(III) A City on the Water

Although located north of the Yangtze River, Nantong is more like a city in the regions south of the Yangtze River.

The Haohe River encircles the old city. In the breezy mornings, riverside willows sway with charm and grace, veiling the pavilions in the misty drizzles. Numerous carved railings, jade steps, whitewashed walls, and black tiles constitute a beautiful picture in the hazy twilights. There also are emerald wind-blocking curtains, dense woods on both sides of the dikes, and endless lotus flowers, decorating the tranquil Haohe River with elegance and beauty.

i. Historical stories of the Haohe River

Nantong was built in the fifth year of the Xiande period in the Later Zhou Dynasty (958). Like a moat, the half-natural and half-manmade Haohe River was constructed together with the city. With a history of more than 1,000 years, the Haohe River is one of the most complete and well-preserved ancient moats in China.

The Haohe River has a total length of 10 kilometers with a surface area of about 72 hectares. Its widest part is 215 meters, a width which resembles a vast lake, while the narrowest part is only 10 meters, looking like a silk ribbon. Twisting and turning, the entire river encircles the old urban area of Nantong in a shape of an inverted gourd, forming a unique landscape of “the river encircling the city, the city embracing the river, and the city and the river integrating into one.” As early as the 1980s, Nantong was compared to a beautiful girl, and the Haohe River was the “emerald necklace” on her neck.

The city on the river and people in the picturesque scenery, which is the charm of Nantong.

There are many bridges in Nantong because of the river. “You stand on the bridge overlooking the landscape/And upstairs someone looking at the landscape looks at you/The moon adorns your window/And you decorate somebody’s dream.” A lyric left by Bian Zhilin, a Nantong native, sentimentally recounts his memory of a bridge here.

Though only four short lines, endless meaning lingers among these words, and this is a delicate feeling hard to seize. Perhaps, only when you walk into the charming city, ramble along its graceful Haohe River, and step on the painted bridges in the misty drizzle can you truly appreciate the poet’s deep affection and the dreamlike mood hidden behind the lyric.

In ancient times, a majority of houses in Nantong were built along the canals. There have been many bridges over the Haohe River, even over its branches. Connecting the alleyways and streets and the pavilions and courtyards riverside, these bridges, large or small, have made the local economy thrive, promoted interpersonal communication, and nurtured the city’s unique culture.

As early as the beginning of the Tang Dynasty, Nantong’s oldest bridge, the Zhongzheng Bridge (Chayuan Bridge), was built on the southeast side of the present Bell Tower on Cross Street. As an alluvion at the Yangtze River estuary, Nantong had not yet bordered the mainland.

During the Song and Yuan dynasties, most of Nantong’s bridges were over the rivers in the urban area and the Haohe River, among which Hongqiao, Tongtian, Tongji, and Cuijia bridges were some of the most famous ones. During the Ming Dynasty, with economic development and the increase of exchanges, over 30 bridges were built here within 200 years. In the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, Nantong once again saw the boom of bridge building, with most of the bridges located on the arteries and the southwest area of the Haohe River.

Undoubtedly, the most eye-catching designs are the six bridges on the Haohe River, including the Long Bridge, the Heping Bridge (Peace Bridge), the Youyi Bridge (Friendship Bridge), the Beihao Bridge, the Cultural Palace Bridge, and the Park Bridge. Since Nantong was founded in the Later Zhou Dynasty (951-960), the 1.1-square-kilometer area within the six bridges was considered the city’s center.

The Long Bridge was constructed during the Yuan Dynasty. In 1336, Zhou Mao, a native of Nantong, built a wooden bridge outside the south city gate, the predecessor of the Long Bridge.

In the Ming Dynasty, Fu Jin, the local magistrate, converted the wooden bridge into a stone one in 1487. But in 1554 when the Japanese troops invaded the city, Li Tianchong, a vice defense commissioner, thought that the arching bridge was not conducive to defense because it was almost as high as the city wall. To ensure that defenders could take advantage of the high ground, Li ordered to dismantle the stone bridge and replace it with a wooden one. More than 60 years later, Chen Shigong, a famous Tongzhou’s doctor, converted this dilapidated and rickety bridge into a stone structure again.

Within the 300 years from its completion in 1621 to overhaul in 1954, the stone bridge built by Chen Shigong stood outside the south gate. In 1968, it was converted to a reinforced concrete bridge. This bridge has never been the same as it was. In the mid and late 1990s, the old bridge was again demolished and rebuilt during the widening of South Street. The old bridge was renamed Zhongyuan Bridge. However, most local people still call it the Long Bridge.

Habit is indeed a part of the reason, but more importantly, the name Long Bridge cannot be wiped out of local people’s minds. In its 700-year history, Long Bridge has witnessed the transformation of the city. Therefore, the bridge mirrors the past and will continue to bear the memory of the city’s future.

Built in the early Ming Dynasty, Heping Bridge was once a wooden suspension bridge over the moat outside the west gate. It was not until an overhaul in the early years of the Republic of China that it served as the most crucial passage in and out of Nantong. Later, this wooden bridge was reconstructed into a reinforced concrete one in 1957 and widened twice in 1962 and 1971.

