The road to Shu is difficult? The road to Fujian is even more difficult!

Mountains cannot stop you; the sea can also be crossed.

China's eastern coastal areas have always been the country's economic center since ancient times. However, there is a region that was even regarded as the most stubborn and barbaric land in the early history of the central dynasty. It is the southeast coast .

The southeast coast is mainly composed of mountains and hills , which are called the southeast coastal hills.

Today, China's southeastern coastal areas are developing rapidly. However, in ancient times, due to the layers of mountainous barriers , the ancients in the Central Plains lacked understanding of the southeastern coastal areas and usually regarded them as ignorant and backward "barbarian lands" . They were even more frightened by the local "malaria" (infectious diseases prevalent in tropical or subtropical humid areas). Not only the people, but also the imperial court often chose this place as a place for exile of criminals and exile of officials.

How exaggerated are the layers of mountains here? Looking down from the sky, you can get a glimpse of it: the vast land is full of wrinkles raised by the mountains , with countless ancient roads winding through it, lonely mountain winds, and steaming clouds and mists.

The Road to Fujian may be more difficult than the Road to Shu.

Why is the “Min Road” more difficult?

During the Tang Dynasty, the writer Han Yu was demoted from the capital Chang'an (now Xi'an, Shaanxi Province) to Chaozhou, Guangdong .

The straight-line distance from Chang'an to Chaozhou is about 1,800 kilometers . Although it only takes 3 hours by plane and more than ten hours by high-speed rail today, Han Yu, who was 52 years old at the time, traveled for more than 70 days . The hardships of the journey can be imagined.

The Ape Road is located on the west side of Jianmen Pass, which is China's most precipitous conglomerate Danxia landform and the world's rare wall-like conglomerate cliff Danxia landscape. Many tourists come here to experience the hardships of "The Difficult Road to Shu".

If Li Bai had been to Fujian, he probably wouldn't have felt that "the road to Shu is as difficult as climbing to the sky", because **"the road to Fujian is even more difficult than the road to Shu". **

Speaking of this, the Southern Song poet Lu You had a deep understanding of this.

One year, the young Lu You was transferred from today's Ningde area to Fuzhou for "work" . The two places were less than 100 kilometers apart, but he hurriedly traveled the mountain road for 4 days to get there. Even the soles of his shoes were worn out. He looked very embarrassed, and was far from the calmness when he "rode a donkey into Jianmen in the drizzle" on the Shu Road more than ten years later.

Shizhu Mountain

Why is the Fujian Road so difficult?

Because the mountains that run through the entire territory - such as Wuyi Mountain and Taimu Mountain in the northwest - form a large encirclement , the entire Fujian is surrounded by it, and the natural barriers cause traffic restrictions.

The opening of the encirclement is in the southeast, facing the vast ocean ; in the middle, the Jiufeng Mountain-Daiyun Mountain-Bopingling Mountain Range divides Fujian diagonally into two parts.

Taimu Mountain

The mountainous and hilly area formed by these mountain ranges together accounts for more than 90% of Fujian’s total area.

Imagine that an ancient person went through many hardships and crossed the Wuyi Mountains, but when he looked up, all he saw were continuous peaks, which would inevitably make people feel daunting and fearful.

Wuyi Mountain, the first mountain in Fujian

Wuyi Mountain is located at the junction of Jiangxi and Fujian provinces . It is connected to Xianxialing Mountain in the north and Jiulian Mountain in the south. It is the watershed between Ganjiang River and Minjiang River. It is named after the legendary mountain god Wuyijun.

Wuyi Mountain is not an independent peak, but a range of low mountains and hills. The Wuyi Mountain Range, which runs parallel to the coastline, and Nanling Mountains together form an important natural geographical dividing line within southern China.

Here is Huanggang Mountain, the highest peak in the southeastern part of mainland China , with an altitude of about 2,160 meters. It is also the boundary mountain between Fujian Province and Jiangxi Province.

With layers of mountains rising and falling and rivers running through them, it is hard to imagine that the seemingly flat southeastern part of my country has such a complex landform.

Climb up Huanggang Mountain , the main peak of Wuyi Mountains, face the sea, overlook the land embraced by mountains, and imagine the southeastern coastal area in a scaled-down version in your mind.

