Cai Suisheng北宋紹聖元年（1094年）蘇東坡被貶谪廣東惠州，寫下“日啖荔枝三百顆，不辭長作嶺南人”詩句。

As an "old Guangzhou", I never thought: what is a Lingnan person? Where do Lingnan people come from?

More than 200 kilometers west from Guangzhou, I came to Fengkai County, Zhaoqing City to find the answer.

The county seat is located on the Tropic of Capricorn, which is the dividing line between the north temperate zone and the tropics.

In the riverside park stands the Tropic of Cancer Symbol Tower.

縣城以東20千米處，有自然奇觀—大斑石。

The flat ground uplifts a round mound-shaped granite boulder, 695 meters high, 0 meters long, 0 meters wide, without ravines and fissures, one stone into a mountain! The texture from top to bottom resembles a waterfall cascading.

Is it the incarnation of Pangu, or the colorful divine stone left by Nuwa to mend the sky?

Hundreds of millions of years ago, granite magma condensed deep underground, and in the past two or three million years, with the uplift of the earth's crust to expose the surface, it has formed "the first stone in Asia" under the erosion of external forces.

Big porphyry is a scenic spot in the Fengkai National Geopark. Another scenic spot, the Ten Mile Gallery, is 20 kilometers north of the big porphyry.

遠處峰巒起伏連綿數里；近處阡陌縱橫稻黍金黃，仿佛天地間一幅多彩長卷。

Ten Mile Gallery and Guilin Landscape belong to the same karst landform.

Picture of Liandu Ten Mile Gallery / taken in Huangyan Cave Exhibition Hall

There are many limestone caves in karst landforms. They are masterpieces of long-term erosion of water and carbon dioxide, becoming the habitat of ancient humans.

Numerous caves near the Big Porphyry and Ten Mile Gallery have unearthed prehistoric remains of Homo sapiens teeth, skull fossils, mammal fossils, and stone tools.

黃岩洞位於大斑石與十里畫廊之間，是三疊紀（距今2.5~2億年的地質時代）石灰岩孤峰，背後峰叢起伏。

黃岩洞石灰岩孤峰圖（前面是黃岩洞陳列館）/攝於黃岩洞陳列館

In 1961, prehistoric human cultural relics were found in Huangyan Cave, and the unearthed cultural relics were displayed in the "Fengkai Huangyan Cave Exhibition Hall" in front of the site.

Seal the Huangyan Cave Exhibition Hall

完整的成年人頭顱化石，距今1.2萬年，是舊石器時代（距今300萬~1萬年）晚期的晚期智人，其腦容量與現代人相近（平均1400毫升以上），體質特徵已接近現代人。

The skull fossil of "Fengkai Man" is of great significance for the study of the origin and migration of modern humans in South China and Southeast Asia.

“封開人”頭骨化石，距今1.2萬年/攝於廣東省博物館

黃岩洞鄰近的峒中岩出土了三顆“封開人”牙齒化石，距今14.8萬年。牙齒形態粗壯，溝紋和小嵴多，表現出較多的原始性，屬舊石器時代中期的早期智人。

“封開人”與雲浮蟠龍洞智人（距今11萬年）、曲江“馬壩人”（距今0.0～0.0萬年）、廣西崇左木攬山智人（距今0萬年）同為嶺南人祖先。

The Huangyan Cave site has unearthed 30 kinds of animal fossils such as Chinese rhino, Oriental saber-toothed elephant, Asian elephant, orangutan, goat, wild buffalo, southern pig, giant panda cave subspecies, Tibetan black bear, macaque, tiger, wild beaver and a large number of snails and mussel shells.

There is a wide variety of animals that are associated with the "Sealed Man".

Fengkai prehistoric humans lived in a subtropical environment, with lush forests, abundant aquatic grasses, and a warm and humid climate. Human production has gradually developed from hunting and gathering to fishing, hunting and fishing.

黃岩洞遺址出土了一千多件打制石器及少量磨制石器，屬於舊石器時代晚期至新石器時代（距今10000~5000年，後序是青銅器時代）早期。

One of the steep-edged gravel stone tools has unique cultural characteristics, and has been named "Huangyan cave stone tools" by the archaeological community, representing the cultural products of the Mesolithic in southern China.

The 5 pieces of tomb pottery unearthed belong to the Neolithic period. The invention of pottery was a major advance in human civilization and greatly improved the living conditions of prehistoric humans.

The cave site behind the exhibition hall is closed due to rainy weather, which is a pity! You can only "punch in" in appearance.

There are many prehistoric paleoanthropogenic sites in the Lingnan area. The Huangyan Cave site is a typical relic of the transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic in Lingnan, and is called "the most typical Mesolithic culture in Lingnan area" by the archaeological community.

Paleoanthropologist Professor Jia Lanpo pointed out that "the Liangguang region was the only way for ancient humans to move eastward."

