(Photo by Zhong Xiaobo)

Wenzhong Bridge is a wooden flat covered bridge with outrigger beams.

The left and right ends are the top of the mountain, and the middle beam frame is slightly raised.

The roof in the middle is a hanging hilltop with a pimp ridge.

There are 46 columns in the middle of the bridge house, which are made of a mixed beam frame of lifting beam type and bucket type.

The flat structure of the "well" shape allows friction between the components to be generated and the pressure becomes tighter and tighter.

There is no need to nail and rivet, and the stability and bearing capacity of the bridge can be enhanced through special pressure interspersing.

The bridge was built in the tenth year of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty (1745), and what it was originally like is a bit difficult to know.

The Wenzhong Bridge seen now, there are 11 bays, the total length is 27.5 meters, the net span is 22.4 meters, and the bridge width is 4.2 meters, which is the tenth year of the Republic of China, that is, in 1921, it was rebuilt by the local villagers to raise funds.

Wenzhong Bridge is a semi-open covered bridge, with a closed windward side and a railing and skirt on the other side.

Looking up at the windward side under the Wenzhong Bridge, it looks more like an old house than a bridge.

It is said that before the construction of Wenzhong Bridge, the water flow in Dongyang Village was not smooth, and floods often occurred.

To improve Feng Shui, the local villagers decided to build a bridge to channel the flow of water.

During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, there were three academies in a village, Wenfeng Academy, Jingcheng Academy, and Xicun Academy, because there were too many academies, and later there was a more general statement, which was directly called Dongyang Academy.

These academies bear witness to the humanistic atmosphere of this mountain village.

Perhaps because of this, there is also a legend about Wenzhong Bridge.

According to legend, there is a sage surnamed Lin in the village, whose name is met and his words are heavy.

Seeing that it was inconvenient for children to go to school and elderly people in and out of the village, I thought about building a bridge.

At first, he consulted with another squire, and one person contributed half.

As a result, the squire later changed his mind temporarily and did not pull out a dime.

This sage surnamed Lin wrote a poem angrily: [People say that the sea is far away, and the sea water is still measurable. People speak close to people's hearts, but people's hearts are unknown. 】

The wife of the sage saw the poem and supported her husband in selling his land and ancestral home, which made the bridge complete.

On the day the bridge was completed, the sages wrote another poem: "A gentleman should be drunk when he has wine, and Hugh will turn people's hearts to his back. The human heart is not like the truth of the object, and it is disgusting to look at the back of the face. You look at the flowers blooming and falling, the spring breeze is good but the spring breeze is evil. Only the West family knows that they are poor and lowly, and they do not doubt each other. 】

The above is more of a folklore, and the origin of the name of Wenzhongqiao is not examinable.

But this legend and these two poems really give Wenzhong Bridge more humanistic atmosphere than other covered bridges.

(End of chapter)