Our reporters Tai Xiaoan, Zhao Xuetong, Wu Jianfeng, Chen Wang
On the evening of August 6, a fire broke out suddenly in Changqiao Village, Changqiao Town, Pingnan County, Fujian Province.
In just 20 minutes, most of the Wan'an Bridge in Pingnan, a key national cultural relics protection unit, was swallowed by the fire demon.
The wooden arch covered bridge, which has been passed down for nearly a thousand years and "a unique variety in the history of bridges in the world", entered the Chinese people's field of vision in an embarrassing way this summer.
In Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, there are still more than 100 wooden arch bridges spanning between rivers and valleys, silently telling the legendary history of bridge construction in ancient China.
This "living fossil" of the bridge from "Across the River during Qingming Festival", while admiring today's people, also expects to be more carefully guarded.
The Song Dynasty in the mountains of Fujian and Zhejiang
That night, Wan'an Bridge in Pingnan, the longest wooden arch covered bridge in China, was destroyed by fire. Only one of the six-span wooden buildings remained, with only a bridge head of more than ten meters and five solitary piers.
On the second day of the incident, charred wood was scattered in the river, and an old man was crying on the bank.
Local village officials said that the bridge was the hard work of the older generation and an important passage in the village. The villagers all regretted that it was burned down.
According to records, Wan'an Bridge was built in the fifth year of Yuanyou in the Northern Song Dynasty (1090). At that time, the woven wooden arch bridge called Hongqiao was popular in the Central Plains.
In Zhang Zeduan's "Across the River During Qingming Festival", an arched bridge crosses the Bianshui River like a flying rainbow. The bridge is bustling and boats are busy under the bridge. This bridge condensing the prosperity of the Northern Song Dynasty is the famous "Bian River". Rainbow Bridge".
During construction, beams and wood are used to overlap, and the limited length of wood is overlapped and woven to form a large-span column-free arch bridge. The structure is simple but very strong.
This kind of bridge building form, which cleverly uses natural materials, seems to be gradually lost after the Song Dynasty moved to the south.
Until the 1980s, the academic circles were pleasantly surprised to find many wooden arch bridges in the area of Fujian and Zhejiang with the same "wood-woven" arch structure as the Bianshui Hongqiao, and the bridge-building process was innovative. This is the Fujian-Zhejiang wooden arch bridge.
"The appearance of the wooden arch bridge is quite different from that of the Hongqiao painted in "Along the River During Qingming Festival". It can be said that it is the 2.0 version of the wooden arch bridge." Su Xudong, chairman of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles in Pingnan County, introduced that it is rainy in the south, and on the wooden bridge Covering covered houses is a routine operation, and such bridges are collectively referred to as wooden covered bridges.
The "Wooden Arch Covered Bridge" has an "arch" character more than the "Wooden Covered Bridge", which means that the covered bridge adopts the same arch structure as the Bianshui Hongqiao, which can realize the maximum span of a single arch of a wooden bridge.
Su Xudong said that more than 110 existing ancient wooden arch bridges in my country are mainly concentrated in the northeastern Fujian and southwestern Zhejiang areas with high mountains and dense forests and deep valleys and dangerous streams.
Among them, Fujian Province accounts for more than 70%, and is mainly concentrated in the east of Fujian Province.
According to experts, Fujian and Zhejiang are mountainous and have few fields, especially in northeastern Fujian and southwestern Zhejiang at the junction of the two provinces. The need for bridges is particularly urgent.
In addition, there are many trees in the mountains, and the craftsmen use local materials, so the traditional skill of weaving wooden arch bridges has been passed down for thousands of years.
In recent years, Fujian and Zhejiang wooden arch bridges have been favored by experts and scholars in the architectural and cultural relics circles.
The wooden arch bridge is not only a convenient transportation facility, but also generally a local landmark in the rural areas in Fujian and Zhejiang.
The wooden arch covered bridge is also called the "wind and rain bridge" because it has a house on the bridge, which can shield the wind and rain.
"The covered houses on covered bridges are generally equipped with stools and beds, which are important places for villagers to enjoy the cool air, gather, rest, watch, trade and other important activities. Every year on festivals such as the Dragon Boat Festival, the masses hold folk activities such as 'walking the bridge' on the wooden arch bridge. " said Zhou Fenfang, former chairman of the CPPCC in Pingnan County, Fujian, and vice president of the Pingnan Rural Revitalization Research Institute.
This enables the wooden arch bridge to function as a rural public cultural space, and becomes an important cultural symbol and link that condenses the emotions of the community and maintains the local cultural identity.
It contains rich spiritual connotations and local culture, and is called a typical example of Chinese mountain dwelling culture.
