Notes on Huangsqiao
More than 20 kilometers west of Fenghuang County town, there is an ancient city called Huangsqiao. The city tower of this ancient city, its walls covered with ivy, still stands tall, and the walls built of blocks of bluish rock are so thick and solid. Approaching Huangsqiao, I cannot help but pay deep respects to this ancient city that has weathered more than a thousand years and is still well preserved, touching here and looking there, carefully examining it. Although…
More than 20 kilometers west of Fenghuang County town, there is an ancient city called Huangsqiao. The city tower of this ancient city, its walls covered with ivy, still stands tall, and the walls built of blocks of bluish rock are so thick and solid. Approaching Huangsqiao, I cannot help but pay deep respects to this ancient city that has weathered more than a thousand years and is still well preserved, touching here and looking there, carefully examining it. Although most of the houses I saw inside the ancient city were old and dilapidated, some even in ruins, through these surviving ancient buildings one can associate many histories and legends about Huangsqiao.
According to the Fenghuang County Gazetteer, Huangsqiao Ancient City was first built in 678 AD. During the Tang Dynasty, a Weiyang County was established here, and it was the earliest county seat of Fenghuang County. The city wall here was originally earthen; Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty, to strengthen rule over the Miao frontier, changed the earthen wall of the mountain city to a stone wall. In the 18th year of Qianlong, the court moved the military camp originally at Luochaojing in Fenghuang Mountain to the ancient city, calling it New Fenghuang Camp, also known as the Mighty Troop-Review Camp, stationing heavy troops here. Huangsqiao Ancient City thus became the largest garrison castle and strategic point on the Fenghuang Miao frontier. In the twelfth month of the first year of Jiaqing, the Miao leader Wu Tianban led more than a thousand Miao rebels and besieged this city for seven days and nights, but ultimately failed to take it because the walls were solid. After the Qianlong-Jiaqing Miao uprising was suppressed, no major warfare again broke out on the Fenghuang Miao frontier, but the Qing court's garrison at Huangsqiao was not withdrawn. The last garrison commander at Huangsqiao in the late Qing was Chen Maolin. He had five sons, and his youngest son Chen Kaiqiong was very clever and did well in school from childhood, so he was much favored by his father. After finishing private school, Chen Kaiqiong entered the Zhijiang Mingshan Academy, and soon after was admitted to the Changsha Military Preparatory School, graduating from the officers' class. During his studies, Chen Kaiqiong changed his name to Chen Quzhen, meaning "a treasure thrown into a ditch." Beside an old tree, he got him drunk with wine, then nailed his hands and feet to the tree, cruelly flayed him, made a blood whip, and hung it under the gate tower of the Long family compound to uphold family discipline. The second account says that Wu Meizhe colluded with Long Tiansheng, poisoned Long Yunfei's younger brother Long Tengjia to death, and bribed a platoon leader to assassinate Long Yunfei. Long Yunfei had Wu Meizhe bound with stones and thrown into a sinkhole, and had Long Tiansheng flayed alive and executed. This flaying tree, in the 1950s and 1960s, was still used as a typical witness of "class struggle," often shown to people for "education." Whatever the reason, from this flaying incident one can see that Long Yunfei's character was indeed quite cruel. But this person's historical experience was rather complex, and evaluations of him are quite controversial. As a boy, Long Yunfei studied diligently and had high aspirations. He was also the son of the Miao garrison commander Long Bozi, so his family conditions were relatively good. After the 1911 Revolution broke out, he actively responded to the revolution and once joined the Guangfu Army in attacking Fenghuang City. After the uprising failed, he fled to the Chen-Yuan area, worked as a boat tracker, and joined the Qinghong Gang. Soon he led Miao armed forces to join the command of Tian Yingzhao, the Xiangxi garrison commissioner, and served as a regiment commander in the Xiangxi Army for Punishing Yuan and Defending the Constitution. After Chen Quzhen became the Xiangxi commander, Long Yunfei continued to be favored and served as garrison commander of Feng, Ma, Chen, and Lu. In 1936, because the Ge Tun incident broke out, Chen Quzhen was pushed out by Hunan Provincial Chairman He Jian and went to Changsha. Long Yunfei was soon also discharged and returned to Shanjiang. In 1937, Long Yunfei secretly contacted Zhang Jiong, a core member of the CC Clique and other Kuomintang elders, and organized the "Xiangxi Ge Tun Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army" in Fenghuang, coordinating with the rebel armies of Wu Hengliang, Long Ziyong, Liang Mingyuan, and others in Yongsuì, and besieged Fenghuang County town to pressure the Nanjing government, forcing He Jian to be transferred out of Hunan. Then Zhang Zhizhong took over Hunan's administration, and the Xiangxi Ge Tun Anti-Japanese National Salvation Army was reorganized; Long Yunfei became commander of the Temporary Sixth Division. He led his troops to the front and defeated the Japanese in the Zhuzhou Campaign, receiving commendation. After the Zhuzhou Campaign ended, Chiang Kai-shek, eliminating dissidents, ordered the reorganization of the Temporary Sixth Division. Long Yunfei was transferred to the 9th War Zone Commander's Headquarters as a major general advisor, and from then on lost military power. He immediately took a long leave and lived idly in Yuanling. He did not return to Shanjiang until the spring of 1949. That winter, when the PLA passed through on its way to Sichuan, Long Yunfei withdrew his troops to Maodutang and even helped raise grain and maintain order. But after the PLA left, Long Yunfei, instigated and incited by the Kuomintang agent Chen Jingxiong, believed that World War III was about to break out, rejected repeated advice from the county people's government, and gathered more than three thousand bandits to launch an attack on Deshengying and Alaying, attempting to capture Fenghuang County town. The PLA's 417th Regiment repelled the bandits' attack and seized Long Yunfei's lair, the General Soldier Camp. Long Yunfei led his remnants into the deep mountains to hide. At this time, the Party Committee of the Xiangxi Military Region again wrote through Chen Quzhen to work on Long Yunfei, urging him to surrender, but after discussion with his son Long Gaoru and others, Long Yunfei still refused. On January 20, 1951, the bandit-suppression troops organized a ten-thousand-person mountain search. Long Yunfei hid on a mountain in Baomu Village, Duli Township, with nowhere to escape. At his wit's end, he drew his gun and shot himself six times in the belly. After death his head was cut off and hung on the Fenghuang Ancient City tower for several days.
Long Yunfei died at 65. His life has left people much to ponder. If in his later years he could have followed the advice of the people's government and accepted surrender, perhaps he would not have ended in such self-destruction.
Past events are over, but the appearance of Shanjiang Village remains as before. Walking forward from the antiphonal singing platform, another kind of scenery appears: the green trees covering the mountains, the Miao villages built of yellow earth, the antique market-town buildings, and the Miao people wearing various silver ornaments and costumes all look as picturesque as a poem. Only the former Baojia Tower compound residence of Long Yunfei halfway up the mountain behind, permeated with a bit of decay and desolation, seems to proclaim to people the unforgettable history of the past.