Houxi -- Bayu Ancient Town

Author: Wang Ji
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-09-01
Features: This book is a photographic and textual series about Chongqing's ancient towns, an effort to contribute my modest share. The series consists of 8 books, with each book featuring 100 to 150 photographic images, accompanied by corresponding descriptive text of 50,000 to 60,000 words, introducing a historic and cultural ancient town in Chongqing. The author strives to achieve the realism and presence of the images, ensuring that the text's depth and transcendence are grounded within a specific temporal and spatial framework. Meanwhile, the text fosters divergent thinking, allowing the visual and intuitive nature of the images to be interpreted in multiple dimensions. This series not only helps to inspire people to learn about, pay attention to, and protect ancient towns but also contributes to enhancing cultural awareness, promoting tourism development, and advancing urban construction. Even when a certain ancient town inevitably disappears, it can serve as a historical record. The Ba Yu region boasts majestic mountains and picturesque landscapes, with a rich historical heritage. From the indigenous peoples who established villages in this land as early as 4,000 years ago to the emergence of cities along the riverbanks during the Spring and Autumn period, from the elevation of Gongzhou to Chongqing Fu in the eighth month of the sixteenth year of the Chunxi era of the Southern Song Dynasty, to its becoming the largest commodity trading hub in eastern Sichuan during the Jiaqing era of the Qing Dynasty, the establishment of market towns has evolved over time. As regional economic and social hubs, many of these towns originated during the Qin and Han dynasties, flourished during the Tang and Song dynasties, or reached their peak during the Ming and Qing dynasties. None are insignificant symbols of the evolution of Ba Yu civilization and are highly worthy of preservation.