"From childhood to adulthood, chatting in the shade on the bridge in summer, chasing and playing on the bridge in winter, and 'walking the bridge' on the Dragon Boat Festival every year are the common memory of the villagers of the two villages next to Wan'an Bridge." said Hu Weixiang, a villager in Changxin Village, Changqiao Town. According to folklore, Qu Yuan suppressed the flood disaster for the villagers and brought good weather.
In 2006, "Northeast Fujian Covered Bridges" including Wan'an Bridge were listed as the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units; Tentative list of world cultural heritage.
"It's like a cloud that spans hundreds of feet across the east and west banks." Zhou Fenfang said that now, wooden arch bridges are getting more and more attention and popularity in rural revitalization. It connects splendid cultural traditions at one end and contemporary prosperity and revival at the other.
The living inheritance of craftsmanship
The night Wan'an Bridge caught fire, 86-year-old Huang Chuncai stayed up all night.
When he was 18 years old, he still remembered the scene of repairing the bridge with his parents, and he also remembered the past of repairing the Wan'an Bridge with his two sons.
The old man was deeply saddened to hear that most of the bridge, which he personally participated in the reconstruction and was guarded by four generations of his ancestors, collapsed and was damaged in the fire.
That sleepless night, the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of the national wooden arch bridge traditional construction technique also thought about one thing - rebuilding the Wan'an Bridge.
Fortunately, the Wan'an Bridge has been surveyed and mapped several times, and the construction skills of the wooden arch bridge have also been passed down locally.
Changqiao Village, Pingnan County, where Wan'an Bridge is located, is the birthplace of Huang Chuncai. In Changqiao Huangjia, a family that built wooden arch bridges, grandfather Huang Jinshu, uncle Huang Shengfu and father Huang Xiangyan are all famous master Mo masters of wooden arch bridges.
From a young age, Huang Chuncai began to learn skills from his elders at the age of 15.
"In the past, the craftsmanship of wooden arch bridges was a means of supporting the family, paying attention to 'word of mouth, family inheritance'." Su Xudong introduced that the craftsmanship of wooden arch bridges includes two parts: design and construction.
Before the bridge is built, wooden arch bridges with different spans such as single-hole and multi-hole should be designed according to environmental factors such as nature and hydrology.
In 1954, when the two arches in the northwest of the Wan'an Bridge in Pingnan were rebuilt, Huang Chuncai and his father took up the heavy responsibility together. During the construction process, he reduced the construction drawings and drew them on paper, and completed his first wooden arch bridge design.
Since then, Huang Chuncai has been devoted to repairing, building and researching bridges, and passed on this skill to his two sons, Huang Minping and Huang Minhui. The father and son built more than 10 covered bridges in Pingnan County.
With the development of the economy, asphalt roads and modern bridges have gradually become the mainstream of mountain traffic, and wooden arch bridges have gradually declined, making it difficult to inherit skills for a time.
In 2008, the traditional construction techniques of wooden arch bridges were included in the list of representative projects of national intangible cultural heritage.
In 2009, the "traditional construction techniques of Chinese wooden arch bridges" was included in the "List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Protection" by UNESCO.
Under the two-way promotion of the government and the people, the inheritance trend of wooden arch bridges has begun to reverse.
According to reports, in recent years, Zhejiang and Fujian have built more than 30 wooden arch bridges through fundraising and construction, and the team of inheritors has also increased to more than 50.
In order to further inherit the wooden arch bridge construction skills, Huang Chuncai also established a wooden arch bridge skills training center and trained more than 10 craftsmen.
"The wooden arch bridge, like a traditional village, has an idea first and then builds it, so it is called 'construction'." Su Xudong introduced that the core of the maintenance of cultural relics is the three principles, namely the principle of minimal intervention, the principle of traditional materials, the principle of traditional Process principles.
As long as the inheritors who have mastered the skills are still there, the nostalgia carried by this bridge can continue to be "woven and reconstructed".
"I hope that someone who has mastered this skill can build this bridge again. This is the memory of our Pingnan people and the nostalgia of Pingnan people." Su Xudong said.
Today, Huang Minping and Huang Minhui have been rated as city-level and county-level non-genetic inheritors respectively, and Huang Chuncai's grandson Huang Ying has also joined the family's bridge-building team.
According to Huang Minhui, according to the handed down technology, there should be no technical problems in the repair and reconstruction of Wan'an Bridge.
"Our family also hopes to continue the fate with Wan'an Bridge. If necessary, we will definitely go all out."
The Issue of the Times to Protect the Covered Bridge
The fire on the night of August 6 was distressing, but it was not the first disaster for Wan'an Bridge. It has been damaged and rebuilt many times in history.
