Every Saturday afternoon, a free opera performance draws a small crowd into a pavilion inside Dong Yong Park, retelling a story that gave the city its name; most in the audience have heard it before, and come back anyway.
每逢周六下午,亭中都会上演一场免费的地方戏,吸引不少人前来观看,讲述的正是这座城市名字的由来;台下大多数人早已听过这个故事,却依然一次次前来。
The story is that of Dong Yong, a Han dynasty son so poor he reportedly sold himself into servitude to pay for his father’s burial; heaven, moved by his devotion, is said to have sent a fairy down to help him. The tale became one of the Twenty-four Filial Exemplars of ancient China, and three of those twenty-four stories, including Dong Yong’s, are set within Xiaogan’s boundaries.
故事的主人公是汉代的董永,相传他家境贫寒,为安葬父亲不惜卖身为奴;上天为其孝心所感,派下仙女相助。这段传说后来被列入中国古代”二十四孝”之中,而这二十四则故事里,便有三则(包括董永的故事)发生在孝感境内。
Xiaogan takes its name directly from that devotion; “xiao” means filial piety, “gan” means to move or touch, and the city remains the only prefecture-level city in China named for the concept.
孝感之名正源于这份孝心;”孝”意为孝顺,”感”意为感动上天,而这座城市至今仍是中国唯一一座以”孝”命名的地级市。
A City of 4 Million People, 60 Kilometres from Wuhan
一座距武汉六十公里、人口四百万的城市
According to the Xiaogan municipal statistics bureau’s own 2024 communiqué, the city’s permanent population stood at roughly 4.17 million across seven districts and county-level cities, covering some 8,910 square kilometres. It sits close enough to Wuhan that a dedicated intercity railway now covers the distance to Tianhe Airport in about 15 minutes.
据孝感市统计局发布的二零二四年统计公报显示,全市常住人口约为四百一十七万,下辖七个区及县级市,总面积约八千九百一十平方公里。孝感距武汉极近,城际铁路直达天河机场仅需约十五分钟车程。
Long before any of that, during the Xia and Shang dynasties, the area belonged to the ancient region of Jingzhou; by the Zhou dynasty it had become contested territory among rival states, changing hands repeatedly before the name Xiaogan was formally adopted in 924 AD, under the Later Tang dynasty.
而在此之前更早的夏商时期,这一带曾属古荆州辖地;到了周代,又成为诸国争夺的边地,几经易主,直至公元九二四年的后唐时期,”孝感”之名才正式确立。
Legal Codes Older than the Legend Itself
比传说更古老的法律典籍
In Yunmeng county, within Xiaogan’s boundaries, archaeologists in December 1975 opened a Qin dynasty tomb at a site called Shuihudi and found 1,155 bamboo slips, nearly 40,000 characters in total, buried alongside the body of a low-ranking legal official named Xi. The slips recorded Qin statutes on everything from grain rationing to construction projects, and in 2021 the find was named among China’s top 100 archaeological discoveries of the past century.
在孝感境内的云梦县,考古学家于一九七五年十二月发掘出一座秦代古墓,即睡虎地秦墓,出土竹简一千一百五十五枚,近四万字,墓主是一位名叫”喜”的低级法律官员。这些竹简记录了秦代关于粮食配给、工程建设等方方面面的律法条文,二零二一年,这一发现被评为中国”百年百大考古发现”之一。
Historians still cite the Shuihudi texts as the earliest systematic record of Qin law, since almost all other legal codes from before the Tang dynasty have since been lost; Yunmeng, on the strength of that single tomb, is now sometimes called the hometown of jiandu, the study of ancient bamboo and wooden documents.
由于唐代以前几乎所有法典均已失传,睡虎地竹简至今仍被史学界视为秦代法律最早、最系统的记录;云梦也因这座古墓,有时被称作”简牍之乡”。
Dong Yong Park itself covers around 75 acres in the eastern part of the city and charges no admission. Inside stand a Filial Piety Corridor, a Fairy Pond, a Mandarin Duck Building and a wax museum dedicated to all twenty-four exemplars of filial devotion, along with old locust trees that, according to local legend, once served as witnesses to Dong Yong’s marriage.
董永公园占地约七十五英亩,位于城市东部,免费开放。园内设有孝行长廊、仙女池、鸳鸯楼,以及一座展示全部二十四孝故事的蜡像馆,还有几株古老的槐树,据当地传说,曾是董永成亲时的见证。
Roughly an hour from downtown, Shuangfeng Mountain National Forest Park offers something entirely different; a dozen or so scenic spots with names like Peaceful Valley and Sun Between Peaks, plus a Baiyun Ancient Village marking the site of the Tang dynasty Huang Chao uprising.
距市中心约一小时车程的双峰山国家森林公园,则是完全不同的风景;园内十余处景点各有雅名,如”悠然谷””日出峰间”,而白云古村正是唐代黄巢起义的旧址所在。
Xiaogan rice wine, brewed from glutinous rice and known locally for its sweetness, remains the city’s best-known culinary export, sold in bottles as far away as Wuhan’s supermarket shelves.
孝感米酒以糯米酿造,口感香甜,是这座城市最广为人知的美食,瓶装米酒的销路甚至远至武汉的超市货架。
An Economy Built on Grain and Photoelectronics
建立在粮食与光电子产业上的经济
According to a report in Hubei Daily, Xiaogan’s GDP passed ¥320 billion in 2024, with its regulated industrial output growing 11.8 percent, faster than any other city in the province bar three; within that figure, the photoelectronic information sector grew 42.5 percent and textiles grew 12.6 percent. Agriculture remains just as significant, with the city’s farming, forestry and fishery output crossing ¥80 billion, the fastest such growth rate in Hubei that year.
据《湖北日报》报道,二零二四年孝感市地区生产总值突破三千二百亿元,规上工业增加值增速为百分之十一点八,居全省前列;其中光电子信息产业增长百分之四十二点五,纺织服装产业增长百分之十二点六。农业同样举足轻重,当年全市农林牧渔业总产值突破八百亿元,增速位居湖北全省第一。
Back at Dong Yong Park, the Saturday performance runs through the same legend again, in the same corridors named for it centuries after the story was first told.
而在董永公园里,周六的演出一如既往地讲述着同一则传说,就在那些以这则故事命名的长廊之中,几个世纪过去,故事仍在流传。
