长城的尽头
我沿着长城骑行了三个月，依着gps记录的轨迹画了这个地图，我从长城西端玉门关河仓城开始骑行，抵达长城东端丹东虎山的时候正好是6093公里。
前人说,读史者应知长城者,实一大血线也,埋骨其间,无代或绝。1935年7月, 一名叫范长江的记者历时10个月从敦煌行至包头,路过山丹县境内的长城时他如此记到,长城在山西境以东为石筑,陕西以西为土筑,山丹县境内长城已十塌四五,余者岌岌可危不可终日之势,由此推想过去之新筑与培修,不知耗去多少人力,牺牲多少民命,然而千余年来魂绕边塞者何止百万。
秦始皇统一六国后将燕、赵、秦等北方各国分别建造的防御工事连成绵延不断的万里长城,把中国和外界切开,成为中国最早的边界线。这条城墙西起甘肃戈壁, 东抵黄海,从玉门关开始沿着河西走廊跨过大漠和黄土高坡,崇山峻岭,直到辽宁丹东为止,大体勾勒出了中国历史上不断变化的轮廓,它后面那片苍茫的黄土 地就是中国人的家园了。
这个中央集权的帝国国土上一个皇帝又一个皇帝登场,一个朝代又一个朝代交替。如今这片土地像是被几千年的文明吸干了养料,加剧的干旱,耕地流失,空巢村 落,甘肃,宁夏,陕西,山西,河北,随便停在哪里都能拍摄到一个在中国迈向城市化的过程中,被丢弃的乡土样本。城墙无语,闻者有声,我想像前人一样沿着这道城墙穿过整个国家,记录这片广褒的土地,因为与其誉尧而非桀也,不如两忘而化其道,沿着这道城墙穿过中国的一个个城市、小镇和村庄,一直走到长城的尽头。
The End of Great Wall
The photos of “Great Wall” were taken during my 4000 miles cycling journey along the Great Wall of China, from the wall’s west end to the east end. I followed the wall across the mainland of north China.
The Great Wall passes through several provinces include Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Hebei and Liaoning until it plunge into Yellow Sea. For thousands of years the Great Wall sealed China from outside world, dynasty after dynasty, empire after empire, it is the blood line along which millions of human skeletons buried without intermission during thousands years’ struggle.
Individuals’s struggle and defence was effortless against a country’s progression, the nation’s fate was ordained, instead of praising Yao and condemning Jie, it would be better to forget them both, and seek Tao of the road.
