Fujian Daily reporter Fan Chenchun reporter Chen Yiqun Qiu Lijuan
The wooden arch bridge in China originated in the Northern Song Dynasty. The scene of the Bianshui Hongqiao Bridge was described in the Picture of the River during the Qingming Festival. The wooden arch covered bridges in Fujian and Zhejiang are an important part of the inheritance of Chinese bridge culture, and are typical mountain residential architectural heritage. They are generally built at narrow riverbed, and adopt single hole and single span construction technology to skillfully integrate function and form perfectly. In June 2008, the traditional construction techniques of wooden arch covered bridges were included in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists. In October of the next year, this skill was listed in the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Urgent Need of Protection by UNESCO.
June 13 is the National "Cultural and Natural Heritage Day". In Fuzhou Sanfang Qixiang Intangible Cultural Heritage Expo Garden, Zheng Duoxiong, the representative inheritor of the provincial intangible cultural heritage project of traditional construction skills of Chinese wooden arch bridges, and his apprentice Li Zhen showed the visitors how to build arch bridge models with wooden sticks. The ancient traditional wooden arch bridge style of "erecting bridges on rivers, building corridors on bridges, protecting bridges with corridors, and integrating bridges and corridors" was realized in a moment by Zheng Duoxiong through mortise and tenon joints instead of nails and pieces of iron.
Shouning, Zheng Duoxiong's hometown, is the county with the largest number of wooden arch covered bridges in China. Taking over the traditional construction skills of wooden arch bridges from his elder brother, Zheng Duoxiong's craftsmanship career was continued and sublimated. A pair of calloused hands silently tell the story of his ingenuity for nearly half a century.
Zheng Duoxiong is working. Photograph provided by respondents
Guili Bridge, located in Shangping Village, Fengdu Town, Gutian County, was built under the leadership of Zheng Duoxiong. You Wanji's drawings
Eight generations of inheritors, father and brother are the main ink
Zheng Duoxiong's "studio", located in Xiaodong Village, Kengdi Township, Shouning County, is a brick and concrete hut on a hillside. The room was full of tools he used to build wooden arch covered bridges, including nearly 10 kinds, such as Luban ruler, axe, angle ruler, ink fountain, saw, planer, wooden horse frame, bamboo strip cable and horse hand over.
In addition to sundries, a "bed board" attracted journalists. At first glance, the bed board seems to be full of stains. Looking closely, "stains" are actually Chinese numbers written in ink. They are distributed on the bed board in groups of seven or eight, five or six. This is the mysterious "core technology" of Zheng Duoxiong's bridge building - the "drawing" below the bridge deck.
He told the reporter that the construction of a wooden arch corridor bridge is divided into two parts: below the bridge deck and above the bridge deck. There are roughly processes such as selecting the bridge site, building abutments, arching, paving the bridge deck, building corridors and houses, which need to be completed by masons, carpenters, painters and other craftsmen. Among them, the carpenter at the core is called Zhu Mo, who is responsible for shaping the "soul" of a wooden arch covered bridge.
According to historical records, the "main ink" of the bridge building craftsman family in Kengdi Township was inherited by the surnames of Xu and Zheng. The sixth generation was Zheng Huifu, the father of Zheng Duoxiong, who built the Yangmeizhou Bridge and presided over the repair of the Luanfeng Bridge in Xiadang Township, which has the longest single arch span in China. The seventh generation is Zheng Duojin, the elder brother of Zheng Duoxiong and the representative inheritor of national intangible cultural heritage. In 1967, Zheng Duojin took charge of the construction of Yangxitou Bridge in Xiadang Township for the first time. However, at that time, social production and traffic construction needed stone bridges and cement bridges. "My brother has been writing ink for more than 30 years since then," said Zheng Duoxiong.
The inheritance between brothers, in Zheng Duoxiong's words, is "coincidence". In 2002, Zheng Duoxiong, a stone mason, followed his brother to learn how to build two wooden arch covered bridges in Zhangkeng and Nagase Creek in Qinyang Township. Since then, he has found woodworking tools and spent eight or nine hours every day practicing chopping, chopping, chipping, snapping and other techniques, reciting the pithy formula of bridge building techniques taught by his brother. After becoming proficient, he found suitable wood and built a model of wooden arch covered bridge under the guidance of his brother. In the eyes of others, being with wood all day long is boring, while Zheng Duoxiong is always happy with it.
