Communist Party leaders proclaimed the Chinese Soviet Republic in Ruijin, a Ganzhou county town, in November 1931, complete with its own government, flag and national congress, eighteen years before the People’s Republic of China they eventually founded in Beijing.
一九三一年十一月,中共领导人在赣州下辖的瑞金县城,宣布成立中华苏维埃共和国,拥有自己的政府、旗帜与全国代表大会,比他们最终在北京建立的中华人民共和国,足足早了十八年。
Mao Zedong served as head of both state and government, land reform policies were tested on territory that at its peak covered more than 30,000 square kilometres and three million people, and the whole arrangement functioned, in effect, as a dress rehearsal for the country the Party would eventually run in full; Nationalist forces finally drove the Communists out of Ruijin in October 1934, forcing the Long March that carried the Soviet’s leadership, though not the territory itself, north to Yan’an.
毛泽东当时身兼国家元首与政府首脑二职,土地改革政策便在这片鼎盛时期面积逾三万平方公里、人口达三百万的辖境内先行试验,整套体制实际上成了这个政党日后全面执政那个国家的一场预演;一九三四年十月,国民党军队最终将共产党人逐出瑞金,迫使他们踏上长征之路,率领苏维埃的领导层(而非其原有辖境)一路北上,抵达延安。
Ruijin still markets itself, with official sanction, as the Cradle of the Republic, and China Daily has described the surviving buildings of that provisional government, a scattering of plain wooden rooms with barely any decoration, as noticeably shabbier than the Kuomintang’s own contemporary capital in Nanjing.
瑞金至今仍以官方认可的说法,自称”共和国摇篮”;《中国日报》曾描述,那个临时政府遗留下来的建筑,不过是几间朴素的木屋,内外几乎不加装饰,与国民党当时设于南京的正式首都相比,简陋得多。
A Sewer Built Nine Centuries Earlier Still Outperforms Modern Ones
一条早在九百年前建成的下水道,至今仍胜过现代排水系统
Ganzhou’s old town, further north within the same prefecture, stayed completely dry during the catastrophic floods of 1998, while the shining new drainage systems of neighbouring cities failed within hours, thanks to two brick tunnels a Song dynasty mayor built nine centuries earlier.
同属赣州辖境、位置更靠北的赣州古城,在一九九八年的特大洪水中安然无恙,滴水未浸,而周边城市那些崭新的排水系统却在数小时内相继瘫痪;这一切,得益于一位宋代知州九百年前修建的两条砖砌暗渠。
Liu Yi, prefect of Ganzhou from 1068 to 1077, laid out the tunnels to follow the shape of the Chinese characters for fortune and longevity, giving the system its name, Fushou Gou; the two channels run a combined 12.1 kilometres, connect to more than a hundred ponds used for fish farming and fertiliser, and work seamlessly with the eight-kilometre city wall still standing above them.
刘彝,一零六八年至一零七七年间出任赣州知州,将暗渠布局设计成”福””寿”二字的形状,因此得名”福寿沟”;两条沟渠全长共十二点一公里,与百余口池塘相连,用以养鱼积肥,并与至今仍矗立于地面之上的八公里城墙相辅相成、浑然一体。
According to the Asian Development Bank, the system continues to protect Ganzhou’s old city from waterlogging today, using nothing more than gravity and the natural slope of the terrain, at a time when many far newer Chinese drainage networks still struggle with the same seasonal rains.
据亚洲开发银行介绍,这套系统至今仍在保护赣州老城免受内涝之苦,所依靠的不过是重力与地势的自然坡度;而与此同时,不少远比其年轻得多的中国现代排水网络,却依旧在同样的季节性暴雨面前疲于应付。
The Province’s Biggest City Just Started Shrinking
这座全省人口最多的城市,开始出现人口下滑
According to the city’s own 2024 economic communiqué, Ganzhou’s permanent population fell to 8.9606 million that year, down 28,600 on the year before, the first decline the prefecture has recorded after years of steady growth; it nonetheless remains both the largest and most populous prefecture-level division in Jiangxi.
据该市自身发布的二零二四年经济统计公报显示,当年赣州市常住人口降至八百九十六点零六万人,较上年减少二点八六万人,这是该市多年持续增长以来首次出现人口下降;尽管如此,赣州仍是江西省面积最大、人口最多的地级市。
GDP reached ¥494 billion that year, second in Jiangxi behind only Nanchang and more than ¥90 billion ahead of third-placed Jiujiang, with per capita output at ¥51,245.
当年赣州GDP达四千九百四十点四七亿元,位居江西全省第二,仅次于南昌,较排名第三的九江高出九百多亿元;人均产值为五万一千二百四十五元。
Getting to Ganzhou means a high-speed rail journey of around two hours from Nanchang, or a short flight into Ganzhou Huangjin Airport, which serves domestic routes across southern China.
前往赣州,可乘坐高铁,从南昌出发车程约两小时;也可乘飞机抵达赣州黄金机场,该机场开通了通往中国南方各地的国内航线。
The plain wooden rooms in Ruijin where a republic was first declared still stand, a few hundred kilometres from a sewer system built centuries before that republic, or the one that eventually replaced it, existed at all.
瑞金那些当年宣告共和国成立的朴素木屋,至今犹存,距此仅数百公里之外,便是那套早在这个共和国、乃至日后取而代之的那个共和国出现之前数百年,便已建成的排水系统。