封開處於“西江走廊”中間，扼守“必經之路”之咽喉，擁有100多處人類遺址及20萬年不斷層的文化遺存，彰顯其在嶺南文明起源中的重要地位。

西江源頭在雲南曲靖。嶺南人來自水源西邊的元謀（雲南元謀出土距今170萬年的猿人牙齒化石），抑或遙遠的東非大裂谷？

黃岩洞前是開闊坡地，漁澇河西流入賀江。

Exterior of the Huangyan Cave Cave Ruins

The Hejiang River is 352 kilometers long, the upstream is the Fuchuan River that originates in the north of Guangxi, and flows south to Hezhou to Fengkai County, Guangdong Province and flows into the Xijiang River.

The lower reaches of the Hejiang River are nine curves and eighteen songs, and the bays are interlocking, charming and colorful, just like a fairy jade belt floating on the earth.

The river flows slowly, and the distant mountains are beautiful; Both sides of the strait are verdant, and spring flowers are blooming.

The river of "the first bay of the Hejiang River" flows south and turns west and then north, and circles the island 360 ° big loop, and is reluctant to leave with the attachment to open the earth.

As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Hejiang River was already the north-south passage of the Five Mountains.

From Xiangnan County through the mountain trail to the north of Guibei Fuchuan River, you can go straight down the river to Guangdong Fengkai (ancient "Guangxin"). This is the "Xiaohe Ancient Road" that crosses the Wuling barrier and connects Xiaoshui, the eastern source of the Xiangjiang River, and the Hejiang River, a tributary of the Xijiang River.

After Qin Shi Huang unified the six countries, he dug the Ling Canal in 214 BC, and the following year, Fan Jian's "Xiaohe Ancient Road" was the "New Road".

The "Xiaohe Ancient Road" was also a land passage of the early Maritime Silk Road: it connected the Central Plains through the Yangtze River system in the north; After Nantong Xijiang River, you can go out of the Pearl River Estuary to the east, and go to the sea to Xuwen, Hepu and other ports in the west.

The northern end of the "Yinghe Ancient Road" / taken in Shanggantang Village, Jiangyong County, Yongzhou, Hunan Province (2 years 0 months)

During the pre-Qin period, there was no metal coinage in Lingnan. The commodity exchange of the "Xiaohe Ancient Road" brought the Central Plains currency of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

秦始皇平定百越后經略嶺南，“以谪徙民五十萬戍五嶺，與越雜處”，中原先進技術及工具傳入，鐵具牛耕取代了嶺南“火耕水褥”的原始耕作。

Photographed in Fengkai Dazhou Town/Liangguang Yuanliu Museum

西元前111年漢武帝平定南越，以其“初開粵地，宜廣布恩信”的懷柔政策設立“廣信縣”（今封開、梧州地區），使之成為蒼梧郡治及統轄嶺南九郡的交趾（東漢末年改為交州）刺史部駐地，並設鐵官、鹽官，發展冶鍊和鹽業。

At this time, the "Xiaohe Ancient Road" was expanded to "Chuyue Tongqu".

漢武帝雕像/攝於西安漢城湖（2021年10月）

此後至東漢末年的370年間“廣信”一度成為嶺南首府，在中原文明與百越文化、海外文化匯合成嶺南文脈中起著重要作用。

From the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Three Kingdoms period, the state of Jiaozhou was moved east from "Guangxin" to Panyu in 264 years; Guangzhou was established in 0 years, and its state name is derived from "Guangxin"; In 0 years, Jiaozhou was split into two "Jiaoguang Division".

In the year 997 (three years of Song Taizong's reign), Lingnan was divided into "Guangnan East Road" and "Guangnan West Road", with "Guangxin" as the boundary. The name of Liangguang is derived from "Guangxin".

What is the origin of Cantonese, which is popular in the Xijiang Basin, the Pearl River Delta and overseas Chinese communities? There is a dispute between "Guangxin origin" and "multi-source theory" in the academic circles.

In 1995, Professor Ye Guoquan of Sun Yat-sen University and Counselor Luo Kangning of the Guangdong Provincial Government published the "Examination of the Origin of Cantonese Language" in the journal "Linguistic Research", putting forward the view that "Cantonese originated from ancient Guangxin - today's Wuzhou, Guangxi, and Fengkai, Guangdong".

Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese produced by the fusion of the Central Plains General Language (Yayan) and the ancient Vietnamese language.

So far, the Cantonese vocabulary has remnants of the underlying words of the ancient Vietnamese language, such as "冇" (none), "睇" (look), etc., and retains the four tones and eight tones of the ancient Chinese "flat and entering", and its initials, finals, and tones are highly consistent with the ancient Chinese standard rhyme book "Guangyun". This is also the reason why reading Tang and Song poems in Cantonese today can reflect their rhythmic beauty.

Fengkai is the gateway between the two Guangzhou, the hub connecting the north and the south and the east and west, and was once the capital of Lingnan, and naturally became one of the core areas for the spread of the Central Plains language in Lingnan.

At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the capital of Lingnan moved east to Panyu (Guangzhou), and the early Cantonese language spread in the Xijiang (Pearl River) valley, and developed to become modern Cantonese in the late Tang Dynasty.

Today's Cantonese language is a Cantonese language that retains more phonetic features of ancient Chinese and early Cantonese, which can be described as a "living fossil" of Cantonese.

