清明时节乘火车游玩闽粤赣五县市
I packed my back, and set foot on my journey with the drizzle in the Qingming Festival taking the green trains to shuttle among the mountains in Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi provinces so as to enjoy mountains and rivers, taste the beauty of nature, and seek the historical monuments hiding in the mountains.
拉上背包拉链，背上包，踏上旅途，迎着清明细雨，乘着绿皮火车，穿梭于闽粤赣山群中，去赏山看水，领略自然的美景，寻找那隐匿山群中的历史遗迹……
On the eve of the Qingming Festival, one of my classmates asked me where to go in the coming holidays. At that point, I had no plan to travel, but realized later I had been stuck in the same place for long and that I should go out for a tour. Moreover, since a long time ago, I’d always had in my mind a dream of one day leaving my footprints all over mountains and rivers of China.
清明前夕，一同学问我，清明放假去哪玩，当时还没有计划，但是后来想了想，似乎在一个地方困的太久了，觉得应该出去走走，况且很早以前，就有一个梦想，希望有一天，足迹能够踏遍祖国的山山水水。
On April 6, in the city of Meizhou.
4月6日，梅州市。
In the early morning, with the gentle rain, I was walking slowly in a silent street of Meizhou along the Meijiang River. Unconsciously I came to an archway, went through it, walked a short way ahead, and reached one pool, across which there was a gate, in the middle of which hung a golden plaque, which read “Qianfota Temple”, four golden Chinese characters.
清晨，冒着绵绵细雨，沿着梅江，漫步于静谧的梅州街道，不知不觉，就来到了一个牌坊前，进入牌坊向前走了一段路，面前出现了一个水池，水池后面是一个大门，大门中间挂着一个金色匾额，匾额上题写着“千佛塔寺”四个金色字。
I had already heard of something about the current temples, but my curiosity drove me inside to take a closer look at it. Sure enough, I entered it, seeing all monks being dressed in rags, who looked more like a swarm of worldly Buddhist priests than eminent monks at first sight. The monks standing everywhere, some incense in their hands, kept staring at me, wherever I went about the temple, which made me feel as if I had strayed into a slaughter house and have to watch my step in the temple. It seemed that I would only stand in awe of it as long as I saw a temple in the future.
如今寺庙的那点事，早有所耳闻，但出于好奇，还是决定进去一探究竟。果不其然，进去后，看到的僧人都是衣衫褴褛的，没有那种得道高僧的模样儿，咋一看倒像一群酒肉和尚。在里面走到那，那些僧人手捧着香火，老盯着你看，弄得我是时时在意，步步小心，有如误入黑店一般，看来以后见着寺庙，也只能敬而远之了。
Coming out of the temple, I went to the Hakka Town by taxi at 9 o’clock in the morning. The town lay in several valleys, of which only one valley close to the entrance I visited due to time constraints. Near the exit, I saw the interesting Hakka-style clay figures in the hillside on one side of the road, on which I was walking toward the exit while looking at the clay figures. Suddenly I felt very familiar with the scenes on the clay wall, and just then called to mind the country life in my childhood. Recently I had been going back to my hometown, but seldom found the kind of feelings in face of the village where all including the persons and things had changed.
从千佛塔寺出来后，已经是上午9点，搭车前往客家小镇。客家小镇位于几个山谷之中，由于时间仓促，就只游览了最外面的山谷。到出口的时候，在道路旁边的山壁上发现了很有意思的客家风情泥塑像，边向出口走，边看着山壁上的泥塑像，那种场景突然有一种似曾相识的感觉，这个时候，想起了童年的乡村生活，现在虽然时常回去，但面对“人非物亦不再”的乡村，很少能有这种感觉。
On April 7, in the city of Longyan.
