February 7, 2016
Chanting and Ruijin
sunshine along the G319
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It’s not very often that you get a basket of hot charcoal thrust between your legs, but it's very welcome. The night’s frost still covers surfaces that lay out of reach of the low sun when I pop a couple of units along Tongfang’s dusty main street to a rudimentary spot to get a hot breakfast at around nine: noodles again.
The cook has a makeshift cooking area made of out Perspex sheeting, while customers can choose from three tables, each being different in style. The bare concrete floor looks like it needs sweeping.
As I sit having breakfast, with the warmth of the embers drifting up between my legs and the sound of Chinese pop music coming across the street from speakers mounted out front of the supermarket, the cook carries a chicken from the back room out to the street. When I look around, her husband has the chicken gripped between his knees, its head pointing down, and holds a broad knife in one hand. It must sense what the score is because it suddenly starts making an awful noise, like a hoarse baby yelling. I try to focus on my noodles. Then it goes quite, except for the slushy pop songs emanating from the nearby supermarket.
There's a gentle climb which takes me up to a tunnel. It's well over a kilometer long, and one which is clearly new, thankfully devoid of the familiar detritus of use, and well lit although understandably chilly. On the other side a surprisingly long drop has me speeding for quite a while, then the road flattens out and eventually traces a river reflecting a beautiful green hue before I meet the road down to Chanting. This isn’t any wider than the X roads for quite a few kilometers, but as I near the city around midday, it broadens and traffic becomes the usual aggravating city experience.
Chanting is regarded as one of the Communist Party’s birthplaces. It’s where, after coming down from the mountains to the far north in early 1929, Mao Zedong led the Reds and captured this poorly defended town.
Then known as Tingzhou, it became an administrative hub in their Longyan enclave and it was where that the Red Army got its first uniforms made – in a garment factory that had been making them for the Nationalists.
Although back then Chanting didn’t have any road connections to the outside world, it was a fairly affluent place due to it being a trading hub on the Ting River, which the Hakka people refer to as their mother river. The town lies about 40km south of Ruijin, my next stop, a place which had become the main Reds’ HQ over in neighboring Jiangxi Province.
The Communists’ soldiers’ HQ was a 500-year-old traditional house, located on the edge of Tinzhou, just outside the city’s ancient gate, a large arch which I cycle through in my search for it. Enclosed behind a high wall, its entrance is topped with swallow tails and flanked by two rectangular panels. Upstairs there's a hall and a few rooms. In March 1929, a meeting was held in the hall during which the first Revolutionary Committee was formed.
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Another building that has been preserved is the one established by British missionaries in 1904: the Hospital of the Gospel which was run by ‘Nelson’ Fu Lianzhang from May 1925 - until the facility got moved north to Ruijin around 1932. It was in November that year that Dr Fu delivered He Zezhen and Mao’s son, who was nicknamed ‘Little Mao’.
This is the child who got left behind with Mao’s brother when the Long March began. Like many other Long March survivors, Dr Fu’s dedication counted for naught and during the Cultural Revolution. He was beaten to death.
I don’t get around to seeing the hospital, but do ride up a side street to see an ancient well, said to be the oldest well in Changting, and one which never seems to dry up, regardless of the weather. Mao Zedong washed in it each morning and there are a few people there when I arrive, dropping buckets in to get the clear water, just like they have for centuries.
Along the city’s main shopping street is Zhongshan Park and the Qiu Bai Pavilion (秋白亭 Qiubai Ting). During the days of the Soviet base, it was called Lenin Park. I feel frustrated that can’t find the bust of Qu Qiubai (AKA Chu Chiu-pai), who was one of the Communist Party’s early leading lights, an intellectual and poet who studied English, French and Russian, as well philosophy. Qu became the Party’s de facto boss in the late 1920s and in 1934 was in Shanghai. However, as the Nationalists started rooting out and killing the Communists, Qu, along with other Red leaders, fled to this area.
Qu was one of those who didn’t get to join the Long March. Instead he stayed around the Tingzhou/Chanting area to mount attacks against the advancing Nationalist troops. However, It wasn’t very long before they took him prisoner and tortured him before he was executed in June 1935, at a hill called Luohan Ridge, now in Zhongshan Park.
After enjoying a freshly squeezed orange juice while sat in sun, it seems like a good idea to make tracks to Ruijin. It's still only just after midday, the sun is out and there's half a chance I can ride the 40km there just in time to get into the big museum. There's more to see in Chanting, but if I stay any longer, it will mean staying the night.
On the western edge of town I pop into a supermarket and buy a few tiny oranges, but decide to get some noodles once I come to a place to eat, one which has the typical open frontage and a makeshift kitchen. It feels more like a petrol station.
There's a gradual hill on the G319 that goes up for a while and through a decent tunnel. My fleece eventually comes off and you'd have thought it was summer. After a few miles I see a shaded spot and just as I approach it, a man of around 70 walks out from the verge, carrying a plastic bag with something bulky in it. He doesn’t see me and appears to be in his own world. After eating a few oranges, I look around and see where he’d been. There's a simple, brick-built shrine just six-feet tall hidden away behind some low trees. Slim red candles and incense sticks are burning and as I get close, I can see fresh blood splashed across its small front ledge. It looks like he’d made an offering of a chicken to someone: my guess would be his late wife.
After 20km there's a petrol station in a one-street village and the two friendly women attendants there say it is fairly flat to Ruijin, adding it's just another 19km. One says it should only take me an hour and I think she should try it on a heavy bike when 60 like me, but she's right: I ride it in 55 minutes.
That’s partly because the G319 is a boring stretch of smooth tarmac and the more familiar concrete, with nothing to hold my attention. The highlight comes when I cross the boundary line, marked by two large arches, between Fujian and Jiangxi, but it isn’t something worth stopping to photograph.
The Yeping museum in the north part of Ruijin is just closing, but next door is a swish hotel and I splash out 330rmb on a room – the most yet – rather than heading into the centre of town. At least I’ll be one of the museum’s first customers in the morning.
Today's ride: 52 km (32 miles)
Total: 337 km (209 miles)
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