"Pingnan County Chronicle" records: "(Wan'an Bridge) was built in the Song Dynasty. The stone was built as pier five, and the pavilion was built on the top. Wuzi (after research, it was suspected to be in 1708) was stolen and burned, and only one board was left. Qianlong seven years (1742) In the 33rd year of Qianlong’s reign (1768), Wan’an Bridge was robbed and burned again, and was rebuilt in the 25th year of Daoguang (1845); it was destroyed by fire in the early 20th century. It was rebuilt again in 1932.
In 1952, the two arches at the northwest end of Wan'an Bridge were washed away by the flood, and were rebuilt in 1954.
In fact, the encounter of Wan'an Bridge is not uncommon among wooden arch bridges.
In 2006, Baixiang Bridge, known as "the first bridge in the south of the Yangtze River", was destroyed by fire and was later rebuilt.
In 2011, Yuqing Bridge in Wuyi Mountain, Nanping, Fujian was also destroyed by fire and collapsed, but it has also been rebuilt.
In addition to fires, floods cannot be ignored either.
In September 2016, a typhoon "Moranti" caused the Dongguan Bridge, an 800-year-old covered bridge in Quanzhou, Fujian, to be destroyed by floods, and the three state-protected covered bridges in Taishun, Zhejiang were also washed away and repaired later.
At present, the accident investigation of the Wan'an Bridge fire is still ongoing.
The question that people are most concerned about is: how to learn from the lessons and draw inferences from one case to another, so as to turn the "danger" of Wan'an Bridge into an "opportunity" for the protection of China's covered bridges.
When the Wan'an Bridge caught fire, an expert who was doing fieldwork on wooden arch bridges in Pingnan told reporters that the protection of wooden bridges has been a problem since ancient times.
Not only wooden bridges, but also traditional villages with wooden structures as the main body in southern China have frequently entered the public eye due to fires in recent years.
The prevention of fire in traditional houses is mainly to build a firewall, which is a "horse head wall" with various expressions.
These masonry "partitions" can effectively restrict the spread of fire.
However, Wan'an Bridge not only has corridors that stretch for nearly 100 meters, but also the arches are connected by wooden structures. Without stone walls, it is impossible to physically prevent the spread of the fire.
"Covered bridges are public spaces that connect villagers' lives and beliefs. Many covered bridges are enshrined with shrines, so burning incense is inevitable. Today, on many ancient covered bridges, there are still incense sticks inserted into the seams to pray for safety. Local cultural relics work The interviewer told me that the burning power of incense in the past was very weak, and it was not easy to ignite buildings. But today’s incense may often be added with combustion accelerants, which has become a fire hazard that cannot be ignored.” The expert introduced.
In recent years, some covered bridges have become carriers of rural tourism. They are decorated with electronic equipment such as light strips. The safety of these circuits also needs attention.
In fact, on the second day of the Wan'an Bridge fire, the local government immediately began to investigate the hidden safety hazards of ancient bridges and ancient buildings, and removed such lamps.
Historically, it is not uncommon for covered bridges to be rebuilt after they have been destroyed.
Some scholars have sorted out the history of some wooden arch bridges built on major traffic roads. They will be rebuilt frequently in a cycle of 50-100 years. The most important reason for reconstruction is fire or water damage.
Can modern technology make it jump out of the vicious circle of "repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt, repeatedly built and destroyed"?
In recent years, more and more tourists have been welcomed by covered bridges, and such hidden dangers are becoming more and more serious.
Yao Hongfeng, a professor of historical building protection engineering at Fujian Institute of Technology, believes that on the premise of not destroying the original structure, it is an effective measure to arrange smoke alarms and internal fire prevention facilities, which can prevent villagers and tourists from smoking on the bridge. posed hazards.
"On the other hand, considering that most of the cultural protection units are located in remote mountainous areas and the fire brigade is not easy to reach, we can consider building miniature fire stations for key cultural protection units to deal with the fire in the first time." He said.
In addition to technology, the "guardian" also cannot be absent.
Zhou Fenfang suggested that the national provinces, cities, counties and townships should form a normalized linkage guidance mechanism, combine regular inspections with irregular unannounced visits, and strengthen the construction of the management inspection system.
In addition, because the covered bridges are located in many remote mountainous areas, daily protection needs to rely on the masses as much as possible. It is necessary to strengthen the daily education and training of local villagers, and carry out regular fire prevention awareness publicity and fire fighting drills.
"Guardians" also include scholars who build archives for covered bridges.
Yao Hongfeng has traveled to many covered bridges in Fujian Province to survey and map them.
In China, many scholars and folk enthusiasts like him are paying for their own money, and they are happy to describe those covered bridges in the deep mountains and old forests. The valuable surveying and mapping data they bring makes the "rebirth" of the covered bridges possible.
Yao Hongfeng hopes that the local cultural relics department can work with these private teams to establish an exclusive file for each covered bridge.
"For covered bridge lovers, the disappearance of every bridge is like the departure of a friend. I hope such a tragedy will not happen again." Yao Hongfeng said.