Taohuawu

Taohuawu

Taohuawu is now Taohuawu street in Suzhou and its surrounding areas. Du Xunhe, a poet of Tang Dynasty, once wrote the poem "Taohua River", while Fan Chengda's poem "changmen Fancha" in Song Dynasty has the sentence "Taowu discusses the present and the past". It can be seen that the name of Taohuawu has a long history. Xu dachuo, who lived in Qingli of Taohuawu at the end of Song Dynasty and the beginning of Yuan Dynasty, described the scope of Taohuawu in detail in his "records of ashes": "entering changmen River to the East, following Nengren temple and Zhangjia River to the north, passing Shitang bridge to Qimen, was called taohuahe in ancient times. In the northwest of the river, there is a vast area of Taowu, covering the whole territory of Dayun township. "

History of Taohuawu

Song dynasty

Taohuawu has its ups and downs in history. The earliest was the land of agriculture and mulberry. During the reign of Xining in Song Dynasty, Mei Xuanyi built taiyeyuan and liudihuawu here. The scenery is new, which is called "Wumu garden", also known as "Meiyuan". During the reign of Shaosheng, the Privy minister Zhang Lei built "Taohuawu villa" in the south of Wumu garden, covering an area of 700 mu. On this basis, Zhang's children built a manor style garden, called "Zhang Yuan". Wumen biaoyin is known as "the imperial residence in the garden, which is outstanding for a time.". Mei and Zhang are family friends. Mei xuanyizi, Mei Cainan, and Zhang RongZi, Zhang Yonghua, imitated the allusion of quliushuiqi, and opened up the ponds of the two gardens to build a Pisces releasing pond. One end of the pond is connected to the "double lotus pond" of Mei Garden, and the other end is connected to the "Qianchi pond" of Zhang garden. At that time, there were more people in the county than here. Spring outings were very popular.

At the end of Song Dynasty, Meiyuan and Zhangyuan were destroyed. After Yuan Dynasty, Taohuawu was built again and again. In the Hongzhi period of Ming Dynasty, Tang Yin, a famous painter, bought Zhang's Taohuawu villa by selling his paintings. He named it "Taohua nunnery" and planted several acres of peach trees around it. Tang Yin also called himself "master of Taohua nunnery". In the early years of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty, Shen Mingsheng, a famous doctor, bought this place again and rebuilt "Taohua nunnery" and other buildings to show his memory. At that time, it was called "Tang homeland" or "Shen taiweng garden". During the reign of Emperor Qianlong, the Buddhist temple and Daoxin temple were transformed into Baohua temple, and then into Wenchang Pavilion during the reign of Emperor Guangxu.

Tang Yin was the first in the rural examination in the 11th year of Hongzhi (1498), but he was put into prison because he was tired during the examination. Tang Yin disliked officialdom, despised fame, and indulged in immorality. He once ruled India and was known as "the first scholar in Jiangnan". In his later years, he lived in seclusion in Taohuawu and often drank with literati. If a guest goes without asking, he will fall asleep when he is drunk.

Taohuawu outside Suzhou is also deeply impressed in my mind because Tang Yin wrote a song of Taohua nunnery: "Taohua nunnery in Taohuawu, Taohua nunnery under Taohua fairy.". The Peach Blossom Fairy planted peach trees and picked peach flowers for wine money. When you wake up, you just sit in front of the flowers. When you are drunk, you still come to sleep. Half awake and half drunk, day after day, flowers fall and bloom year after year. I wish I would die in the flower and wine room, not bow to the chariots and horses. It's a matter of wine and flowers and hermits. If you compare the outsider to the hermit, one is on the ground and the other is in the sky. If you compare flowers and wine to chariots and horses, how busy they are, how idle I am. Others laugh at me for being too crazy. I laugh at others for not seeing through. There are no tombs of Wuling heroes, no flowers and no wine to hoe the fields. "

Qing Dynasty

In addition to the former residence of gardens and gentry guild hall, since the Qing Dynasty, Taohuawu people's houses have been lined up, and business workshops are everywhere, among which the most prosperous one is the new year painting workshop. In particular, after the fire of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom destroyed the Shantang Street New Year's painting workshop, the production of new year's paintings in Suzhou was only left in Taohuawu. Taohuawu New Year pictures got its name and became one of the most famous New Year pictures in China.

It was still in Taohuawu. During the reign of emperor Qi, Yang Da she built "zhuntian" to worship zhunti Buddha. During the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, Tang Zhongmian, the magistrate of Wu County, built the "Tang Jieyuan Temple" in the east of zhuntian as the ethnic identity of Tang Yin, and signed the room named "Peach Blossom Fairy hall" to worship Tang Yin, Zhu Yunming and Wen Zhengming.

As for the five Mu garden, ye Changchi rebuilt the pavilion in the late Qing Dynasty, and the name of the building used to be the old five Mu garden, which was called "Ye's garden". Later, it was purchased by Xie Jiafu and built "wangchulou".

The Republic of China

In the early years of the Republic of China, the patriotic gentry Fei Zhongshen bought a corner of Tang Yin's former residence and built "Guimu nunnery". In 1925, his son Fei Gong married his granddaughter yuan Huiquan.

Taohuawu Wood New Year pictures

Taohuawu is located in the north of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. Taohuawu woodblock New Year pictures are the main folk woodblock New Year pictures in the south of the Yangtze River in China. They originated from the engraving printing technology in Song Dynasty. They evolved from embroidered pictures and developed into a folk art school in Ming Dynasty. During the reign of Yongzheng and Qianlong in Qing Dynasty, Taohuawu woodblock New year pictures produced more than one million pieces each year.

Place name allusion

In the Tang and Song Dynasties, peach trees were planted in the northwest of Taohua River, which was called Taohuawu. This is the origin of street names. "At that time, the people of the county traveled here to see flowers in spring, and then they were all vegetable gardens, and sometimes there were flower growers." (Gusu Zhi) Du Xun Heyou of Tang Dynasty once wrote the poem of Peach Blossom River. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhang Lei, the grand master, once built Taohuawu villas and planted peaches and plums. In 1505, Tang Yin built "Taohua nunnery" here, which made Taohuawu famous. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Taohuawu was the gathering place of handicraft workshops. Taohuawu woodcut New Year pictures had a long history and were well-known at home and abroad, with more than 100 workshops. In addition, there were also workshops for making fans, bamboo, ivory carving, mounting, wax sticks, tin ware, etc., which became a colorful craft street with prosperous commerce.

According to Tongzhi's Suzhou Fu Zhi, there is no Taohuawu in the old records, but it was very famous in the Tang and Song dynasties. Gu Hanji said: "the structure of the Song Dynasty's Taishi Zhang Yao is that many peaches and plums are planted, and the county people travel here in spring." Wu county annals of the Republic of China also notes: "Wu Mu yuan annals: Bo Cheng, Zi Jing, once built Taohuawu, later named Li." The painting of Gusu is marked as North Street, while the painting of Suzhou City, Wu County and Suzhou are all marked as Taohuawu street.

Address: Taohuawu street and its surrounding areas, Suzhou, Jiangsu Province

Longitude: 120.61259980062

Latitude: 31.32027319313

Chinese PinYin : Tao Hua Wu