4月7日，龙岩市。
In the wee hours of the morning, I was twisting my way through the alleys alone in the dark night. Just at the moment when a patch of vegetable garden was jumping into my eyes I didn’t know how many alleys I had walked down. I had to shut my umbrella blocked by the fences on either side of the path lying through the vegetable garden toward which I was walking in order to continue to move ahead, and came to the end of the pathway, in which there was another alley so very narrow that I thought in my heart it should be a dead end again, through which I went slightly sideways. Coming to a slightly wider street, and glancing at the screen of my mobile, I realized that I had eventually wound through the area without roads on the electronic map, so my heart just kept hanging up was finally reset to its original state. Before that, I had been regretting of my choice. If I had known it, I would not have cut across the place; if I had taken the main roads, I would have taken a detour, but would have taken the easy way out.
凌晨时分，漆黑夜色，独自一人，穿行小巷。不知转过了几条巷子，眼前出现了一小片菜园子，走向菜园中间小道时，两旁篱笆挡住了雨伞，只好收起雨伞，走到尽头，又是一条巷子，并且有点窄，心想难道又是死胡同，微微侧着身子通过巷子，来到了一条稍宽的街巷。此时看了下手机，刚刚一直悬挂的心终于回落，地图上没有显示道路的区域总算被穿越过去了。就在这之前还一直懊恼着，早知如此，就不 抄近路了，走大马路，虽绕了点路，但省事，不必这般费心。
I arrived at the Longyan Railway Station on foot at 5 o’clock in the morning. After I had breakfast in the waiting room, my train number K8740 still had not come. Then I took out my mobile phone to view the information about it, and knew it had departed from Fuzhou yesterday evening. The train had been running slowly all night within Fujian, at least three hours later of which it was to ease out. No wonder I had been hearing the complaint before that the train in Fujian was so very slow that people need to spend the whole day being driven away from Fujian; but recently I had also seen someone say the train now running in Fujian was extremely thrilling like flying in the sky. Whether slow trains or thrilling trains, they all had their own reasons for existing and might represent the products from different times.
凌晨5时，步行到了龙岩火车站，在候车室吃过早餐后，将要乘坐的K8740次列车还没到，就掏出手机，查看了一下这火车的相关信息，原来这火车昨天傍晚就从福州开出了，已经在福建境内晃悠了一夜，要出福建至少还得3小时。难怪以前常常听人抱怨说，福建的火车太慢了，坐火车出福建就要一天。不过最近，又看到有人说，福建的火车太惊险了，都是在天上飞的。无论说慢，还是惊险，相信都有一定的道理，这也许是不同时代产物的特征。
Upon boarding, I found one row of empty seats, one seat by the window of which I sat on. My eyes were capable of nothing out of the window but the raindrops beating on the window glasses at that moment, with the hazy night being still brooding over the land of western Fujian, and then I could only close my eyes to take a short nap. My eyes opened, and the hazy night having cleared, the train was steering on the very high railway bridge, with the villages, the farmlands, the roads, and the rolling hills in the distance in sight.
上车之后，找了一排空座位，靠窗坐下了，此时的闽西大地，仍然被朦胧夜色笼罩着，看不见窗外的风景，只见点点雨滴打在玻璃上，就闭着眼睛，小睡了会儿。睁开眼时，夜色褪去，发现火车已经行驶在高高的铁路桥上，村庄、农田、公路，还有远处绵延起伏的山峰都尽收眼底。
The train flied out of the tunnel in the mountainside, rumbled across the high railway bridge spanning the valley, and plunged into another mountainside again, and so it had been rushing across the long tunnels and the towering bridges. Then suddenly, I felt as if I had come to a fairyland in the world with the train, just seeing a snow-white light mist haunting the woods like veils hanging on the tree branches, a thick morning fog surrounding the hilltops like peaks stabbing the sky, and the vapors curling up like the light smoke, rising slowly into the air from the valley floor, pouncing on the moving train, striking on the windows of the train, and disappearing in a moment.
