Wonder Town on Silk Road on Sea

A 120-kilometer trail used to stretch through mountains between today’s Jiangshan City in southwestern Zhejiang Province and Pucheng County in neighboring Fujian Province in the south. Known as Ancient Xianxia Route today， it was part of the national route from country’s capital in the north to Fuzhou in the southeast. At the southernmost end of the trail was the departure point of the Silk Road on the Sea in Fujian Province.

Nianbadu sits in a spot where Zhejiang， Jiangxi and Fujian provinces converge. In ancient times， people referred to Nianbadu as a place where a cock crowed and people across the three provinces could hear it.

It is said that the rebellion army led by Huang Cao at the end of Tang Dynasty (618-907) built the road when the troopers marched from western Zhejiang into Fujian. At that time， it was the only route to enter Fujian from Zhejiang. The Xianxia Ridge Fortress guarded the route in the steep mountains. Nianbadu was a military outpost for centuries. In the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties， the route turned more commercial than military. Textile products and household commodities were shipped through rivers from Jiangsu， Zhejiang and Anhui provinces all the way to the Qinghu Port in Jiangshan. From there， the goods were carried with shoulder poles all the way from Jiangshan to Fujian and Jiangxi. Local products from Jiangxi and Fujian were all loaded onto ships at Qinghu Port and distributed to the north.

Nianbadu played a prominent part in this business transportation system. The town became the most prosperous commercial hub in the border area of the three provinces. The prosperity lasted for hundreds of years until the 1930s when modern highways and automobiles came on the scene. The glory of Nianbadu faded， but the unique features of the town and of its residents have remained.

Snuggled in mountains， Nianbudu is totally unlike other ancient towns in Zhejiang Province. It is virtually an enclave composed of cultures and descendents of ancient migrants.

Nianbadu has a population of 4，000. What makes the town stand out is that the residents boast 142 surnames and speak 13 different dialects， telltale features of migrations. Though these residents speak these dialects of their ancestors and these dialects are different， they have created an official town dialect. The town dialect sounds like a hodgepodge of the 13 tongues. And it totally differs from the native dialects spoken by other local residents in Jiangshan.

The 83-year-old Yang Qingshan taught at a primary school in Nianbudu all his adult life until he retired. At home， the teacher speaks his ancestors’ dialect. When working at school， he spoke the official town dialect to teach. He has two good friends， one from Jiangxi and the other from Fujian. When the three meet and chat， they speak their different dialects and they understand each other perfectly. Yang says that he often speaks four dialects in a day. And he jokingly and proudly compares himself to a polyglot who understands four different languages.

In addition to the diversity of surnames and dialects， Nianbadu is virtually a museum of regional architectural styles. Miraculously， a large group of ancient houses remain and showcase architectural elements of Zhejiang， Anhui and Jiangxi provinces. Representative architectures in town include 36 residences and 11 public houses along the 2-kilometer main street， featuring long eaves extending over the street， towering horse-head walls， arches over gateways with delicate woodcarving.

Different lifestyles and folk customs brought to Nianbadu by migrants in ancient times now constitute a colorful culture. The folk arts include folk songs， folk dances， street parades of boats， lanterns， puppet shows， paper-cutting， stilts， and stone games. Walking around， you can virtually read history in architectures: couplets inscribed hundreds of years ago， advertisements painted on the walls， artless verses created in the 1950s and the 1960s. In Nianbadu you can see almost all the pulsating traces of different eras.

Since 2007， Nianbadu has been a famous cultural and historical town at the national level. The new status ushered in a new development initiative. The first phase of the 80-million-yuan Nianbadu preservation and tourism development project started in April 2008 and concluded in September 2009. The local government believes that though the town is no longer a military outpost or a commercial hub， the town’s special culture is most valuable and worth preserving.□