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Story 148: Linwang Festival of the Dong Nationality
Linwang Festival of the Dong Nationality
Author: Anonymous
In many areas of my country, eating Zongba is popular during the Dragon Boat Festival on May 5th, in order to commemorate the ancient patriotic poet Qu Yuan. However, there are exceptions. The Dong people in Zhaimu, Jingping County, Guizhou, eat Zongba on June 6th, in order to commemorate King Lin, a local leader of the Dong peasant uprising. During the festival, Zhaimu not only wraps regular-sized Zongba, but also wraps large Zongba that is as thick as a bowl and more than two feet long. Legend has it that when King Lin led his troops to fight, he often used Zongba as dry food, so he wrapped the Zongba long and big.
King Lin’s name was Lin Kuan. He was born in Zhaimu. His ancestral family originally lived in Liping. His father Lin Rang participated in the uprising of King Mian. After the failure, he was persecuted by the soldiers. He moved from Hongzhou, Liping, along Langdong in Guzhou, through Qingshanjie, and across Bashou River to the current residence. At that time, there were no people in the Podong area. Later, many Dong people moved in. Because this village was built the earliest, it was called Zhaimu by the surrounding villages.
Lin Wang was born after his father passed away. He was born in a poor family and worked for the rich since he was young. He chopped wood and cut grass, herded cattle and horses, raised fish and looked after the fields. He did all kinds of work. He was tall and strong, had outstanding character, was extremely strong, smart and capable, could do the work of many people, and loved to help others. The villagers liked him.
Legend has it that King Lin raised fish in a pond for a rich man. The rich man asked him to cut grass to feed the fish, so he drove the fish up the hill to eat grass, and when they were full, he drove them back to the pond. Therefore, the fish he fed were fat and big. He loved horses very much. During the day, he let the horses eat grass, practiced martial arts on horseback, and slept by the horse pen at night. He fed the horses and made them tall and strong, and later they became his war horses. Now, behind the village mother, there is still a stone horse pen he built that year. Two sides have collapsed, and two sides are still there.
There are still horse hoof prints and straw sandal prints on the bluestone slabs. Once, King Lin was herding cattle on the mountain for a rich man. Seeing that many poor people had no food to eat, he felt very sorry, so he killed a cow and shared it with everyone to cook. Others were worried that he could not get out of the job, so he suddenly had an idea and thought of a way. He asked someone to insert the cow’s tail into the crack of the rock and asked someone to hide in the cave and wait.
He immediately ran to call the rich man and said that a cow was stuck in the crack of the rock and couldn’t get out. The rich man hurried up the mountain and saw that only the cow’s tail was sticking out of the crack. The rich man tried to pull the cow’s tail, and the people in the cave imitated the cow’s mooing. The more they pulled, the more the cow mooed. In the end, the cow’s tail broke, and the cow didn’t come out, so they had no choice but to go back.
King Lin was enthusiastic about doing good things for everyone. There was a cave on the side of Podong Road. There was a clear spring in the cave, but it just wouldn’t flow out. Passers-by were thirsty and couldn’t drink it. When King Lin found out, he bit a hole with his mouth and pried open the rock slab with his hands. A clear spring flowed out, and passers-by had water to drink. If you don’t believe me, you can go and see. There are still King Lin’s fingerprints and two knee prints on the stone slab beside the spring.
There are two slopes facing each other on the Houlong Mountain in Zhaimu, separated by a deep valley. It is inconvenient for people to go to the opposite slope to farm. King Lin pulled out long rocks from the opposite slope and made a stone bridge. His mother said, “The high bridge you built looks dizzy, don’t let others fall down.” King Lin broke the bridge with one punch, and there are still several feet long broken rock beams on both slopes.
There were many people but few fields in the Podong area, so King Lin wanted to block the Bashou River and divert water through Podong to open up wasteland and build farmland. He was whipping up the three slopes early in the morning to block the river, but was seen by an old woman who shouted, “Look, the three slopes can walk.” As a result, the three slopes stopped in the middle of Zhaimu Tianba and did not move. The three slopes were called Yuanyang Slope, Dingbian Slope, and Baodu Slope, and were not connected to other slopes. Now they have been turned into terraces.
When King Lin grew up, he saw that more and more people were fleeing from other places, filling up the entire Podong. There was not enough food, and the soldiers came to rob food and people. People had no choice, and the Dong people could not survive. So, the village elders (elders in the village) and the young people from 48 Dong villages such as Podong, Shangdong, and Youdong gathered in the village mother to discuss matters.
The village elders said: “We Dong people have been bullied for generations. Can’t we live in peace?” Everyone decided that each of the 48 villages would elect one person to participate in the collective election of the king. The election of the king was in the way of the Mianwang uprising. Each person planted a maple tree upside down, and the one that survived first would be the king. The village mother recommended Lin Kuan.