"It took me one month to build the model of the wooden arch covered bridge for the first time. Before I succeeded, I was constantly failing and persisting. In order to master this basic skill, I built models of different sizes," Zheng Duoxiong recalled. Along the way from building stone bridges to wooden arch covered bridges, Zheng Duoxiong also went from his youth to his 60s. Since 2002, including those under construction, he has participated in and presided over the construction of 18 wooden arch covered bridges in Fujian and Zhejiang.
"Everyone's heart is like a piece of wood. If you want to hone it, you must first use an axe to cut it, then use an awl to chisel it, then use a plane to plane it, and finally use sandpaper to smooth it." Zheng Duoxiong said that the ancestral art is the eighth generation here. "Since you have chosen this profession, you have the obligation and responsibility to do it well".
Zheng Duoxiong (left) and his apprentice Li Zhen show how to build an arch bridge model with wooden sticks. Photographed by Ma Junjie
Lu Banchi and files used by Zheng Duoxiong to build wooden arch covered bridges. Photographed by Chen Yiqun
Living inheritance seeks a way out
Undoubtedly, wooden arch covered bridges have important research significance and value in engineering technology, architectural technology, folk culture research and other fields. In recent years, Shouning County has successively applied for special protection funds for the inheritance of construction skills to the state, encouraged and subsidized the construction of wooden arch covered bridges by the people, and has successively built several wooden arch covered bridges in Xipu Village, Xixi Town, Youxi Village, Qinyang Township and other places, promoting the sustainable inheritance and development of skills in bridge building practice.
Moreover, according to the principle of "repair the old as the old, not change the original state", Shouning County specially hires units and professionals with appropriate qualifications to regularly repair and maintain Feiyun Bridge, Shengping Bridge, Yangmeizhou Bridge, Luanfeng Bridge and Dabao Bridge, which are key cultural relics under national protection, to help rural revitalization. The county also held training classes for inheritors and volunteers of traditional construction skills of wooden arch covered bridges, and covered bridge culture into the campus and other activities, aiming to cultivate and tap new talents for intangible heritage inheritance.
However, a less optimistic reality is that as the category with the highest technical content in China's traditional wooden bridges, the traditional construction skills of wooden arch covered bridges have long been only spread in the border mountainous areas of Fujian and Zhejiang. The craftsmen are not high in cultural level, older, have no qualifications for ancient building repair, and young people have low willingness to learn. Now they are in the dilemma of inheritance. "Holding training classes and other activities will help improve the theoretical research and practice level of people who inherit intangible cultural heritage of wooden arch covered bridges, solve the embarrassment of not having the qualification to repair ancient buildings, and cultivate and guide more young people to join the team to promote the culture of covered bridges," said Li Zhen, Zheng Duoxiong's apprentice.
Li Zhen, a graduate of Fujian Engineering College, is a master of bridge and structural engineering, and now works in Shouning Housing and Urban Rural Development Bureau. Every weekend, he and a group of "little friends" organize to collect folk songs around Fujian and Zhejiang. "We have photographers, folklore scholars, and builders of ancient buildings. We recorded the process of building and repairing the covered bridges, visited old craftsmen, and explored the digital protection of this intangible cultural heritage technology." Li Zhen said that their team hopes to introduce the wooden arch covered bridges to college classrooms, so that more young people can understand the wonders of ancient buildings hidden in the mountains.
Digital protection is a method and trend of living inheritance of intangible cultural heritage. Li Zhen envisions that the existing wooden arch bridge structure will be broken down into a series of components by using virtual reality technology, and its spatial composition, geometric dimensions, texture, physical characteristics and other elements will be recorded in the form of three-dimensional simulation diagrams, which can effectively preserve the concrete image and artistic style of these wooden arch bridges and facilitate public visit and learning, It also provides basic image materials and decision-making basis for cultural relics protection.
As a successor, Zheng Duoxiong said frankly that he has always dreamed of establishing his own antique construction company. "At present, my construction team can only be affiliated with other companies, and can only earn low labor costs for bridge construction. Several teachers have left due to low salaries. If qualified professionals join our team and set up a joint-stock construction company together, then the craftsmen are expected to obtain long-term security. It will be of great benefit to the inheritance of skills," he said.
