of Min origin, like bees, fly back to Quanzhou to find their roots in their hometown, looking for their own petals of acanthus flowers ......

Two

I heart of the acanthus, always looking forward to meeting the acanthus, especially concerned about the appearance of large trees in my field of vision. In Quanzhou Kaiyuan Temple, I saw a temple of the temple's treasure - more than 1300 years ago, the ancient mulberry. This ancient tree, which has been through the ages, is famous for the white lotus flower that bloomed, and this is how the temple came to be known as the "Mulberry Lotus Monument".

Kaiyuan Temple was originally called Lotus Temple and was built in 686 in Tang Dynasty. There are 8 ancient trees in the temple listed as the first and second batch of ancient trees in Quanzhou City, and I was interested in this ancient mulberry tree alone.

It looks like this mulberry tree and my childhood picking mulberry tree is not much different. But look closer, it has a total of three major branches as a whole, one branch prostrate on the ground, with granite support; the other two branches of the trunk, but also dark. They are each independent, stretching in three directions, shaped like a three-petaled lotus. The leaves are slightly drooping, and the color is like the accumulated emerald ink, and when a breeze comes, it gives the feeling of "falling trees. But when you look at it again, you find that on each treetop, the buds are budding and full of vitality, as if they are nurturing a fresh life.

The reason why this ancient mulberry looks like this is because it has endured a great ordeal. It is said that in 1925, after it was struck by lightning, the thick tree was thus split into three, but it is still lush and green, showing the indomitable and valuable life.

In the Zunsheng Courtyard of Kaiyuan Temple, there are historical materials, photos, writings and ink treasures of Venerable Hong Yi (Li Shutong), one of the pioneers of China's new cultural movement and a modern monk who lived in Quanzhou for the last 14 years of his life. In my heart, Venerable Hong Yi is a pure white lotus flower on the mulberry tree. I once wrote for him, "Outside the pavilion, by the ancient road, the grass is blue and blue in the sky. The evening breeze brushes the willow and the sound of the flute remains, and the sun sets over the mountains. The end of the world, the corner of the earth, friends half fall, a pot of muddy wine exhausted the remaining joy, the night of farewell dream cold. I was so despondent, and I also lamented over his "mixed feelings of sadness and happiness". The couplet of Zhu Xi in the main hall of the Kaiyuan Temple, written by Li Shutong: "This place was called the Buddha's country in the past, and the streets were full of saints." There are very many stories in this, but I am extra concerned about the trees, perhaps because the National Forestry and Grass Bureau joined the family of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

Cai Xiang, a calligrapher of the Northern Song Dynasty who served twice as governor of Quanzhou, not only enjoyed planting trees but also authored two books, "The Book of Lychees" and "The Book of Tea".

There is a Luoyang Bridge in Quanzhou, once called "Wan'an Bridge", which is a bridge in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, China, connecting Taiwan Business Investment Zone and Luojiang District, located on the waterway of Luoyang River. It is one of the "Four Famous Bridges" in ancient times.

Luoyang River, Luoyang Bridge, from the name can be seen on the obvious regional imprint. In the early Tang Dynasty, many people from Henan Province migrated to Quanzhou because of the war in the Central Plains, so the language used in Quanzhou and the whole southern Fujian area was called He Luo, or Min Nan. Seeing that the landscape of Quanzhou was very much like that of their hometown Luoyang, they named many parts of the place the same as Luoyang, with their homesickness for their hometown.

When Cai Xiang came to Quanzhou as an official, he decided to build a bridge over the river, seeing that the river was so vast that it was inconvenient for people to travel, and that there were often cases of drowning and death. In order to build the bridge, Cai Xiang kept running around and organized fundraising, and it took him six years to raise the money to build the bridge. He used the principle of high tide and low tide to build the dam by building stones and breeding oysters on the stones, which are fast-growing, fertile and well cemented, and used this characteristic to strengthen the dam, which is the first example in the world to combine biology and architecture. In order to prevent people from digging oysters under the bridge, Cai Xiang also specifically legislated that if someone dared to dig oysters under the Luoyang Bridge, he would be punished by exile ...... Nowadays, there is not only a statue of Cai Xiang at the head of the Luoyang Bridge, but also a plaque of "the first bridge in the sea". The completion of Luoyang Bridge not only promoted the development of maritime trade, but also provided valuable experience for the construction of stone bridges in China.

Cai Xiang not only led the people to build the Luoyang Bridge, but also had people plant pine trees along the way on both sides of the bridge, from Fuzhou to Zhangzhou, pine trees stretched for more than 700 miles, benefiting people in a hurry, from the sun ...... listening to the legend, my ears seem to be "the pine, the pine, ask who planted it I Cai Gong The pine is a pine. The pedestrians do not know the department in June, thousands and thousands of years to shake the wind." The song of the song, they are like a gust of pine wind, rippling my heart.