At the beginning of the election, the 48 people planted a tree upside down in the village mother village. The tree planted by Lin Kuan grew the fastest. Everyone elected him as the king in one fell swoop, and King Lin got his name from then on. Now there is still a maple tree in the village mother village, which is tall and straight, with branches facing down. Unlike other trees, it is said that it was planted by King Lin.
King Lin united poor people everywhere and ordered each village to make swords and arrows. The next year, he gathered more than 100,000 poor people to prepare for an uprising.
In order to start the uprising, King Lin also cancelled his wedding. It is said that the girl he loved was called Mao Wang, who lived in Mu Wang Village. She had chopped wood, cut grass and sang folk songs with King Lin since she was a child. When the two grew up, the elders of the two families prepared to hold a wedding. However, the two young people were very ambitious. They said, “The world is so chaotic and the people are so miserable.
We should wait until people’s suffering is solved before getting married.” The elders did not agree with them, so they agreed that King Lin would hit a stone from Kuli’ao and King Mao from Mu Wang Village at the same time to Koujie’ao to see if the two stones could touch each other.
If they did, they would get married immediately, otherwise, they would postpone the wedding. As a result, King Lin’s stone hit Koujie’ao exactly. King Mao was less powerful and could not hit Koujie’ao. The two stones did not touch each other, so they were not in a hurry to get married and later both participated in the uprising.
King Lin was very brave during the uprising. Under his command, they broke through the Longli City early in the morning. Everyone returned to Zhaimu Cave for breakfast, and then captured Xinhua, Pingcha and other places. They planned to attack Changsha, Nanjing and overthrow the Ming Dynasty. It is said that he made three arrows and almost shot the King of Chu to death. The night before, he asked his mother to wake him up at the rooster crowing at five o’clock.
After waking up, he led his troops to attack the King of Chu. He aimed at the King of Chu’s tent and fired three arrows, which hit the throne of the King of Chu. However, he shot a little too early. If he waited until the King of Chu was in place at five o’clock, he would be able to shoot the King of Chu to death. Later, King Lin was surrounded by the King of Chu’s 300,000 troops. In the end, he ran out of ammunition and food. The rebels could not break through everywhere.
King Lin was very angry and stuck his sword on the rock slab. As a result, King Lin was arrested. He was also beheaded, but King Lin was not convinced. He held his head with both hands, went home and asked his mother to put it on, and fought with the officers and soldiers again. Later, he was beheaded twice and re-beheaded twice, until the third time, when the head could no longer be re-attached, the body fell down.
After the failure of the Lin Wang uprising, the imperial court was afraid that the local Dong people would revolt again, so they sent Zheng Zilong to lead troops to dig up the Lin Wang’s ancestral tomb and the dragon vein.
The deep trenches crisscrossing on the Longshan Mountain behind Zhaimu were dug that year. Although the dragon vein was cut off, the peasant uprisings continued. Sixteen years later, in the eleventh year of Yongle, the peasants in Podong and other places revolted again. In the fourteenth year of Zhengtong, the peasants in Liping and Jiaoqiao revolted, killed the state officials, gathered 300,000 people, and besieged Tongguwei.
King Lin worked for the benefit of everyone, and people will always remember him. Although he was falsely accused of being a “bandit” in history books, he was a hero in the eyes of the Dong people. Every year on the day of Chen in the sixth lunar month, the village mother would celebrate the festival. Other surnames would also celebrate the festival. This day is the most solemn festival of the year except for the Spring Festival.
It is said that the festival on the day of Chen was originally held because the village mother first built the village and commemorated the ancestors of the Lin family. After King Lin was born, King Lin became the main person. In order to respect that the village mother was the mother of the village, all of them were surnamed Lin, and King Lin was born to the village mother, they postponed the festival by one day.
On the first day of the festival, the village mother slaughtered pigs and cattle, and every family went to the fields to catch fish, grind tofu, and make rice dumplings. They also sent their children to the neighboring villages to call guests, and they were busy all the time. On the day of the festival, before eating, each family first set out wine, meat, rice dumplings, and burned incense to worship their ancestors under the ancient maple tree.
Guests entering the village must also worship under the ancient maple tree first. Some elders will also peel off a few pieces of bark from the ancient maple tree, wrap them in paper, and take them back to the children to pray for blessings and ward off disasters.
After noon, they started to eat. The banquet was rich, and they sang while eating and wished each other well. After eating, the host invited guests, and the children sang “Lin Wang Ancient Song” under the ancient maple tree. After singing, the elders told the children the story of Lin Wang, and it was very lively all night long.
