Daoxian by bus & west to Wenshizhen

February 20, 2016

quiet lanes, the S323 & S302

On the bus to Daoxian -- cycling would have been mundane

My Thorn bike wasn’t cheap and although the steel tubing is strong, it's relatively thin, so a couple of hours of it banging and scraping on the bus’s brutal steel roof rack as the 30-seater vehicle trundles along the corrugated concrete roads to Daoxian has me anxious.

I’d anticipated a coach - one of those tall, roomy, luxury ones with the kind of spongy suspension which cushions all the blows from potholes and effortlessly irons out all the jarring of an uneven road surface. No - it's one of those smaller ones that do the shorter journeys.

Sitting inside it is akin to being in a trailer towed by a tractor. All I can do is hope the inflatable sleeping mat I’d wedged under the frame will reduce the damage.

The driver pulls into Daoxian at just gone 10 and as the bike gets handed down to me, it looks OK, apart from a fine layer of beige dust that coats it - and everything adjacent to the busy roads. It does have a couple of nuts that have gradually rattled loose, chiefly to the kickstand, which is at the point of coming off altogether. My mini-tool does the trick.

Before my trip, the talk had been that people in China would be overcharging me left, right and centre, but that hadn’t been the case. In fact when I go to give the young bus-hand – he looked around 15 with his pageboy haircut – who’d had to maneuver my unwieldy bike up and then back down from the roof of the bus on a basic ladder, he politely refuses. The fare of 35rmb is great value.

The bus station is just a block from the Toujiang river, which the Reds crossed when they took control of Daoxian in November 1934. From what I can now see, all old buildings have been replaced with modern structures and it's clearly pointless looking around for any signs of where they had stayed back then.

Even signs of the relatively recent Cultural Revolution are no doubt gone, but there must be a few locals with some memories to tell, if only they would talk. The fact was Daoxian is the scene of bloody infighting once Mao Zedong had kicked it off.

It all began on August 8th, 1966, when the Central Committee passed a resolution calling for the destruction of what were considered the Four Olds: old culture, customs, habits, and ideas. Many historical sites around the country were attacked and destroyed.

In a bid to root out any possible counter-revolutionaries, different groups started to accuse one another of being unsupportive of Mao’s dogma. The result was mayhem. Chaos spread as Red Guards and rival factions indulged in a vicious bloodbath.

One of the worst instances occurred in the late summer of 1967 here in Doaxian, where nearly 5,000 people were killed as clans and families sought authority and retribution. About 90 percent of the victims came from an ambiguous grouping of so-called Black Five Categories, which included landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, "bad elements," and what were then labelled ‘rightists’ - together with members of their families. Sometimes regardless of how young they were, with even some toddlers slaughtered.

Many of the Red Guards were just teenagers, so those who committed some of these terrible acts would be around 70 years old now. In the 1980s, the local government did some research into the causes of what was then known as the Doaxian Massacre and some of the perpetrators were interviewed. One was a then-86-year-old man named Yi, who admitted killing a teenager and eating his liver. When asked why, he replied:

In making revolution, are hearts are red. Did Chairman Mao not say this: If we do now kill them, they will kill us. Either you die or I die. This is what class struggle is like.

My screenshot showing the Public Security Bureau Office (PSB) and route out of Daxian

I'd earmarked getting my visa extended at the government office in Daxian, but I now reckon it's best to keep going and do it at the next place.

Even though it isn’t marked, I easily find the start of the small road I want, the X068, which - according to indications on Google Maps - is a quiet way out of town and a good alternative to riding north up the main G207 before going west on the S323.

It turns out to be a narrow concrete road like someone’s drive and gets even smaller once I've veer off it. This track takes me roughly northwest into open countryside in a matter of minutes. The fields lay empty and the trees are bare. However, the winter sun is trying to shine and it actually feels pretty warm in my green fleece jacket, which comes off after 15 minutes.

An old house I found in one of the small villages

I cross the narrow river and the lane then meanders and has branches left and right, but my compass keeps me more or less on track. Basically the highway is to my north, and the river now to the south, so these two features will define where I am, with the villages very small and consisting of a few hundred people at most.

The only thing is the route degenerates into a very basic farm track and for a few kilometers my wheels are bumping over short grass and dried, rutted mud. But as planned, this path spits me out in the small town of Shouyanzhen after around 15km of enjoyable riding.

There are vendors selling fruit and veg along the sides of the town’s main thoroughfare and as it's gone noon it's the right time to stop for a break. I settle on a bunch of grapes and after the young woman has gone inside and washed them for me, I sit on a simple bench seat and get through most of the kilo.

A man at a basic bike shop in Shouyanzhen, where I put some air in my front tyre

At the west end of town the road meets the east-west S323, which thankfully isn’t as busy as I’d thought it would be. It has slight hills which take 10 or more minutes to pedal up, but lacks charisma and sights. This simply allows me to press on without wondering what to stop and photograph.

The biggest visual highlight are small karst peaks not too far away, but the homes lining the way are modern and without charm. In fact there are barely a handful of 100-year-old dwellings to be seen as I make my way along the highway, which turns into the S302 as I near my humble goal of Wenshizhen.

The Reds left Daoxian and marched west towards the last of four rows of Nationalist blockhouses, which were to the west of Jiangjialing, a village now on route S323, and about 30km from Daoxian. To either side are mountains, leaving limited scope for an escape route. However, the Nationalists didn’t inflict any serious damage and the Red Army columns continued on their way.

The Reds probably marched a very similar route to the S323, as it passes through a gap in the limestone mountains. Around 50km from Daoxian, they crossed a river named the Guanjiang at two places: one at a village called Wenshizhen, which I arrive at before 4pm, and another about 10km to the south, called Shuichexiang.

Wenshizhen is small and I soon pedal along the 323 that runs through it and take a look at river, hoping to see a Long March memorial, but if there is such a thing I can’t spot it.

Not wanting to go any further, I backtrack to a hotel I’d noticed and get quoted 60rmb by the man behind reception. He doesn’t bother with passport details and for that money the simple room is excellent value. I have Wifi.

My room in Wenshizhen: just 60rmb = US$8 or so

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 1,082 km (672 miles)

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