火车从一山腰隧道中穿出，驶过山谷中高高的铁道大桥，又钻进另一座山的山腰，就这样，火车开过一个个长长的隧道，一座座高耸的大桥。突然间，仿如进入了仙境一般，只见雪白的轻雾萦绕林间，犹如纱幔挂枝头，厚厚的晨雾弥漫山头，像是山峰直插云间，袅袅如轻烟般的雾气从谷底慢慢升至半空，向行驶中的火车袭来，撞击上车窗玻璃，瞬间化为乌有……
The scenery on both sides of the Ganlong railway line, from Ganzhou to Longyan, was rather different from that of the Zhanglong railway line, from Zhangping to Longchuan. I had taken a train to go to Longyan from Meizhou last day, which had been running in the ravines along the Meijiang River and the Tingjiang River, having seen the river views and the green hills on either bank of the rivers, with the view not wider than today’s.
这赣龙线（赣州至龙岩）沿线风景，倒是与漳龙线（漳平至龙川）沿线风景大不相同。前一天乘火车从梅州到龙岩，火车一直沿着梅江、汀江，在山谷谷底行驶，看到的是江景、两岸青山，视野没有今天这么开阔。
On April 7, in the county of Changting.
4月7日，长汀县。
It was very difficult for me not to think of the age, fashionable but traditional, the time, having been filled with wars but also passion and dreams, and the epoch, where the culture had been plentiful and the talents had occurred in large number, as I was standing in front of a plaque, with the inscription of “National Xiamen University”.
站在国立厦门大学的匾额前，很难不让人想起那个时尚而又不失传统的时代，那个烽火连天而又充满激情与梦想的时代，那个人文鼎盛、英才踵至的年代。
On some day of the year of 1937, National Xiamen University had been forced to close, with Japanese troops having occupied the Jinmen Island separated from Xiamen only by a narrow strip of water. Three days later, more than 300 teachers and students had begun to move into the mountains in western Fujian holding books in their hands and carrying baggage on their shoulders; and 23 days later they had come to the county of Changting to continue their work and studies crossing over mountains and wading through rivers. In Changting, National Xiamen University had trained 15 academicians, 6 university presidents, and other hundreds of famous experts, scholars and professors. In the roughest of times of China’s Patriotic War, the youth of Xiamen University had carried the faith of ” one inch of the land of country one inch of blood” into fight, and had sprinkled their boiling blood to foreign countries.
1937年，日军侵占与厦门一水相隔的金门岛，国立厦门大学被迫停课。三日后，师生300余人，手提书本、肩扛行李，向闽西山中转移，跋山涉水，历经23天，到达长汀，继续工作和学习。在长汀期间，厦大培育出了两院院士15人，大学校长6人，以及著名专家、学者、教授等数百人。在卫国战争最艰难的时刻，厦大青年怀着“一寸山河一寸血”的信念，投身疆场，将一腔热血洒向异域。
At 8 o’clock in the morning, my train arrived at the Changting Railway Station. Coming out of the Railway Station Square, and passing through the streets, a moment later, I found the Sanyuan Pavilion, which had ever been the main entrance of the ancient city of Tingzhou, and then went through it, from which Tingzhou Examination Hall was across, which had become today’s Changting Museum, of which I made a tour. Stepping out from the Changting Museum, I was walking east along the Zhaozheng Road lined with shops in ancient style and unique bus stations made by woods to look like pavilions. I saw the Tingzhou Confucian Temple now standing empty and the former site of National Xiamen University in Changting on my way to the city walls in the Wolong Mountain. Coming down from it, I visited the Tingzhou Town God Temple, and then passed through the ancient street of Ming and Qing, “Diantou Street”, went out of Huiji Gate, and then went back to the railway station by foot around Changting City.
