Chronicle of Shuhe Town

In Xunyang, southern Shaanxi, between the Qinling Mountains and the Bashan Mountains, at the intersection of the Han River and the Shu River, there is a thousand-year-old ancient town called Shu River that was once known as "Little Hankou". This book uses the fate of the five fictional generations of the Shen family as its warp and the rise and fall of the Shuhe ancient town in the past three hundred years as its weft to weave a magnificent mountain and river epic. During the Kangxi period, Shen Dechang, an immigrant from Huangzhou, went up the river and founded the "Tongxinghe" business name at the mouth of the river where the two rivers met, starting a legend shared by the family and the ancient town. During the three dynasties of Qianjia and Jiaqing, the Shu River ushered in a golden age. Merchants gathered under Mingsheng Downstairs in Huangzhou Pavilion, boatmen worshiped Master Yang in Yangsi Temple, thousands of sailboats raced on the golden waterway, guests were packed with guests at the "Eight Big Pieces" banquet, and the "double floats" rotated to dissolve the joy of the New Year. However, the wheel of time turns ruthlessly. The artillery fire of the Opium War, the ravages of the warlords of the Republic of China, the raging floods, and the impact of political movements caused this "small city on the Han River" to go from prosperity to desolation. After the reform and opening up, the ninth generation of the Shen family, Shen Nianshu, resigned from his job in the city and returned to his hometown. He became a "night watchman" and searched for the memories buried by the years in the ruins to promote the cultural revitalization of the ancient town. This is a novel about water and mountains, business and gangs, family and home, memory and forgetting. It uses the cornices of the Huangzhou Pavilion, the morning bell of the Yangsi Temple, the stone pillars on the pier, and the footprints on the bluestone road as anchor points. It integrates immigrant culture, commercial civilization, folk customs and ecological changes, asking how we can protect these historical towns that carry the roots of the nation in today's rapid urbanization, so that the Han River can flow forever and the Shu River can last forever.