Three

When I look at the gate of South Wudang Mountain, it is wrapped in a rich green. The green was like a pile of green clouds that surged. When I got closer, it was an ancient banyan tree. Its huge crown and thick branches spread up and down, covering half of the courtyard. I heard people say that a banyan tree can become a forest by itself, and it's true.

There is no soil under its feet, just rocks. One stone is next to another, and the roots of the banyan tree are embedded in the cracks of the stones. Its huge body stands on top of the rocks, about 20 meters high, with countless air roots hanging down to the ground. The black trunk divides into millions of branches, clad in a rich green coat, extending one by one like a silent but energetic relay race in nature.

They keep bifurcating, expanding their living space, stretching all the way to the road. With a radius of a dozen meters, doesn't it look like a green cloud tumbling? The leaves of the banyan trees are small and oily green, and they unite together, shading the sky and resembling the lush fog pouring out of the earth - near the mountain gate, there are seven thousand-year-old banyan trees, which guard the gate and look out to the sea.

I'm a bit stubborn and always feel that the banyan tree is a symbol of the south. So much so that many small leafy trees, I took as banyan trees. In my heart, banyan trees are like simple old farmers. They are evergreen, not picky about whether the soil is fertile or barren, and can grow in barren sand, spicy and long-lived. It is the provincial tree of Fujian Province and the city tree of Fuzhou and Ganzhou, thus Fuzhou is also called Banyan City.

Hidden in the green clouds on the stone hill, this temple is called Zhenwu Temple, but the locals call this place as South Wudang Mountain. The temple building is Minnan style, with flying eaves and carved beams, and is dedicated to Zhenwu Emperor, which was the place where Quanzhou people worshipped the sea before going to sea during the Song Dynasty.

Mr. Xiaofeng said that in the past, due to the small amount of land and many people in Guangdong and Fujian, many people left their hometowns to make a living. Seeing the merchant ships, local farmers voluntarily or forced to sign the deed of sale, were stuffed into the North American and South American ships, to work or to open up the land. Bumpy in the sea for a month or two, the lucky ones who survived or were taken to North America to pan for gold, coal mining, or under the lust of the whip to do all kinds of hard labor ...... these people, in a foreign country stubbornly survived, like a banyan tree rooted in stone, survived. However, the vast majority of them never returned to their homeland and hometown, and their children and grandchildren were stranded in foreign lands. It became their dream to return to their homeland and their hometown. Now, with the attraction of the policy, those who survived and their descendants have come back to find their roots, and some have come back to invest.

On the Ninth Day Mountain in Fengzhou Town, Nan'an, Quanzhou, there is a Yanfu Temple. Jiuzhishan is not very high, and it is the place where local people climb to the top of the mountain on the Chongyang Festival; Yanfu Temple is also the place where people come to pray for blessings before they go to sea.

There are some very old longan trees in the temple, which caught my attention again.

One of them, the main trunk of which needs to be enclosed by several people, is accumulated with the traces of vicissitudes and years. The green and thick branches are very close to the ground, shaped like a horse, lying meekly on the ground, waiting for someone to ride. Mr. Xiaofeng said that longan fruit invigorates blood and replenishes qi, and in the past, it was only available to women during their menstruation. And now, despite the fruit on the tree, not to mention eating, even if sold for money, no one is willing to spend the effort to pick it. What does this mean? The day is better.

In Tin Hau Temple, there are also some big banyan trees. Tin Hau Temple is dedicated to the third generation of A-Ma, the goddess of the sea, who is said to be from the folklore. I am not a stranger to her, because my hometown is on the shores of the Bohai Sea.

A-Ma, whose real name is Lin Mo, a native of Putian County of the Qing Yuan Army, was born on March 23, the first year of Jianlong of the Song Dynasty, to Lin Curcourt, father, and Wang, mother, a pair of people of high moral character, who gave birth to Lin Mo in their forties.

Lin Mo, who was smart and wise, never married and devoted herself to the study of medicine, not only volunteered to prevent diseases and eliminate disasters for the people, but also tried to solve their problems. On the Chung Yang Festival in 987 AD, her father and brother were in danger at sea, and she sacrificed her life to save her father, but she was eventually buried at sea. In memory of her filial piety and usual kindness, the locals built temples to worship and remember her. Gradually, it evolved into an all-powerful protector of the folk.

In my hometown, there is also an A-Ma temple, and since I was a child I have been accustomed to hearing her stories, feeling that she is like millions of mothers, with a loving heart, the virtue of helping the poor and the weak, and a spirit that defies all odds. A-Ma Zu's beliefs and customs are officially listed by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage of humanity, and have become the first world heritage in the category of beliefs and customs and the common spiritual wealth of all mankind.

Before leaving, I looked at the flourishing banyan tree in Tin Hau Temple and thought that both people and trees need the care of rain and sunshine. The temperature of the light of human nature is the temperature of the true love of human beings. A person, no matter where he or she is, as long as he or she remains resilient, kind and loving, and grows as hard as the banyan tree, he or she will be vibrant and green everywhere.