Fenmen

Fenmen

Located in the east of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, south of xiangmen. It was originally named Fengmen, and got its name from fengyushan, because there are fish (Yufu) and finless porpoise (finless porpoise) in the nearby river, also known as Yufu (Yufu) gate. In addition, there were many ponds around, which were rich in fenzi (Zizania latifolia), so it was changed to fenmen. The gate has been rebuilt for generations. In the early Qing Dynasty, the gate building was rebuilt with the title of "clear reflection of streams" and the water gate was added. In the 25th year of the Republic of China, the gatehouse was demolished. The city gate was demolished in the 1950s.

Original name

The name originated from Fengyu mountain

As for the origin of the name "Fengmen", Zhu Changwen's sequel to Wujun tujing in the Northern Song Dynasty thinks that it is actually called "Fengmen" and "Fengyu mountain" is the name. At the same time, this book holds that Fengmen is only called Fengmen because Fengmen is called Fengmen in dialect.

Strangely, where is Fengyu mountain outside fengmenwai?

"Wujun tujing sequel" added: "Fengshan belongs to Wujun, now in Wuxing.".

Wuxing is the ancient name of Huzhou City in Zhejiang Province. In the second year of Wu Ganlu in the Three Kingdoms (266 A.D.), Wu Lord Sun Hao changed Wucheng county to Wuxing county and established Wuxing County, which is equivalent to the whole territory of Huzhou City, Qiantang (now Hangzhou) and Yangxian (now Yixing, Jiangsu). In the Sui Dynasty, it was renamed Huzhou because it was close to Taihu Lake. Wuxing was a county under its jurisdiction. Now there is Wuxing District in Huzhou.

Hu sang, a researcher in Deqing County of Huzhou City, said that Fengshan and Yushan are actually in Sanhe township of Deqing County. Fengshan has been renamed fangfengshan since the Tang Dynasty. The reason is that this area is said to have been the settlement of fangfengshi tribe in primitive society. According to historical records, Fangfeng family, also known as "Wang Mang family" and "Wang Wang family", is the ancestor of Wang family. When Dayu was controlling the flood, he informed the princes of various places to hold a meeting to discuss countermeasures. As a result, the leader of Fangfeng family was late, and was killed by Dayu as an example. The leader was a giant, three feet long, and his body occupied nine acres after he fell to the ground.

As for Yushan, it is now called Dashan, two miles southeast of Fengshan. According to Wu Xingzhi, the 12th generation of sun Diyu of Dayu was stationed here during his hunting tour, so it was called Yushan.

Some researchers doubt that Fengmen was named after fengyushan. They feel that, not to mention whether these records and legends are accurate or not, and no matter how administrative divisions have changed in history, Fengmen is not likely to be named after Fengyu mountain just because Fengmen is hundreds of kilometers away from Fengyu mountain. Wang Jian, a scholar of Suzhou in the Republic of China, also thinks that "the theory of Fengyu is doubtfully literal in his research on Chengfang of songpingjiang".

It's named after the finless porpoise

In the middle of Tang Dynasty, when Zhang Shoujie annotated the biography of Wu Zixu in historical records, he gave another explanation for the name of Fengmen: "Dongmen, Yimen, is called (Zuoyu Youfu) gate, which is now called Fengmen. When the Yue army opened Shipu, Zixu opened the gate with the waves in Luocheng, and a fish (Zuoyu, Youfu) entered with the waves, so it was named In other words, "Fengmen" was originally called "Yimen".

When Yue destroyed Wu, he mainly used the water army to attack from the eastern waterway According to historical records, when Wu Zixu was killed, his entourage dug out his eyes and hung them on the east gate to see the Yue army annihilate the state of Wu, which is really a portrayal of historical facts.

According to Zhou Guorong's analysis, when the Vietnamese army attacked the Wu state, it was most likely that it took advantage of a typhoon. At that time, the wall was still made of soil layer by layer, and its roots were soaked in water all day long, so it was difficult to resist the impact of huge waves. As a result, it was destroyed by the huge waves caused by typhoon, and the Vietnamese army took advantage of the situation.

Then what is Yu (Zuoyu Youfu) who went into the city with the Vietnamese army? Gu yewang, an exegetist and historian of the Southern Dynasties, believes that they are finless porpoises.

According to animal experts, the finless porpoise is an animal that lives in tropical to warm temperate waters such as the Western Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the sea of Japan and China's coastal waters. It can be found in the Bohai Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, the South China Sea and the Yangtze River in China. Among them, Yangtze finless porpoise is the only freshwater subspecies of finless porpoise, which has lived on the earth for 25 million years. The head is blunt and round, the forehead is raised slightly forward, the head is short and nearly round, the snout is short and wide, the teeth are short and small, and the eyes are not obvious. Only after death do they turn black. As a mammal, the finless porpoise breathes with its lungs. Before the arrival of strong wind and heavy rain, due to the fog and low air pressure on the river surface, it needs to frequently come out of the water to "breathe". In ancient times, when there was no weather forecast, fishermen regarded the finless porpoise as the "God of the river". As long as the finless porpoise came out of the water "against the wind" in the direction of the wind, commonly known as "worship the wind", it meant that there was a big storm coming. Fishermen were afraid to go out fishing these days.