上午8时，到达了长汀县，走出车站广场，走街串巷，片刻工夫，就看到了汀州府古城正门三元阁，从城门进去，对面便是古汀州府试院，现在的长汀县博物馆，进去闲逛了一下。出来后，沿着兆征路向东走，发现街道两旁的店铺都是清一色古朴建筑风格，公交站台也是别具一格，采用的是木制亭台格调。在去卧龙山城墙的路上，看到了人去楼空的汀州府文庙以及国立厦门大学长汀校址，从卧龙山下来后，顺道去了汀州府城隍庙，然后走完明清古街“店头街”，从惠吉门出来，绕着长汀县城走回了火车站。
I found a restaurant near the railway station to have lunch, and left Fujian Province for Ruijin City in Jiangxi Province by train in the afternoon. I roamed around the former site of the central government of the Chinese Soviet Republic with my strong curiosity in Ruijin, and headed for Ganzhou by train in the early evening, which was the last leg of my trip.
在车站附近找了个餐馆，吃过午餐后，下午乘火车离开福建，去往江西瑞金市，怀揣着好奇之心，到中华苏维埃中央政府旧址溜达了一圈，于当日傍晚时分，坐火车前往本次旅行的最后一站赣州市。
On April 8, in the city of Ganzhou.
4月8日，赣州市。
Ganzhou, the south gate of Jiangxi Province, population 9.16 million, 8.7 million (95%) of which is Hakka, which was the first stop in the south for the “Early Hakka Settlers”, is known as the “Cradle of Hakkas”.At the turn of Northern and Southern Song Dynasty, with Jin State invading south, large numbers of fugitives poured into Ganzhou City, so that which, a small town in the mountains in Southern Jiangxi, became a metropolitan city of Southern Song Dynasty; and so it has the good reputation of “Song Dynasty City of Jiangnan”. Ganzhou was the political center of the boarding areas among Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangxi and Hunan Provinces, and also was the main thoroughfare between the Central Plain and Lingnan until Yuehan Railway Line went into operation, which would have passed through Jiangxi, but was built in Hunan, and now is the Southern Jingguang Railway Line.
赣州，是江西的南大门，被誉为“客家摇篮”，是客家先民南迁的第一站，现有客家人口870万，占全市人口的95%。两宋交替之际，金人南侵，大批逃亡人员涌入赣州，使得这个原本赣南山中的小城，一跃成为南宋大都会，也因此，赣州有“江南宋城”的美誉。赣州也曾作为闽粤赣湘边区的政治中心，在粤汉铁路（原本经江西后改道湖南，今京广线南段）修通之前，也一直是中原与岭南往来的交通要塞。
I had originally planned to visit only the area of the ancient city of Ganzhou, but later I first went to Tongtianyan Scenic Area in the suburbs of the city, which is known as “Jiangnan First Grotto”, because I realized I didn’t have to take a whole day to achieve it. It was unexpected that I would spend six hours walking around it after I went there. Getting down from the scenic area, I felt very drowsy.
原本只打算在宋朝古城一带游玩一下，但是后来觉得一天时间太充裕了，就先去了位于城郊被誉为“江南第一石窟”的通天岩景区，没想到这一去，就在里面兜了6个小时，从景区下来，整个人都已经是昏昏沉沉的。
After my return from Tongtianyan, I was rambling along the Zhangjiang River, entered Song Dynasty City of Ganzhou through the Xijin Gate, walked about 500 meters along the Xijin Road, and saw a relatively old building. After I looked carefully, there was a stone stele above its front door, with the inscription of “Guangdong Guild Hall”. I walked into the alley beside the Guangdong Guild Hall, on both sides of which were the new restoring Song Dynasty residential-style buildings, and saw the City Walls of Ganzhou along the Zhangjiang River as soon as I arrived at the end of the alley.
