Laochangmen Suspension Bridge Shi Shui

In my collection of Qing Dynasty postcards, there is a very rare photo postcard of Suzhou Nagato Suspension Bridge. This postcard has a Panlong stamp of the Qing Dynasty, and the postmarked date can be vaguely recognized as 1903. It can also be inferred that the photo of Suzhou Nagato Suspension Bridge was taken earlier. I noticed that there is a related English note on the postcard to the effect that: the market on the bridge.

Nagato Suspension Bridge, formerly known as Hongqiao, was renamed Yongji Bridge in the sixth year of Ming Chenghua. This suspension bridge is located at the western end of Xi Zhong City, across the Nagato Outer City River. At the beginning of the first year of Thailand (1324), the suspension bridge was built as a wooden bridge. The Tongzhi of Qing Dynasty quoted Yu Ji's notes as saying: "Hongqiao is in the west of Nagato, crossing the Guanhe River and passing through the post road, which is the throat. The water reached the bridge, went back to the depths and turned to the east. The old bridge was planted with wood, and it has been rotten for a long time ... "Ming Hongwu changed it to a wooden beam stone bridge at the beginning of the year, and it was rebuilt in the twenty-third year of Qing Jiaqing. Niu Lin Ruo's Notes said, "Hongqiao runs across the city, with toes and shoulders staggered." In 23 years, it was converted into a reinforced concrete stone arch bridge. After the founding of New China, both sides of Nagato suspension bridge were expanded. Today, the rebuilt suspension bridge has become a covered bridge.

Because we haven't seen the earliest suspension bridge in Nagato before, we can't have a clear and intuitive impression of the suspension bridge only from the local historical records. When I collected this postcard, I was able to confirm that it was the suspension bridge in Nagato, Suzhou, and also benefited from the catalogue of "One Hundred Years Old Suzhou" compiled by Suzhou Local Records Office, which published an old photo of the suspension bridge in Nagato in the 1930s. The photo is very similar to this postcard of Qing Dynasty that I collected. It also shows its Suzhou Nagato Suspension Bridge and the surrounding water transport and bridge market. In the picture, the houses along the river are all built on the water, in rows. In the meantime, bridges fly to the east and west banks like rainbow-colored doors. Under the bridge, ships and boats traveling between north and south are busy with water transportation. It seems to make people feel very noisy, the sound of water, the sound of selling. Suzhou ancient city and its surrounding towns and villages have always had a prosperous market for water transport and bridges. As described in the Tang poetry, "Dragon Pan is sold in the night market, and boat load continues in the spring", the water town in the south of the Yangtze River is rich in aquatic products, and the bridge market and water transportation and marketing like Nagato Suspension Bridge are booming. For thousands of years, especially after the opening of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, Suzhou has used its unique water transport conditions to bring more and more fresh aquatic products and local products to the market.

This picture of the suspension bridge in the late Qing Dynasty is the earliest one seen at present, and it has relatively precious historical value. So we can also know the early characteristics of Nagato suspension bridge. If we compare it with the photos of suspension bridge in 1930s, we can see that the railing of this suspension bridge in the late Qing Dynasty is still a wooden structure. Later suspension bridges, except for the railing and deck of the bridge changed from the original wooden structure to reinforced concrete structure, the shape of the bridge and the surrounding waterfront houses and other buildings changed little. However, the characteristics of the two photos are slightly different. After all, the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China are two different eras.