In 2004, it was widened again. Today’s Heping Bridge is not just a bridge on Renmin Road, a main road of Nantong, but a major attraction on the Haohe River. Strolling on the bridge at nightfall, one can feel the fading past from the bronze bridge railing and the archaic streetlights. At the south of the bridge, Huanxi Culture Square, with its stage built on the water, shows the grandeur of architectural culture in Nantong.

The Youyi Bridge across the east part of Haohe River is like a watershed, dividing the rippling river into southern and northern parts featuring tranquilness and smoothness, respectively.

Walking on Youyi Bridge, looking southward, one can see the Blue Calico Art Museum, the Liuye Ferry (a classical building named after an ancient ferry of the same name), and the Mei’an Academy hidden among the green trees on the banks of the moat. On rainy days, one can feel the scenery depicted in an ancient poem: “Thousands of willow twigs beyond the bower sway/In vernal breeze the willow down still wafts with grace.” To the north, there is broad river of more than 200 meters. When the breeze blows through the water surface, the rippling and shimmering waves remind people of the lines of Feng Yansi, a famed poet in ancient China: “On a sudden, the spring wind ruffles the surface of a pond hard by.”

The Youyi Bridge, built in the early Ming Dynasty, was formerly named “East Suspension Bridge” because it was a wooden suspension bridge outside the eastern city gate. Also known as “Baizi Bridge,” it was changed into a concrete arch bridge during the Republic of China and a single-hole stone arch bridge in 1959. At the end of the 1980s, the two sides of Youyi Bridge were broadened by over 10 meters, extending the bridge’s width to nearly 40 meters. It is on this plain bridge that the past and the present meet.

As an old saying in Nantong goes: “There is no north gate in Tongzhou.” The city did not have a north gate initially, and due to the frequent banditry in this desolate area, an army was assigned to guard it. In 1113 of the Song Dynasty, Guo Ning, the prefectural governor, ordered to block the north gate for good. Therefore, Tongzhou did not have a north gate. The military camp was then converted into Xuanwu Temple (also known as Beiji Pavilion).

For more than 800 years afterward, the sounds of the morning bell, evening drums from Tianning Temple, the chorus of the swaying reeds, and a lonely ferryman on the vast northern part of Haohe River together constituted the picturesque scenery.

In 1964, the ferry was finally removed and replaced by a bridge called Beihao Bridge. As a pedestrian bridge with a width of fewer than four meters, it was divided into two parts by a mound in the water. In ancient times, this mound was called “zhi,” which was the geological remains from the “Hudou Alluvion” period before the Tang Dynasty.

Although Beihao Bridge made it convenient for people to get in and out of Nantong, for a long time, the south of the bridge was the city, while the north side of the bridge was still the countryside – one bridge afar, a world apart.

At the end of the 20th century, with the rapid economic and social development in Nantong, the dilapidated Beihao Bridge could no longer meet the traffic demand, so people built the new bridge and removed the mound in the river. With a span of more than 210 meters, Beihao Bridge was constructed into a north-south bridge with fast lanes, slow lanes, and pedestrian lanes. A natural barrier was changed into a straight and level road.

Nantong Working People’s Cultural Palace was constructed on the former site of the Beigongyuan Park (North Park) of the Republic of China. Speaking of North Park, Zhang Jian, a great native of Nantong, is a figure we cannot afford to ignore.

In 1898, Zhang Jian resigned from his post and returned to his hometown. While setting up enterprises and schools, he also focused on improving people’s well-being. From 1915 to 1918, he built five parks around the Haohe River, namely the North, Middle, West, South, and East parks. People at that time collectively called them the“Five Parks.”

Covering 2.4 hectares, the North Park was the largest one among the five. At that time, it was decorated with turf and various trees such as the pine, the weeping willow, the pagoda tree, and the peach tree. The buildings there embrace Chinese and Western architecture styles, small but exquisite. On the waterside, there was a two-story octagonal pavilion called Wanliu Pavilion, under which a boat named Sulai once berthed there.

The winding corridors and alleys, the numerous pavilions and terraces, as well as the flowing light and water – what an elegant scene! The passage to these artistic places is the wooden bridge.

As the Working People’s Cultural Palace was completed in 1951, this bridge was also reconstructed into a concrete one and renamed as Cultural Palace Bridge. In the late 20th century, during the large-scale reconstruction of the city, this bridge was rebuilt again, and now it is a modern bridge with fast and slow lanes and pedestrian lanes.

Park Bridge, also called People’s Park Bridge, was built in the late period of the Republic of China. It was then a wooden bridge called Museum Bridge because it was constructed right before the Nantong Museum.

After the founding of the PRC, the Botanical Garden of the Nantong Museum was rebuilt as the People’s Park, hence the name of the bridge. In 1964, Park Bridge, once made of wood, was reconstructed into a three-hole reinforced concrete bridge with a width of only five meters.