从通天岩回来后，沿着章江漫步，由西津门进入赣州“宋城区”，顺着西津路往前走了大约500米，看到了一个比较古老的建筑，仔细一看，正门上方悬挂着一块刻有“廣東會舘”字样的石匾，走进广东会馆旁边的巷子，两边都是刚复原的宋朝民居风格建筑，走到巷子尽头，看到了沿章江修筑的赣州城墙。
Climbing up the Bajingtai standing on the city walls, I could clearly see the Zhangjiang River merging with the Gongjiang River beneath it to form Jiangxi’s mother river, about 500 kilometers of Ganjiang River. There were lots of jagged rocks and 18 Dangerous Shoals on the river bed, bloodcurdling and breathtaking, from here to Wan’an County, which was about 90 kilometers down the Ganjiang River. “In the Huangkong Rapids, I talked the fearfulness to myself”, Wen Tianxiang had written in his poem “Passing by Lingdingyang”, he had used the fearfulness that the Huangkong Rapids had brought him to express the fears in his heart for the situation in Song Dynasty having been rapidly deteriorating and the future of his home country unable to foresee. As Su Shi had been exiled to Lingnan, having passed Jiangxi, he had written the poem “An old man 3500 kilometers away, a body among 18 Dangerous Shoals”, where he had used the dangerous situation where he had been in 18 Dangerous Shoals in torrents to imply that he would have narrowly escaped death as long as he had gone to Lingnan 3500 kilometers away from Kaifeng, the Eastern Capital of the Song Dynasty. Now owing to the Wan’an Hydropower Station having been built, the rapids had been submerged under water, but the attractive scenery on both banks of the Ganjiang River was still original. Recently, every time I had gone to Shenzhen by train, but I hoped that I come here from my hometown by boat one day, and then walk on the Ancient Post Road of Meiguan having gone through millennium vicissitudes to go into Guangdong Province and hunt for the footprints of the ancients for thousands of years.
爬上位于城墙上的八镜台，可以清楚地看到了章、贡两江于台下汇合，形成了江西的母亲河，千里赣江。从这里下行90公里至万安县，江道礁石突兀，有十八处险滩，恐怖惊险。文天祥曾在《过零丁洋》中写道“惶恐滩头说惶恐”，用惶恐滩给人的惶恐，来表达内心对大宋局势、家国命运感到的惶恐。苏轼被贬岭南，途经江西时，写下了“七千里外二毛人，十八滩头一叶身（二毛人：老人，指作者自己）”的诗句，用身处在水流湍急的十八滩的险境，暗示去到远离东京开封7000里外的岭南，将会是九死一生。如今，由于万安水电站的修建，十八险滩早已淹没水下，但两岸迷人景色依旧。现在，每次去深圳，都是乘火车，期盼有一天，能够从家乡乘船至此，然后行走历经千年沧桑的梅关古驿道，进入广东，去追寻千百年来，古人留下的足迹。
Getting down from the Bajingtai, and walking through the Bajing Park, I arrived in front of the Yongjin Gate of the Ancient City of Ganzhou, outside which was flowing the Gongjiang River. Standing at the city gate, I saw the Hedong Floating Bridge across the river lying distantly ahead of me; and then walking along the Gongjiang River for a moment, I got to the floating bridge, seeing many fishermen selling all kinds of fishes freshly caught from the river at the bridgehead, and a couple of persons jumping into the river from the bridge to swim. Coming to the middle of the bridge, I could palpably feel the rolling water flowing beneath my feet, which suddenly struck me that the green river in spring cutting through Jiangxi from south to north might be the most precious thing in Jiangxi, which no amount of money could buy, and that the river water being priceless, naturally there were some persons said to have set their sights on it. The bridge being too long, and my body and mind being too exhausted because of my strolling all day, I only came here and then returned to the Jianchun Gate, from which I entered into the city. Now the Yin Street, which was one of six streets of the Ancient City of Ganzhou, and other historical monuments of Song Dynasty, being close to me, I had no desire to visit them, possibly being too tired.
