Blue Dan City South: Memory of Old Beijing

Author: Xiao Fengxiu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-09-01
Features: Further inside, there are three courtyards. The last one only has western-style houses, while the first two each have three main rooms. Asking the neighbors, they all agreed that I should look for the elderly woman living in the front courtyard, as she had lived there the longest and might know more about the situation. The three rooms in the front courtyard were all the elderly woman's home. This should be the rear hall behind Jingxian Hall, also with a covered porch and cylindrical pillars. The vermilion paint was like the cracked bark of an old tree, but the color was still vibrant. Knocking on the door, an elderly woman of short stature with a kind expression was preparing pork skin. She enthusiastically put down her work to welcome me. She is 75 years old and moved in at the age of 10. At that time, there was a monk and two gatekeepers living in her rear courtyard, and the last courtyard was used as a storage warehouse for miscellaneous items. The elderly woman was not familiar with the name Yang Jiesheng but knew his courtesy name Yang Jiaoshan. She told me that Jingxian Hall originally enshrined a colorful clay statue of Yang Jiaoshan, with a couplet on both sides of the statue (I know it reads: "Not of the same generation as Yan Huang, forever leaving purity"). To the east of the statue stood a stone stele that reached the roof, which was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution (I think it is the broken stele I saw earlier). Jingxian Hall was significantly higher than the buildings behind it. Pine trees and bamboo were planted in front of the hall, and there were tall six-step in front and behind the hall. The slopes on both sides of the were smooth, and children often used them as slides. The room where she lived originally enshrined ancestral tablets and those of Lady Yang, with a plaque above it (inscribed with "Upholding Righteousness and Exposing Villains"). When talking about the past and about Yang Jiaoshan, the elderly woman was deeply emotional. The younger people in the courtyard didn't know much about it, but the older generation were all familiar with how Yang Jiaoshan offended the great villain Yan Song when he submitted a memorial to the emperor, accusing Yan Song of five major and ten minor crimes and demanding his execution. Yan Song first tried to bribe him but failed, and then, out of anger, had Yang Jiaoshan imprisoned for three years, subjecting him to severe torture and psychological pressure, but Yang Jiaoshan refused to yield. Four hundred and fifty years ago, he died under Yan Song's hands. During the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty, the Grand Secretary Qiao Lei wrote a poem praising Yang Jiaoshan:
"One memorial early set aside his patriotic will,
Nine deaths could not extinguish his righteous soul."
This is the kind of spirit that the Chinese nation has relied on generation after generation to survive—it is rare and worthy of respect. The elderly woman sighed and said: "Just like the loyal minister who exposed the corrupt official Li Zhen in Hebei two years ago, who was later imprisoned by the Li family. Yang Jiaoshan was not yet forty when he died!" Then, the elderly woman told me that the original courtyard was very large, and I should go see the western courtyard—the pavilion is still there. But now, it is all occupied by residents, and the place is so chaotic that it's hard to see its original appearance. I asked the elderly woman to describe the past for me, and her eyes lit up. She told me: "My courtyard has a moon gate leading to the western courtyard. The western courtyard has east and west wing rooms facing each other, with two gardens in the middle, each featuring artificial rockery. The corridor runs along the front of the east wing room all the way to the rear garden, and the pavilion is located to the west of the rear garden. I know the pavilion the elderly woman mentioned is the 'Pavilion of Memorial Drafts,' which was rebuilt with money collected by a monk during the Daoguang era. Yang Jiaoshan's study, the 'Pavilion of Memorial Drafts,' should also be in the western courtyard, where dozens of stone carvings recording his memorials are embedded in the hall. The western courtyard is truly very large, and its layout has not changed much. The front and rear gardens"