The prosperity of Liukeng's business depends on the Wujiang River next to the village's location. The wood and bamboo in the mountains are discharged to the outside of the mountains through this Wujiang River. The frequency of such wharf transportation transactions can be described as great at the beginning. Today, this river water Still clear, but traffic has stopped. Wujiang River, known as Binshui in ancient times, also known as Enjiang River, originated in Zhongcun, Yongfeng County, Ji'an City. It flows through Shima Town in the county and passes through Le'an County. The town exits westward and then injects into Yongfeng Enjiang Town, and finally merges into the Ganjiang River. This section of Liukeng belongs to the upper reaches of the Enjiang River.
There is also a famous historical story about this river. Dong Dunyi, a censor during the period of Zhezong in the Northern Song Dynasty, was from Liukeng Village (now Le'an) in Yongfeng, Jizhou, seeking truth from facts to seek justice for the fallen Meng Queen. In the fourth year of Shaosheng (AD 1097), he was transferred to the Xingguo Army (now Yangxin, Hubei) by other things. Because of Dong Dunyi's impartial law enforcement, Empress Meng also restored the honor of the "Middle Palace" Empress, and was demoted to Yaohua Palace. This incident is known as the "Yaohua Secret Prison". After the Jin army went south, Queen Meng and the Liugong clan fled westward, and took a boat to Jiangxi Le'an Wangxian to take refuge via Yongfeng in Jiangxi. Under the pursuit of Jin soldiers, Queen Meng and her party came to the intersection of the two rivers in the lower reaches of the Wenjiang River in Jishui. Queen Meng pointed to the Wenjiang River from the east and poured into the Gan River and asked the courtiers beside him: "Where does the Dongshui originate?" He Weizhen, who joined the army in front of the palace, answered. Said: "Come from Dong Dunyi's house." Empress Meng heard about it, and ordered her courtiers to take a golden cup and scoop a cup of water from the river. She took the golden cup and drank it, and she felt grateful: "(Dong Yushi) my benefactor. Also, drink this water in return." Since then, Wenjiang has been renamed "Enjiang", which is still in use today. Later, "Baoen Town" in Yongfeng County was also renamed "Enjiang Town".
Read the special introduction about the ancient village - according to genealogy records, Dong Qingran, the grandson of Dong Jin, moved from Anhui to Yihuang County in Fuzhou, Jiangxi during the war at the end of the Tang Dynasty. Kaijizu. The Song Dynasty was one of the most glorious periods in the history of Liukeng. At that time, it was known as "one school and five scholars, two dynasties, four ministers, two champions in civil and military, and scholars are like stars" and "Ou (Ouyang Xiu) Dong (Liukeng Dong) famous hometown". In the Yuan Dynasty, the village was destroyed by the soldiers. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, a man of insight in the village, Shao followed his ancestral business, started teaching and running schools, built temples, and developed bamboo and wood trade, making Liukeng Village prosperous again. From the beginning of the Song Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were 26 schools and schools in the village during the Ming and Wanli eras, and 28 during the Qing Dynasty. Since the Song Dynasty, the whole village has produced 1 champion in both civil and military affairs, 34 Jinshi and 78 Juren. In the past dynasties, there were more than 100 people who entered the official career, from the top to the political affairs, the censors, the down to the masters, and the teachings - it is a bit regrettable that we don't mention the giants and merchants. buried in people's consciousness.

After I came back, I read the introduction about the village and sorted out the development history of the village:
The Song Dynasty was one of the most glorious periods in the history of Liukeng. During this period, there were as many as 26 jinshi in the Dong family in Liukeng, and they passed the imperial examinations, forming their own cultural tradition and developing into a big family with high political status and social prestige. Wu Cheng, a Dali scholar in the Yuan Dynasty, said in the preface to the Liukeng Dong family tree that in the Song Dynasty, the Dong family was "a crowd of officials and officials, and they were not connected with each other".
In the Yuan Dynasty, Liukeng experienced turmoil and catastrophe for nearly a hundred years. The Yuan army went down to Lin'an (now Hangzhou), and the Liukeng Dong family joined the anti-Yuan army led by Wen Tianxiang to defend the hometown. When the army was defeated, "the township was due to the diligent king, and it was a little cruel to suffer from military disasters."
In 1365, after Zhu Yuanzhang pacified Jiangxi, the surname Dong returned to his hometown Liukeng one after another. In this way, the Dong family recuperated as the society gradually stabilized in the early Ming Dynasty, and soon regenerated and prospered.
Entering the Ming Dynasty, Liukeng Dong, who was famous for his scholarly officialdom, resumed his career as an official, and the officials became more and more prosperous. In the 20th year of Chenghua (1484), Dong Shiwang of the twentieth generation was again a jinshi, and his post-officer became a censor, and he had a high reputation among the clan. The sixteenth generation Dong Yan, courtesy name Zizhuang, used to be a county magistrate in Maoming, and later moved to the Hanlin Academy to edit and edit the "Yongle Dadian". , In Liukeng, he can be regarded as a first-class figure, and the villagers built the Hanlin Building to commemorate it. Of course, the imperial examination officials in Liukeng at this time were far from those in the Song Dynasty, showing a downward trend, but there were many writers and speakers, and they were still Jiangyou's "literary family".
