Shuidong ancient town

Shuidong ancient town is located 28 kilometers southeast of Xuanzhou District, Xuancheng City, surrounded by mountains and beautiful scenery. Yangjiang River, the ancient town, has been flowing from the mountainous area of Southern Anhui to the vast Yangtze River. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Shuidong town became the distribution center of local products around it, with numerous shops and prosperous scenes, and the old street reached its peak at that time.

Shuidong ancient town

brief introduction

Shuidong ancient town, located in the south of Xuancheng City, Anhui Province, is an ancient town with a history of 1100 years. The ancient town was built in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. It flourished because of the Shuiyang River, which is called the golden waterway beside the town. There are only over 700 meters of ancient streets in the ancient town. The green stone streets and the folk houses on both sides show the prosperity at that time. There is an ancient town and a church in Shibata.

An ancient town and a church. The most famous Shibata and church on the ancient street. It's a different impact to have such a magnificent church in such an ancient town. Different senses and cultures live in harmony in this small town.

cultural relics and historic sites

Shuidong Town, Xuanzhou District, Xuancheng City, is an ancient market town with a history of thousands of years. It is named Shuidong because it is located in the east of Shuiyang river. With an area of 108 square kilometers and a population of 33000, the town governs nine villages and one community, with a fiscal revenue of 57.41 million yuan in 2008. Now it is a famous historical and cultural town in China, the best tourism town in Anhui Province, and the first batch of characteristic professional demonstration towns in Anhui Province.

Shuidong ancient street was built in the Tang and Song dynasties. By the Song Dynasty, the market town had formed a large scale, and the business activities were prosperous. The main street was paved with blue stone slabs, and the houses were decorated with green bricks and tiles. It is simple and elegant, and still retains the style of the Song Dynasty, with a total length of 1350 meters. It is said that the emperor Chongzhen of Ming Dynasty once visited here, so he stayed in the street, also known as "Chongzhen Street". The Wangji jujube comb shop in the main street of Laojie is a traditional handicraft. It selects the best jujube trees over 80 years old. They are all hand-made, one tooth by one. After 20 processes, such as planing, tooth cleaning and polishing, they are made into wooden combs. It is said that Empress Dowager Cixi especially loves Shuidong's Jujube comb.

"Dafudi" is the only official family in the old street. It was built in the Wanli period and has a history of more than 400 years. The Hui style architecture, with green bricks, grey tiles and horse head walls, is simple and elegant. Dafudi is located in the South and faces the north, with three entrances in front, middle and back, and a wooden structure. The whole house is made of plain color and logs. Although the tall wallboard is not decorated too much, the rigid and flexible lines are walking between the simple frames of the shape corridor. The tall door frame and the eight character wall were once made of marble, and the workmanship is extremely fine, which makes the whole gatehouse show the style of a high-ranking official mansion. It is said that at first, the official was the official of the imperial court, who was in charge of the salt affairs in the south of the city. At that time, due to the smooth waterway, convenient transportation and prosperous trade, Shuidong was not only convenient for the management and operation of salt industry, but also a good place for self-cultivation. Therefore, it was decided to build the Fu Tiao in the most prosperous Hengjie of Shuidong at that time, with the title of "dafudi". Later, as he was getting older, the official felt that he would return to his hometown in a beautiful way, so he sold "dafudi" to a rich merchant of Mei family, and later became the ancestral hall of Mei family. Today, the building as a whole still reveals the magnificence, atmosphere and lofty scene of the official family.

The scale of Shuidong Catholic Church of Notre Dame is very small in East China, second only to Sheshan Church of Notre Dame in Shanghai, which is the largest church in East China. However, the history of Sheshan church is 45 years later than Shuidong church. This church was built in 1870 under the leadership of French missionary Jin Shiyu. Its architectural style is European Gothic, with a plane cross and a brick bell tower at the entrance. Its architecture is significantly different from the overall style of the old street, and it is more harmonious. It is a classic building integrating Chinese and Western cultures. In 1869, Jin Shiyu went to Shuidong to preach. First, he built a Joseph's Church in Xu village. Later, because Xu village was too small, it affected the effect of preaching. The next year, he began to build this church in Shuidong. After liberation, the church became Shuidong primary school. In the 1990s, with the implementation of the religious policy, the primary school moved away, and the property rights of the church were returned to the Catholic Church. After several years of restoration, it is now more magnificent and still a place for religious activities.

The only way out of the Catholic Church is pawnshop street. People are often deceived into saying that they are "cheated", and the origin of the word "cheated" refers to pawnshops: at the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was a big family in Qinghe, surnamed Wang, who operated pawnshops from generation to generation, and the business was booming. When people of all ethnic groups get rich and don't want to run a pawnshop, they deposit their money into the pawnshop as a shareholder and hand over their daily pawnshop affairs to a young man. Knowing that the young people are laymen, the Wang clan thought that they had an opportunity to take advantage of them. By chance, they took some things from their own home to the pawnshop and wanted to pawn them. Each estimated the price higher than the goods themselves and asked the young people to take care of it. Before long, a pawnshop with sufficient funds went bankrupt. Later, people called it "being cheated".

Today, the street is dilapidated, but it is indeed a symbol of wealth. What remains here are stone gates and thick stone walls. You can imagine how rich the owners of these houses are. Most of the people who go in and out of pawnshop Street are poor people and poor families who live by pawning, but inside they live millionaires who are very rich. In order to guard against theft, they build their houses so solidly, which is a bit like "the rich and the poor".

Address: 28 km southeast of Xuanzhou District, Xuancheng City

Longitude: 118.965299

Latitude: 30.792998

Chinese PinYin : Shui Dong Gu Zhen