What makes people wonder is that Suzhou city is dozens of kilometers away from the Yangtze River. Is it possible for the finless porpoise to swim here? Zhou Guorong believes that there were a large number of finless porpoises in ancient times. In addition, the waterways leading to the Yangtze River in Suzhou at that time, such as Wusong River and loujiang River, were very wide. It was entirely possible for finless porpoises to go upstream and enter Suzhou through other waterways.

Fengzi refers to Zizania root

However, the literal meaning of "Feng" seems to indicate that "Fengmen" is named after "Feng". The above-mentioned "Wujun tujing sequel" puts forward this point of view when it thinks that dialect regards "Feng" as "Feng".

What does "Feng" mean? In dictionaries and dictionaries, "Feng" has two pronunciations. The first is "Feng", which refers to turnip, or turnip as the saying goes; the second is "Feng", which means the root of Zizania latifolia. "Wujun tujing sequel" thinks that "Fengmen" of "Fengmen" is related to Zizania and Zizania fields.

Zizania latifolia was called "Zizania latifolia" in ancient times. Its seed was called "Zizania latifolia" or "Diaohu". Some people classified it as "Liugu". It was cultivated as a food crop before Tang Dynasty. Later, it was found that some Zizania latifolia did not sprout, but the stem continued to expand, gradually forming spindle shaped fleshy stem, which is called Zizania latifolia. This kind of vegetable not only tastes tender and delicious, but also has medicinal value. It can relieve heat, detoxify alcohol and urinate. Since then, people have specialized in producing Zizania latifolia with Zizania latifolia.

What's funny is that some countries have introduced Zizania latifolia seedlings from China, which only bloomed and did not grow fleshy stems. Later it became clear that there was a lack of smut in their soil. Therefore, this kind of bacteria was introduced from China, which solved the problem.

It should be said that Zizania latifolia is widely distributed in China. If the name of Fengmen is related to Zizania latifolia, why is it only used in Suzhou, but not in other places where Zizania latifolia is produced?

Bao Zhongzhou, senior agronomist of Suzhou Vegetable Research Institute, thinks that it is because Zizania latifolia outside fengmenwai in Suzhou is most famous. He said that in history, Loufeng, Xietang, Guoxiang, Chefang and other places outside fengmenwai are low-lying and full of rotten fields, which are most suitable for the growth of aquatic crops such as water bamboo. The Zizania latifolia is famous in China in terms of variety and benefit. Taking varieties as an example, the autumn planting of Zizania latifolia in fengmenwai includes big head green variety, liangtouzao, xiaolatai, zhonglatai, dalatai, mid autumn Zizania latifolia, yangmeijiao, wujiangjiao, etc.; the autumn planting of Zizania latifolia includes green variety, white variety, qunlizhong, hantoujiao, etc.; in terms of planting efficiency, the autumn planting of two ripe Zizania latifolia in Suzhou is planted in August every year, and harvested in October and May June of the next year, which adds up to 1 mu The yield can reach 5500-8500 Jin. Ten months of production can reach such a level, where other places can match. Moreover, Zizania latifolia, which was put on the market from May to June, is not easy to be eaten by insects, and its quality is first-class.

Bao Zhongzhou thinks that with these, Suzhou is most qualified to take the name of "Fengmen"!

Why Fengmen read "fumen"

In the eyes of many foreigners and even local people, there is another difficulty in understanding Fengmen, which is its pronunciation.

As mentioned above, "Feng" in dictionaries or dictionaries reads "Feng" or "Feng", but old Suzhou people read "Fu", which is similar to the pronunciation of "Fu" in Suzhou dialect. What the hell is going on?

One is that the old Suzhou people read it wrong, and they spread it by mistake. Fan Chengda of the Southern Song Dynasty said in Wu Jun Zhi that "today's customs call for the rich.".

Wang Mengyi, a reader who has studied Suzhou culture, believes that the pronunciation of some place names in Suzhou is different from their regular pronunciation, which is not all false names. There are mainly two situations: one is that the pronunciation has changed, but some place names in Suzhou are still pronounced with ancient pronunciation, which is different from the modern pronunciation; the other is that some place names have changed, but the habits of Suzhou people have not changed, and the first name is still old, which also causes some problems The difference between the literal and the pronunciation is discussed.

His view is that the ancient porpoise in Suzhou was commonly known as "fish", and there was no lip and tooth sound in ancient times. The pronunciation of "fish" is very similar to that of "Fu (Fu)". What Suzhou people call "Fu (Fu) men" is actually "Wo Men", or "Wo Men" mentioned above. Later, the names of "Yimen" and "Yimen" were changed to "Fengmen" and "Fengmen". However, people in Suzhou still call it "fumen" according to the old custom of the spring and Autumn period, which is not a misreading.

Some people in Suzhou think that if it is read as "Fengmen", it will sound like "Fengmen" is sealed. Fengmen has been sealed several times in history, causing people to go in and out in circles, which is very troublesome. Therefore, people are very taboo to read "Fengmen", so they read "fumen" instead. There are many circumstantial evidences of this situation in Suzhou dialect. For example, the old Suzhou people taboo saying "death". When they read words with the same or similar pronunciation as "death", they will change their pronunciation, such as "corpse" and "poem" into "book".

Chinese PinYin : Feng Men