In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, under the influence of commodity trade in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the people of the Dong clan took advantage of the convenience of the Wujiang River to conduct bamboo and wood trade, which enabled Liukeng Village to have a new development. At the same time, with the continuous efforts of a group of elites in the clan, the clan organization and community construction of the Liukeng Dong clan has been greatly developed and entered its heyday. From the early Ming Dynasty to the Wanli period, the Dong clan members compiled genealogy three times, built large ancestral halls three times, and adopted many measures such as strengthening clan leaders, formulating clan rules, and increasing clan property to unite the clan members. The children of the clan work hard to study and honor their ancestors. Reflected in the construction of villages and communities, there have been "three mores", that is, there are many ancestral halls, many academies, and many commemorative cultural buildings.
Xu Xiake, a traveler in the Ming Dynasty, once visited Liukeng Village and praised: "It is a city of ten thousand families, and the Dong family is a giant surname, and there are five Guifang." It can be seen that after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Liukeng has It is a big settlement on the towering side.
In the early Qing Dynasty, Liukeng society underwent important changes. On the one hand, Dong's imperial examination reputation has been on the decline, and it has declined greatly. Finally, it has transformed from an official family of Zhu Zixue to a commoner clan in the countryside. On the other hand, the clansmen vigorously developed the commodity economy on the basis of the bamboo and wood trade in the late Ming Dynasty, especially the developed bamboo and wood trade. From Jinzhu, Zhaoxie and other places in the upper reaches of the Wujiang River, they trafficked bamboo and wood to Sanhu, Zhangshu, Nanchang and other ports along the Ganjiang River, as well as Nanjing, Yangzhou, Changzhou and other places in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River for sale, thus making Liukeng's social economy more stable. The early Qing Dynasty entered its golden age.
At that time, the bamboo trade in the upper reaches of the Wujiang River was completely monopolized by the Dong clan in Liukeng, and the bamboo and wood resources were the public property of the Dong clan. Bamboo and wood transportation in Wujiang. The outstanding development of bamboo and wood trade not only freed the Dong family from the economic predicament in the late Ming Dynasty, but also created a large number of central merchants within the clan. After these businessmen became rich, they crowded into the gentry and the bureaucratic class by way of donations. With the accumulation of huge wealth, they actively engaged in clan and community construction, such as expanding clan property, building ancestral halls, compiling genealogy, and establishing teaching assistants. Measures such as building bridges and paving roads, advocating charity and giving benefits have made Liukeng prosperous again. It was not until after the Opium War that the Jiangyou Shang Gang gradually declined, and Liukeng gradually disappeared in the wind and smoke of history.

It should be said that Liukeng can be roughly summed up as being prospered by officialdom in the first five hundred years, and prosperous by business in the last five hundred years. It is a type of ancient villages that have developed to a very mature level with complete elements and distinct stages. The history of the millennium Liukeng is a microcosm of the development of ancient Chinese villages.
Summarizing the characteristics and positioning of Liukeng Village, it should be a model of the integration of Confucianism and merchants. With farming, it can be said to be a trinity of officials, farmers and merchants. ——In such a remote place, the material is relatively scarce, and under a thousand years, it has developed into such a large-scale village. This phenomenon has given us a lot of inspiration.
Therefore, I gradually got a clear idea. The economic foundation is very important for the formation of a village, and the development of the commercial economy in the late feudal society has created the complete and mature form of ancient villages that we see now. Although this view is somewhat utilitarian , however, the facts are in front of you.
In fact, it seems that the damage to Liukeng village has been serious. The whole village is almost wrapped by newly built houses, which is very regrettable, but its overall structure and connotation are relatively complete. The streets and alleys and more than 200 historical buildings are still preserved. There are more than 600 plaques, couplets, carvings, paintings, and calligraphy in all places. The handwriting is still clear and clear. Considerable, it is conceivable that the culture is indeed profound. As far as I can see, it is not only the promotion of culture, but also the accumulation of wealth. In the afternoon, I visited the courtyard, and the old people sat in groups at the door to bask in the sun; The market inside the bridge is bustling, and there is no sign of failure - people are still willing to live in their ancestral homes, and the family concept and way of life of living together as a family are still in the courtyard under the patio and in the cobblestone alleys. continue. ——Liukeng, makes me feel relieved once again, our homeland has not disappeared, they are in the distance. When I was eating, I told everyone that every time I went to Jiangxi, I felt like I came home. Why? Because they not only retain the historical buildings with a complete pattern, but also completely retain the historical culture and traditional nostalgia of the village - those lintels, those outlines, those corners, those textures, those details, those stories, those intersections that we are familiar with, Those human feelings, those breaths - as if they were engraved in my memory and my genes earlier - my hometown should be such a picture, an object, a scene, a feeling - where they are, right there The hinterland of farming society and culture, deep in China's rural society, Jiangxi is such a place, there are ancient villages here and there, and there are homesickness that touches me everywhere.
Liukeng Director Dong arranged for us as a tour guide, wearing a yellow down jacket, smiling all the way, patiently reciting the narration, and I sneaked away in the middle, and she was not annoyed, as if she was not worried that I would get lost-because, to We would naturally meet somewhere in the village, because her goose-yellow dress was very conspicuous.
The roadways in the village are not paved with slate, but pebbles, which should be taken from the Wujiang River near the village. I was wearing leather shoes, neither was running fast, nor was walking slowly, and walking slowly was obviously not in line with my rhythm, so it was awkward to walk—walking in those deep alleys, one deep and one shallow The feet look a bit funny.