When talking about Park Bridge, it is necessary to introduce the Nantong Museum.

Founded in 1905 by Zhang Jian, Nantong Museum, as the first public museum in China, aimed to provide local students an extracurricular learning and practice base. To this day, a handwritten couplet by Zhang is still hanging on the second-floor platform of the South Hall of Nantong Museum, fully reflecting his vision in running the museum. The couplet reads: “Serving as a place of education to impart knowledge, informing the public the names of wildlife.” In 2005, as Nantong Museum celebrated its centenary, a new exhibition hall planned and designed by Wu Liangyong, a professor at Tsinghua University and an academician of both the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, was completed. The new exhibition hall and the old museum achieved perfect harmony between tradition and modernism. Meanwhile, on the opposite bank of the river, Nantong City Museum was also completed and opened, thus making the banks of the Haohe River a place of cultural significance. Along the southeast side of the river, quaint and elegant buildings like Haonan Bieye, the former residence of Zhang Jian, and Chengnan Bieye, the former residence of Zhang’s third brother Zhang Cha, and the modern new exhibition hall of Nantong Museum and Nantong City Museum remind people about the city’s glorious history while giving them a vision of the future. On September 20, 2009, the newly-built Park Bridge with a modern design was completed and opened to the public after three months of construction.

In addition to the six bridges, there are many existing bridges on the Haohe River and its tributaries, such as Xincheng, Qixiu, Sanyuan, Yiqiao, Xibeizha, South Park, Tiexing, and Muxing bridges. However, several bridges, such as Qifeng, Yuelong and Duanping bridges, have faded away.

Although undergoing tremendous transformations, these bridges have witnessed the city’s history. When standing on the bridges, one will find that both brimming waves and the shady pavilions carry the stories about the city and the people living here. They tell something about bloody wars, prosperous trades, hard work, leisure life, the glory of success, and unfulfilled aspirations of the city.

Time and tide have taken away some traces of the past, and changes of life always make the difference between what is today and what used to be. However, some historical buildings on both sides of the Haohe River have survived, such as the first public museum, the first normal school, the first drama academy, the first vocational school, and the first nursing home in China. These ground-breaking achievements are credited to Zhang Jian.

At the turn of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the people of Nantong lived and worked in peace and contentment in the troubled times due to a series of industrial, educational, and social undertakings led by Zhang Jian. He paved the way for Nantong to be home to education, textile, sports, and museology in China. For these achievements, Nantong received the reputation of “the First Modern City of China” about eight decades later.

ii. The charm of the Haohe River today

Both Nantong and Haohe River are blessed. In recent years,during the construction of the Haohe River Scenic Area, the local people took this thousand-year moat as the basis for strictly protecting the area because of the historical buildings. This protection was extended to Sijie Street, Xinanying, and Haonan Ancient Block, thus maintaining the traditional layout and shape of the ancient city with a prefectural seat. Meanwhile, they have preserved a large number of modern garden architectures, a large-scale museum complex around Haohe River, and the abundant intangible cultural heritages of Zhang Jian’s period to the utmost extent. Based on these historical remains and local folklore, some tourism projects with unique local characteristics have also been developed.

Since 2018, a series of renovation projects have been carried out to build the Haohe River Scenic Area into one featuring “ring trails, flowing and clean water, vibrant green space, beautiful streetscape, smooth traffic flow, renewing neighborhood, and thriving culture and tourism.” The scenic area is now credited as a national 5A-rated tourist attraction that combines natural and cultural landscapes. It has been awarded several honorary titles, including the Jiangsu Human Settlements Award in 2002 and the China Habitat Scroll of Honor Award in 2005. In recent years, the Haohe River has been selected as the “Most Beautiful Water Landmark in Jiangsu.”

Along the Haohe River, buildings such as Yinghong Building, Mei’an Academy, Liuye Ferry, Beiji Pavilion, and Haoxi Shuyuan, surrounded by various trees, are very popular with visitors for their modern styles and ancient touch. With rich historical and cultural landscapes and beautiful natural scenery, they look extraordinarily charming and attractive, all together constituting a unique water town and a garden in Haohe Scenic Area.

Over time, Nantong has developed from a small city located in the northern part of the Yangtze River to a prosperous city with a population of more than seven million. Though sceneries have transformed, sentiments remained unchanged.

Nowadays, there is no one rowing boat under the wooden bridges in the southwest of the Haohe River, but only willows swaying in the spring breeze year after year by the bridge. Mengxi Tongguan (the residence of Qiu Miaozhi, a great calligrapher and painter in Nantong), a place where the great minds gathered has long since disappeared, with the platanus planted by the owner still blowing in the wind as a reminiscence about the good old days.

The Haohe River represents the image and spirit of Nantong, a famous historical and cultural city in China. Tourists appreciate its profound culture and the winding watercourse, which makes Nantong’s most beautiful scenery. Bwm6JQKalUH7ouexqwMluNzdEY7UcD0wjcmjWtpHsfayO6nTjuUbUmo2YLxFvZsK