During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the salt output accounted for 1/4 of the whole Sichuan, and the “two streams of fishing fire and ten thousand stoves of salt smoke” was a grand occasion.
Because of its significant historical and cultural value, the ancient town of Ningchang has been rated as a famous historical and cultural town in China.
Where is the way to rescue the ancient town? Grass-root cadres and the masses suggested that the national and Chongqing municipal levels should increase capital investment, support Wuxi County to do a good job in the protection of the ancient town of Ningchang, and focus on investing funds to strengthen and repair the cultural relics protection units and ancient buildings in the ancient town.
The cadre of the local cultural administration department told the half-month reporter that Wuxi is a small mountain county, which is short of financial resources.
“More than 10 years ago, this salt workshop still retained some tiled roofs.
The relevant cadres of Wuxi County who felt the problem was serious kept running, and finally applied to the superior department for a special fund of more than 700000 yuan in 2015 to repair the site.
The traditional architectural styles such as the stilted building and the street building of the local traditional Bayu folk houses are also disappearing at a speed that can be seen by the naked eye.
In the ancient town of Ningchang in Wuxi, some cultural relics buildings collapsed seriously.
The reporter of the half-month talk saw that on the outer wall of the workshop, the sign “This room is dangerous, please do not approach” was particularly eye-catching; In the workshop, the original salt tower stoves arranged in a row collapsed in a large area, and the ground was full of pits more than 2 meters deep; The brine filter, which was originally more than 2 meters high and bound with strips, is now full of sediment and seriously damaged; There are more than 1m tall thatched grass growing in the workshop…
After many buildings collapsed, they were converted into vegetable fields and sorghum fields by local farmers, and the building wood was used as firewood.
At the same time, the protection and development plan of the ancient town of Ningchang has not formed rigid constraints and is in a “suspended” state, which is not conducive to promoting the protection of the ancient town.
However, such a thousand-year-old ancient town with a gold-lettered signboard of a famous historical and cultural town in China, and many cultural protection units in the town, is now facing the embarrassment of “people walking away from the town”: the protection plan is difficult to implement, the investment is insufficient, and the buildings are accelerated to decay and collapse, as if entering the countdown to death.
The ancient town is quiet and even dilapidated.
In the past, the large-scale ancient salt industry made the ancient town of Ningchang prosperous.
Now the roof has collapsed completely, leaving only more than 10 mossy load-bearing columns.” She Ping, chairman of the Wuxi County Folk Literature and Folk Culture Association, told the semimonthly reporter that if no emergency protection measures are taken, the building may become ruins in a few years.
Located in the depths of Qinba Mountains, the ancient town of Ningchang in Wuxi County, Chongqing, has a history of salt production for thousands of years and profound cultural heritage.
However, since the late 1990s, the ancient town of Ningchang has gradually declined, with vacant houses and population loss.
However, in the face of the competition of the modern salt industry, Ningchang’s ancient salt production method has low efficiency, high cost and no market competitiveness.
The first version of the plan for the protection of the ancient town of Ningchang expires in 2020, and the second version needs to be revised.
With the support of the superior cultural relics department, the county is applying for a special protection fund of more than 26 million yuan for some cultural relics preservation sites in the ancient town of Ningchang, and hopes that the state can set up a project as soon as possible and provide support.
In addition, we should respect the development law of ancient towns, maintain historical patience, innovate the protection planning and development ideas of ancient towns, and ensure that the planning can be implemented and effective.
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Huang Wei was photographed on the old street of the ancient town of Ningchang and hung warning signs of “danger here” everywhere.
“With the decline of the ancient town, the intangible cultural heritage of Ningchang ancient town, such as the ancient salt making technology and traditional folk culture, is also rapidly withering, and there is no successor,” said Tang Wenlong, a researcher of Wuxi culture.
The plan has been prepared, but it has been unable to land on paper.
A large number of residential buildings have been deserted, and the buildings have become dangerous houses.
In the ancient town of Ningchang in Wuxi, some buildings collapsed into farmland.
The ancient town of Ningchang, as one of the early salt producing areas in China, has been producing salt for thousands of years without interruption.
Due to the shortage of funds, the reporter found that the biggest reason why the ancient town of Ningchang faced the dilemma of decay in recent years was that it lost the industrial support to maintain vitality and popularity, and fell into a vicious cycle of “industrial hollow – population loss – town decay”.
However, due to the long period and high cost of the protection and revitalization of the ancient town, the enterprises did not continue to invest after the renovation and maintenance of some infrastructure, and this matter was also over.
There are many cultural relics protection units in the town.
If you lose your industry, you can’t keep your population.
It is difficult to fundamentally reverse the decay trend of the ancient town by applying for project funds such as the protection of cultural relics at the higher level in a piecemeal way.
Huang Wei took the picture to protect the ancient town of Ningchang.
The Longjun Temple, as a part of the salt industry site of Ningchang, was in disrepair for a long time.
The long-term active salt production economy has nurtured the deep salt culture of the ancient town.
“After all, there are too few sites restoration projects like this.
In recent years, in addition to the restoration of Longjun Temple, the reinforcement of some buildings in Wuwang Temple, and the maintenance of the old plank road in the ancient town, the investment in the protection of cultural relics and buildings in the ancient town is very small,” said the local cultural researchers.
Wuxi County tried to introduce municipal state-owned enterprises to carry out the overall cultural and tourism development of the ancient town.
The insufficient investment in protection is also an important reason for the arrears in the protection of Ningchang Ancient Town in recent years.
Most of the measures proposed in the plan to improve, decorate and update key buildings have not been implemented.
The original more than 2000 residents in the ancient town have lost a lot, and now there are only more than 100 people left.
In order to promote the overall repair, protection and utilization of the ancient town of Ningchang, as early as 2005, the relevant departments of Wuxi County hired the Planning and Design Institute of Chongqing University to prepare the protection and development plan of the ancient town of Ningchang, and made detailed provisions on the protection scope, repair and renovation measures of the ancient town of Ningchang.
On the north bank of Houxi River in the ancient town of Ningchang, there is the third salt workshop of Ningchang, a cultural relic protection unit.
In the past 10 years, the decay rate of ancient towns has been accelerating.
However, because the funds for the revision of the plan can not be guaranteed, it can not be issued, let alone implemented.
