Chapter 184 Three-way Spli (2/2)

We met Chongxi, who told us about his end of the search. There were two bridges but they were all brick and mortar bridges built in recent years! Lin Feng was the latest to return to the Center. He came through the doors with a face sagged with fatigue and weariness. For tens of kilometers he had been driving through fen and forests, and the highest ground he had found were merely concrete dikes that towered seven to eight meters over the water. The rest were low marshlands left after the huge floods. Along his way, he had also found two cemeteries that hugged closely to the river banks. But after talking to the neighborhood, he was told that the cemeteries were public burial grounds, not the ancestral burial grounds that we were looking for! With that, all of our leads had come to nothing!

With enough disappointments for a day, we could not have been more morose and sorrowful. Even Edelweiss could not help feeling sad after seeing us. We went home after dinner and I, still battered by the successive letdowns, switched on my computer and began looking in Baidu, still clinging to that last fragment of hope that the Internet might be able to yield something that we failed to find.

It was a blog that I found some information on the history of Yahong Bridge. But with no contact details listed on the site, all I could do was register myself as a subscriber of the blog to message the owner. Fortunately, a reply came as speedily as I could barely believe myself. It appeared that the owner was also an avid writer who checked his site regularly. We exchanged contact details and he later told me that he reposted the article from a Wu Zhong forum. A glimmer of hope sparkled amidst the gloom of despair as I immediately asked for the link to that forum.

But my hopes were quickly dashed when he said that the forum was closed down due to some irreconcilable differences between some of its members. All that the blogger knew about the original author of the article, was that he was a historian who had spent more than a decade of his life quietly delving into the past of Yahong Bridge. But it was a pity that the blogger didn't know his contact.

I turned off my computer. When I turned, Edelweiss was already half-asleep with her head on my shoulders, her drowsy eyelids already falling to a close. It was already ten at night, I saw the clock. She must be tired after our search all day. I was in no shape to carry her to the bed, but she might still be able to carry me. I tapped her gently and slowly helped her to the bed. Then I placed a call to Mr. Zhang.

”Mr. Zhang, I found something from a friend that I just made online...” And I told him what I found online, specifically that historian. Then, there was a silence lull from the other end of the line. Mr. Zhang pondered for seconds before saying, ”I might have heard of him before. If he's the same man I know, I don't think he's from Yahong Bridge, more likely the Yangjiatao in the North. But don't worry about it! I'll handle it!”

The next morning, Mr. Zhang contacted me. He had found the historian but the latter was busy. Apparently, the historian was engrossed in some work involving some calligraphy script used by ancient tomb markers and he could not come to Wu Zhong. Mr. Zhang urged us to go to him instead and it was best that we step on to it.

We scrambled into our car and took off with Mr. Zhang to meet with the historian. He was cheerful and warm to receive us when we met the elderly expert who heard that a bunch of young men was interested to know more about the history of Yahong Bridge. That filled with renewed vim and verse as he embarked on his tale. (The following information is referred from the works of historian Zhang Zhenjiang)

Yahong Bridge first came into prominence because of the great bazaar that farmers and peasants flocked to since early history. There was no definite information on how the great bazaar came to be, only that it was one of the largest marketplaces due east of the capital and there were records that it originated as early as the Ming Dynasty, in the third year of Jiajing Emperor's reign from traveling markets that moved markets moved from town to town with each on a designated day on every month, beginning from Yahong Bridge on the fifth and tenth days of each month, Gaoqiao town on the second and seventh days, the town beside Xixuan Lake on the third and the eighth days, Zhushuwu town on the fourth and ninth days, and Qianjiagou village on the first and sixth days. The venues of the markets were about 3 miles away at each stop and mostly were characterized by small scale and scattered distribution, catering to 120,000 people in the entire county in those days.

By the twentieth year of Kangxi Emperor's reign, the names of Gaoqiao town and the town beside Xixuan Lake were all but faded. The traveling markets were traveling no more and Yahong Bridge became the center where the great bazaar would remain indefinitely. With the population boom during the two centuries when emperors Kangxi and Qianlong ruled, commerce and trade grew exponentially around Yahong Bridge and more and more traders came after hearing its name. Before long, Yahong Bridge became a bustling market city that sprawled for tens or even hundreds of miles wide.

The grand bazaar of Yahong Bridge endured four great economic climaxes and four downturns as well during its three hundred years of activity. Its first climax occurred during the reign of Tongzhi Emperor of Qing when more and more cotton farmers began to appear by the banks of Huan Xiang River. By the tenth year of Guangxu Emperor's rule, the cotton industry began to boom with numerous families in the southern parts of the county making fabric. The products of the county ranged from common rough spun to cotton yarn and cotton fabric too. Their products were sold across the country, all with the help of the growing river trade and land trade. The Huan Xiang River was connected to Tianjin City and the Jing-Hang Grand Canal through the river trade network and trade caravans covered as far as the passes of the Great Wall, then the Lengkou Pass and the Xifengkou Pass, reaching even Chifeng City as well as other settlements in Inner and Outer Mongolia. In the East, the trade network extended to Shanhai Pass and reached the three northeast provinces of China. Like a spider's webs, the complex circuitry of Yahong Bridge's economic upsurge filled the air of the trade city with constant ringing bells of camels and the swishing of paddles in the water. In the early years when Jiaqing Emperor first took the throne, there were records indicating the famous Sam Sing Kung Temple needed repairs, and then a total of seventy-four enterprises, from large to even greater manufacturing giants, donated vast amounts of money for the restoration. Of all the enterprises which had contributed, there were many large enterprises like oil manual workshops, producers of noodles or vermicelli, wine breweries, vinegar breweries, fabric manufacturers, silk weavers, pawnbrokers, banks, and so on.

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