Notes on Yabao Village
Yabao Village is one of the birthplaces of the Miao people's uprising during the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns, and its location is within present-day Heku Town, Fenghuang County. On the afternoon of the eighth day of the fourth lunar month in 2007, after watching the "Fourth Month Eighth Flower-Dancing Festival" in Shanjiang, Fenghuang, I, together with photographer Zhong Yifu and his wife He Lijuan, made a special trip by car to Heku for a visit. From Shanjiang to Heku, the route passes through La'ershan Town, about 30 kilometers in total. Because of heavy rain that morning, the road from La'ershan to Heku was muddy and full of potholes…
Yabao Village is one of the birthplaces of the Miao people's uprising during the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns, and its location is within present-day Heku Town, Fenghuang County. On the afternoon of the eighth day of the fourth lunar month in 2007, after watching the "Fourth Month Eighth Flower-Dancing Festival" in Shanjiang, Fenghuang, I, together with photographer Zhong Yifu and his wife He Lijuan, made a special trip by car to Heku for a visit.
From Shanjiang to Heku, the route passes through La'ershan Town, about 30 kilometers in total. Because of heavy rain that morning, the road from La'ershan to Heku was muddy and full of potholes. We walked, played, and took photos along the way, and only arrived in Heku Town by evening, where we stayed at an inn. That night we found out the exact location of Yabao Village. It turned out that the village was by a mountain about two or three hundred meters from Heku Town.
After breakfast the next day, we drove to the outside of Yabao Village and saw that it had more than a hundred households. Apart from a few new brick houses by the road, the rest were all old tile-roofed houses of uniform wood-and-stone construction. Walking up from the foot of the mountain into the village, one could see several tiers of stone steps, and the foundations and walls of each tier were built of hard bluestone blocks. In the past, these stone barriers and walls must have been the best cover for resisting attacks from outsiders.
Inside Yabao Village, we met several villagers, all elderly Miao women. When asked about the village's history, most were completely unaware. Only one old man surnamed Shi had some slight knowledge of the famous historical figure surnamed Wu, Wu Longdeng. This old man said that Wu Longdeng's old house had long since disappeared, and now only his grave remained. Having said that, he took us to see Wu Longdeng's grave. The grave was hidden in a bamboo grove, marked in front only by a few stones, with no tombstone. Incense candles and wreaths had been placed on the grave, showing that someone had come to pay respects. The old man also knew some legends about Wu Longdeng, for example, that Wu Longdeng was a "dog's head and dragon's body," and that during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty he was a famous Miao village chief in the Yabao area. Before the Qianlong-Jiaqing uprising, he was also an important leader of the Miao people, but later he betrayed Wu Bayue, and the Qing court granted him a fourth-rank official cap. As for such a traitor, the Miao rebel army must have hated him deeply. The old man's assessment was in fact very fair. Traitors like Wu Longdeng also appeared several times during the Qianlong-Jiaqing uprising. Famous leaders such as Shi Sanbao and Wu Tingyi were also captured and executed because they were betrayed by traitors. These historical facts fully confirm one truth, namely, "a fortress is most easily breached from within"! This is also an important lesson from the repeated tragic failures of many peasant uprisings throughout history.
After touring Yabao Village, we turned back and came to the roadside at the foot of the mountain. At this time, looking again at a nearby low-lying field, it was covered with some aquatic plants. According to local people, the name Yabao Village comes from the fact that this place looks like a duck's claw and is also suitable for raising ducks, and it is right next to a mountain fort, hence the name. As for the origin of the word Heku, it is said that when Wu Longdeng was young, he opened up a sinkhole about 4 li away, turning the low-lying land around Yabao into fertile fields, and from then on many rice crops were produced year after year, which is why it came to be called Heku.
Nowadays, local people are already used to calling the place Heku, and few outsiders still know the old place name Yabao Village. In fact, Yabao Village was a much older and more famous name in history. Calling it Heku is far less distinctive than calling it Yabao. Whether this view makes sense is offered only as a reference for local decision-makers on place naming.