The new museum was opened

During the Han Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, "Guangxin" became the center of Lingnan Confucian scriptures, and celebrities and wise men went to the whole country from this place, such as Chen Qin, Chen Yuan, father and son, Shi Xie and Mu Rong.

Chen Qin, the earliest scholar in Lingnan (about 15 B.C. ~ 0 A.D.), studied the "Spring and Autumn Period" and "Zuo Chuan" all his life, and was respected as the standard-bearer of ancient literature and classics. Qu Dajun, a scholar at the Qing Dynasty University, called it the great sect of Cantonese humanities.

Chen Qin's son, Chen Yuan, died unknown. He inherited his father's business, made extensive and profound research and annotations on "Zuo Chuan", and wrote "Zuo Chuan Abroad" (no longer available). "Guangdong Tongzhi" called it "the Confucianism of Linghai".

士燮（137~226年）任交趾太守四十年，喜愛儒學研究，重視儒學傳播，著有《士燮集》、《春秋經注》、《公羊注》和《谷梁注》，今多已佚失。

Mu Rong (166~?) Confucianism and Taoism, the book "Mu Zi Reasoning Theory" is the first Buddhist monograph in China, and is known as the first person to promote Buddhism in China.

The heavy cultural heritage extended to the Tang Dynasty, and Mo Xuanqing (17~0 years), who was born in Heerkou Town, Fengkai, was the first champion of Liangguang, and was only 0 years old at the time, the youngest champion in history.

The largest historical relic of Fengkai County is the ancient city wall of Fengchuan. Fengkai, formerly known as Fengchuan County and Kaijian County, merged in 1961 years.

The city wall was built in the Sui and Tang dynasties and is a rammed earth structure. The existing blue brick city wall was built in the fifth year (1469 years) of Ming Chenghua, and has both defense and flood control functions.

The rectangular wall is 7 meters long, about 0 meters high, and 0 meters thick. On the side of the city brick, there is a seal "Fengchuan City Brick" or "Fengchuan Military Building".

There are dwellings on the city walls. The octogenarian woman said that she had lived here with her father since she was a child and watched the city walls be restored several times.

This section of the city wall is the south gate of the ancient city "Yinghe Gate". The original commercial street outside the door, at the end is the wharf, and now it is the Xijiang River embankment.

Ming Dynasty Fengchuan County City

The original yamen and mansions in the ancient city are gone. The Guandi Temple built in the Ming and Qing dynasties is still in full bloom, and most of the students who want to "respond to requests" are college entrance examination students.

If it is said that the ancient city wall and the Guandi Temple have witnessed the vicissitudes and sorrows of the ancient capital of Lingnan falling into a fortress in western Guangdong. Then, the new Guangxin Tower is a tribute to history and a declaration for the future.

Guangxin Tower takes the architectural concept of the Han Dynasty Gaoguan Pavilion, imitates the style of the Song Tower, integrates the ancient charm of the temple, the style of the pavilion, and the curve of the corridor, and is located on the top of the rhinoceros head mountain on the bank of the West River.

The plaques on the southeast and northwest gates of the tower are respectively the east of Guangdong, the first tower of Lingnan, the west of Gui Chen, and the north of Wenxu, symbolizing the superior geography, long history and rich cultural connotation of Fengkai.

Plaque at the east gate of Guangxin Tower

登塔眺望，右有賀江北來，雙橋飛跨；左是西江南下，春水滔滔；前方高樓矗立，櫛比鱗次。

Ah, sealed, the emerald on the Tropic of Cancer! Your perseverance comes from tens of thousands of years of historical accumulation, and your brilliance is the quenching of the cultures of the north and the south and the civilizations of the east and the west.

"Fengkai people" is your pride, "Guangxin" is your former name, Lingnan ancient capital is your crown, and Confucian and Buddhist classics are your coquettishness. You have the geographical advantage of connecting the north and the south and connecting the east and west, and you have the people of the Qin and Han dynasties and the people of the Qin and Han dynasties and the integration of Chu and Yue.

嶺南文脈開源於此，粵語方言濫觴於此。

The journey of finding roots is not only nostalgia, but also the starting point of finding a new start.

History is a lesson from today, and history and culture are the candlelight that illuminates the way forward.

4 years 0 months photography / 0 ~ 0 months writing and production

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【Appendix】Since the reform and opening up, the construction of cultural facilities has been opened

In 1984 years, China's first Tropic of Cancer landmark tower was built.

The Fengkai Museum, which was built in 2020 years, is one of the earliest county museums in Guangdong Province. The new building was completed and opened in 0.

The Huangyan Cave Exhibition Hall was built in 1991 years and is planned to be upgraded to the "Lingnan Prehistoric Human History Museum".

The Liangguang Yuanliu Museum is a special cultural museum located in Dazhou Town.

Guangxin Tower was built in 63 years, the base with a diameter of 0.0 meters is the first in the country, and the tower height of 0 meters ranks second in Guangdong.

Cai Suisheng, Honorary President of Guangdong Real Estate Industry Association, Opinion New Media Columnist

Disclaimer: The content and data in this article are compiled by the viewpoint based on public information and do not constitute investment advice, please verify before use.