从八镜台下来，穿过八镜台公园，到了涌金门前，城门外便是贡江，站在城门口，远远望到了横跨贡江的河东浮桥，沿着贡江岸边，步行了片刻，来到了河东浮桥上，只见桥头有好多渔民在卖刚从江中打捞起来的各种鱼，浮桥上三两人跳入江中游泳。走到浮桥中间，能明显感觉脚下滚滚涌动的江水，突然想到，这一江贯穿江西南北碧绿春水，可能是江西最珍贵的东西了，是用多少金钱都换不来的，既然是无价之宝，自然少不了有人打主意。浮桥似乎有点长，加上闲逛了一天，身心都有点疲惫了，就只走到了桥中间，然后返回，由建春门进入赣州城。此刻，虽然古赣州城六街之一的“阴街”等一批宋朝遗迹近在咫尺，却没有去游玩的欲望，可能确实是太累了。
Walking in the old city district of Ganzhou, you can see the historical monuments of Song Dynasty everywhere. No wonder Ganzhou is called Song Dynasty City, and also someone has vividly compared Ganzhou City to “the History Museum of Song Dynasty”. Of course, what the ancients left behind today’s Ganzhou are not just the things with ornamental and investigative value. The Fushougou, a sewerage system built in Song period, is still carrying the burden of the drainage in the old city area of Ganzhou City. The Fushougou existing, Ganzhou City has never experienced a hit by flood or waterlogging for more than 900 years.
走在赣州旧城区，处处能看到宋朝遗迹，也难怪赣州被称作“宋城”，也有人形象地将赣州比喻成“宋代历史博物馆”。当然先人留给赣州的，远不止这些只具观赏、研究价值的东西。“福寿沟”，这个修筑于宋朝的地下城市排水系统，今天依然承担着旧城区的排水的重任。正因为有“福寿沟”的存在，900多年以来，赣州城从未遭受过洪灾与内涝的侵袭。
Founded in Tang Dynasty, Ganzhou City was surrounded on three sides by water. Then the designers selecting its location for military affairs, but neglecting the three rough rivers encircling the city, the floods would occur in the city when the rain spell coming. In the fifth year of Xining of Shenzong Emperor in Song Dynasty (AD 1073), Liuyi was transferred to be the Zhizhoushi of Ganzhou, who was a water specialist having become Dushuicheng for some times, and began to take charge of building the sewerage system. A few years later, the Fushougou was finished, with all the streets of the Ancient City of Ganzhou filled with underground conduits, which was named “Fushougou” due to the runs of the two main drainage channels resembling the two Chinese characters “Fu” and “Shou” written with seal character.
赣州城始建于唐代，三面环水，当初设计者选址出于军事考量，却忽视了环绕城池的三条凶猛大江，每到雨季，赣州城内便发生洪涝。宋神宗熙宁五年（公历1073年），曾数度任职都水丞的水利专家刘彝被调任赣州知州事，开始主持城内地下排水系统的修筑，几年后“福寿沟”顺利完工，地下水道覆盖了古赣州城的每条街道，因两条主排水道的走向形似篆体“福”、“寿”二字，故得名“福寿沟”。
In the beginning of the summer in 2010, the dozens of cities in southern china suffered from the waterlogging disaster, with the heavy rain continuing, but only Ganzhou avoided the disaster, without cars soaked in floodwater, because of which, the media across the nation focused on the Fushougou in Ganzhou. Interviewed by the reporter of China Youth Daily, a Director of City Management from Guangdong Province recognized the sewerage system having been built in Ganzhou was the best one, but added that the system had been left by the ancients.
2010年入夏，持续强降雨让南方数十个城市内涝成灾，唯独赣州免于其害，没有出现汽车被浸泡的景象，因为这样，全国各大媒体纷纷聚焦赣州“福寿沟”，广东一位城管局长接受中国青年报记者采访时，承认城 市排水系统做得最好的是江西赣州，但补充说道，这个系统是古人留下的……