This place is like a recliner, with the backrest being relatively high mountains - Xianxialing - Wuyishan - Nanling, the seat being a large stretch of continuous low-lying hills and mountains and plain deltas, and in front of the recliner being the vast East China Sea and South China Sea.

Like Jianglang Mountain and Danxia Mountain, Wuyi Mountain also belongs to Danxia landform . The difference is that Wuyi Mountain has not yet aged, and is in the "youth" stage of Danxia landform.

The crustal movement over the past 200 million years has not only created the red mountains, clear waters, green forests and blue stones of Wuyi Mountain, but has also made it a paradise for animals and plants with singing birds and blooming flowers.

There are 3,728 known plant species and 5,110 known animal species in Wuyi Mountain, and many specimens of animals and plants are collected and exhibited in world-class museums.

"Red-eyed general fish" in Jiuqu River in Wuyi Mountain.

Biologists at home and abroad describe the long Wuyi Mountain as " a key to studying amphibians and reptiles ". Wuyi Mountain is also known as the "Southeast Plant Treasure House", "Insect World", "Bird Paradise", "Snake Kingdom"... Here, every step you take may take you into a "new world".

Fujian’s “Counterattack”

Before the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Fujian was almost isolated from the Central Plains . It was not until the Qin and Han Dynasties when counties were set up and the Central Plains dynasties invaded Fujian several times that the passage to Fujian was initially opened up from surrounding areas such as Zhejiang and Jiangxi .

But in the hundreds and thousands of years that followed, the land transportation conditions in Fujian did not improve significantly.

The "Chunxi Sanshanzhi" of the Tang Dynasty recorded that "there was no road on the western route to China. One had to take a boat along the river, going upstream for a distance of 462 miles before connecting to the postal route." This means that there was no road connecting the Central Plains with the present-day Fuzhou area in Fujian Province. One could only take a boat and travel along the water for more than 400 miles (about 200 kilometers) before connecting to the official road.

At the end of the Tang Dynasty, Huang Chao led his troops into Fujian. They went to Fujian from eastern Zhejiang, but could not use the water route, so they "opened a cave of 500 miles and headed for Jianzhou by land" , thus opening up the Xianxialing Road , a famous passage out of Fujian Province. Fujian's connection with surrounding areas was strengthened through land.

Xianxia Ancient Road. Photo/Wikipedia

Even at the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was no direct access to Fujian and the Central Plains . In the "Fujian General Records", there is a record of an important document "expressed" by the Qing Dynasty Military Affairs Office: "Once you enter Fujian, no matter if the limit is 300 miles or 600 miles... you can travel 300 miles every day and night."

That is to say, in Fujian, where more than 90% of its area is mountainous and hilly , even the fastest horse can only walk slowly, and no matter how big the matter is, it can only watch **"express delivery" turn into "surface mail"**.

Although the roads in and out of the southeastern coastal areas were rugged and difficult, the advanced Central Plains culture still "walked" in step by step following the footsteps of those demoted officials and exiled ministers.

When Han Yu was in Chaozhou, in addition to driving away crocodiles and building water conservancy projects, he also opened schools for children to study.

The "Han trend" he led has lasted for thousands of years, and Chaozhou still has place names in memory of Han Yu - Hanshan and Hanjiang . Later "big names" such as Su Shi, Zhu Xi, Lu You, and Tang Xianzu were all "hard fans" of Han Yu, and they also promoted education and spread culture in various places along the southeast coast.

In modern times, the southeast coast has become a gathering place for scholars , talented people and shining stars.

Nowadays, the Fujian Road is no longer so "difficult". It has convenient transportation, abundant resources of all kinds, and unique cultural landscape.

Looking back to that time, our ancestors rowed boats, went out in the wind and waves, fought on the ocean, and expanded their living space bit by bit. They were the real lone heroes. The unique geographical location of the southeast coast with mountains behind and the sea in front gave them a strong backbone like a mountain and a broad mind like the sea.

-END-

Text丨Chen Zhiqing compiled from "National Geographic China Southeast for Children"

Unattributed images from "National Geographic China Southeast for Kids"