【Commentary】Wearing straw shoes, wearing straw hats, carrying dozens of pounds of tea bags, holding an iron "pier crutch" in his hand, or walking between lofty mountains, or staggering against the wind and snow... Sichuan tea farmer Zhu Hengbin incarnated as the "second brother on the back of the ancient tea horse road", and has received more than 740.40 million likes on the short video platform in recent years, and nearly <>,<> fans have followed him.
Xingjing County, Ya'an City, where Zhu Hengbin is located, is an important tea town on the south road and an important node of the ancient tea horse road in history. Due to the rain and fog in the local area, the roads on the ancient tea horse road are slippery and difficult, and it is difficult for cattle and horses to walk, and this transportation has to rely on manpower. Those porters who carry hundreds of pounds of tea on the ancient road to make a living are known as "second brother back" by the locals. And the "second brother on the back" gradually faded out of people's memories in the 20s of the 50th century with the opening of the Sichuan-Tibet Highway.
Zhu Hengbin, 51 years old this year, was a "mountain runner" in his early years, specializing in finding and purchasing Chinese medicinal materials in the local mountains of Ya'an. In 2010, by chance, he found that many old tea trees on a mountain in Xingjing County were neglected, so he decided to contract and embarked on the "tea road" ever since.
【In the same period】Xingjing "back second brother" Zhu Hengbin
My tea mountain here has more than 200 acres. I used to do medicinal herbs (business), and then I wanted to pack a mountain to grow medicinal herbs and make a medicinal base, so I wrapped this tea mountain to prepare for planting medicinal herbs. When the original old tea tree is cut down, it grows up very well (next year). So at that time, I changed my career, from the medicinal herb industry to the tea industry.
【Commentary】Cross-line tea making is not smooth, and problems such as craftsmanship, sales, and tea garden management make Zhu Hengbin very annoyed. When he was stressed, he chose to "walk in the mountains" and met the Tea Horse Road. Located in Xingjing County, the Daxiangling Tea Horse Road is a relatively well-preserved section of the Sichuan-Tibet Tea Horse Road. On the stone road of the ancient road, there is a "kidnapping nest" that the "second brother on the back" has used the "pier kidnapper" to make over the years. Zhu Hengbin said that he heard a lot of stories of "carrying the second brother" in the ancient tea horse road, and he was impressed by their amazing toughness and endurance, so he changed to the "carrying the second brother" outfit, in addition to reproducing their former image, it is more important to encourage himself to keep moving forward.
【In the same period】Xingjing "back second brother" Zhu Hengbin
This is the crutch used by the "second brother on the back", which supports the body when walking, and rests when it is supported by the back, so this crutch is a flowing "rest platform". This is called a sweat scraper, which is a sweat scrape. The rope that ties the sweat scraper is called a jack rope, and it is balanced. This is straw shoes, and if you walk a bad pair on the ancient tea horse road, you will have to change it (immediately), so you have to (take) a few more pairs on your back. This is a kettle, which is used by the "second brother on the back" to drink water.
【Commentary】Since 2020, dressed as the "second brother on the back", Zhu Hengbin spent more than four months re-walking the Tea Horse Road, he took his own videos along the way and uploaded them to the short video platform, attracting netizens across the country. In Zhu Hengbin's view, the comments of netizens are not important, but more important is "what they got on the road". Step by step, he walked the ancient road with a load, and he understood that period of history better.
【In the same period】Xingjing "back second brother" Zhu Hengbin
What netizens like very much is that I carry tea bags on the ancient tea horse road, walking in that kind of ice and snow, stormy rain, so that the traffic seems to be very good. In fact, what I really want to do, what I want to pass on to my netizens and fans is the thousand-year-old tea horse road, which tells us some truths about life. I feel that I walked the Tea Horse Road to let my fans let them be down-to-earth and practice their lives step by step.
In Zhu Hengbin's eyes, the Tea Horse Road is not only a historical and cultural road, but also a "life road" left by ancestors to future generations. He also decided to continue to walk the ancient road in the future, explore the road that has not yet been clearly explored, and collect coordinates to make a road map and share it.
【In the same period】Xingjing "back second brother" Zhu Hengbin
I have been walking (the Tea Horse Road) for a few years, although I have taken so many videos, what I really want to stay is to connect these fragmentary videos in the form of lines, so that more people can intuitively and systematically understand this Tea Horse Road. So what I want to do this year is to collect the coordinates of each point I took the video, continue to explore clearly without exploring it at that time, and systematically share it with everyone, which I think is useful.
Reporter Lv Yang reported by Xingjing in Sichuan
Responsible Editor: [Song Yusheng]