Kiriyuki
Sichuan Chengdu ~ Dujiangyan.
Traveling is about seeing the places you want to see, seeing is believing. I went to Taiwan in 2015, saw Sun Moon Lake in my textbooks, and visited Kaohsiung City as shown in the weather forecast. I found that seeing is better than hearing about it a hundred times. With this idea in mind, I visited the Dujiangyan Irrigation System the day after arriving in Chengdu. We booked a private tour from downtown Chengdu to go directly to the back gate of Dujiangyan. In the summer in Sichuan, the flow of people is huge. It will be crowded if we start the tour from the front gate. It will be better if we go in the opposite direction from the back gate, but not much better.
Not far from the back door, you can climb up to the Qinyan Tower and overlook the entire water conservancy project. This is my first time to visit the construction site. Qinyan Tower was originally an observation deck. It was an antique-style observation deck that was built more than 30 years ago. It was damaged in an earthquake more than ten years ago and was demolished and rebuilt. It was not a cultural relic and was not worth repairing. It is called Qinyanlou. Yan means a water-blocking dam, and Qin means that this place belongs to the Qin State. When Qin conquered the six kingdoms and unified China, it also destroyed the ancient Shu Kingdom, which then belonged to the Western Rong. During the reign of King Zhaoxiang of Qin, Mi Yue's son, he selected Li Bing to be the prefect here. He spent decades building the Dujiangyan Irrigation Project, which consisted of the Yuzui, Feishayan and Baopingkou weirs. This divided the Minjiang River into two streams, an inner stream and an outer stream, thus solving the flood problem in the area. In order to commemorate Li Bing's achievements, later generations built the Erwang Temple to worship him.
The Erwang Temple is surrounded by nan trees. They are real nan trees, all of which are more than 500 years old. This was originally the ancestral hall of Du Yu, the ancient Shu king, and later it was used to worship Li Bing and his son. It is said that there is no historical record of Li Bing's family members, but the lovely people were unwilling to do it. They thought that such a big project could not be done by one person alone and needed help from family members, so they developed a Li Erlang, who was considered Li Bing's son. Later, the two were successively conferred titles of king by the imperial court, and this place was changed into the Temple of the Two Kings. The temple was built on the foothills next to Dujiangyan and has been rebuilt several times, the last time being due to an earthquake more than ten years ago.
Inside the Erwang Temple, there is a hall with statues of Li Bing and his wife, and another hall with a statue of Li Erlang. In front of the halls there is a three-pointed double-edged sword and Roaring Sky Dog, um, the configuration of Erlang Shen. Local people believe that Li Erlang and Yang Jian are the same person, both are Erlang Shen, but they are not in the same world, which is consistent with some Taoist statements. It has been said among the people that Erlang Shen was from Guankou, and there is a Guankou town under the jurisdiction of Dujiangyan, so the Erwang Temple in Dujiangyan is the Taoist temple of Erlang Shen. This logic is the same as that of Nezha living in Chentangzhuang. Since it is a folk legend, it doesn't matter whether it is true or not. However, the head of Roaring Sky Dog is obviously brighter than its body. Tourists may not know whose temple it belongs to, but they definitely know that they can touch the dog's head without any worries.
It is not clear if it was because of Erlang Shen, but the scene of falling into the Spider Cave by mistake in the 1986 CCTV version of Journey to the West was filmed here, and several other chapters were filmed in Qingcheng Mountain. After the earthquake, half of the Erwang Temple collapsed. What is preserved now is half old and half restored. Because it was built on the mountain, it is a courtyard-style building with stone steps everywhere and frequent left and right turns. When you walk near the Sanguan Temple, you will see a stone inscription which says “When you are on the right path, get rid of your selfishness”. The heart is “white” and to get on the right path you must get rid of your selfishness. This is great wisdom. Go out of the gate and cross the Anlan Bridge to the other side of the river, stroll along the river, see the green trees blocking the sun up close, and see the endless green forests in the distance, and you will truly feel the connotation of green waters and green mountains being invaluable assets.
There is also a South Bridge outside the Dujiangyan Scenic Area, which is a place to rest. The Neijiang River whizzing by below is the diverted water. If you drop your cell phone, you can’t find it, and if you fall into the water, you can’t fish it out. When leaving Dujiangyan, we passed by Yangtianwo Square, where a panda lying down and playing with a mobile phone was statued. It is considered a popular check-in spot for internet celebrities. At noon, the tour guide arranged for us to have a stewed chicken meal. The whole chicken was stewed in an iron pot with some vegetables, and the six of us couldn't finish it. We climbed Mount Qingcheng in the afternoon and drank a bowl of hot brown sugar wine lees before returning. It was said that this was an old shop run by several generations since the Republic of China period. The taste was good the first time I drank it and I felt very comfortable after drinking it. Now I am convinced that drinking alcohol can warm the stomach. We’ll find a local restaurant when we get back to Chengdu in the evening. We’ll talk about when to eat together.