Hui Zheng Bridge

Hui Zheng Bridge

Hui Zheng Bridge is a cultural relic protection unit of Jiangxi Province.

On the Jin Chuan River outside the southern gate of Xingan County stands a two-pier, three-arch stone arch bridge. It was built in the third year of Yuanyou during the Song Dynasty (1100). According to Volume One of the *Xin Gan County Annals*, “The bridge is forty-one and seven-tenths feet high, twenty-eight feet wide, and twenty-one zhang long, with three arches, topped with a long pavilion and flanked by railings.” This is the Hui Zheng Bridge, named and inscribed by the famous Song Dynasty literary figure Su Shi.

Su Shi’s career was fraught with setbacks, and he was demoted several times. In the first year of Shaosheng during the Song Dynasty (1094), he was once again demoted to Huizhou (present-day Huiyang, Guangdong), and at the age of 63, was exiled even farther to Qiongzhou (present-day Hainan Island), enduring great hardships and suffering both physically and mentally. In the third year of Yuanyou (1100), he was pardoned and allowed to return to the capital. Entering Jiangxi through Meiling, he traveled north along the Gan River. When he reached Luling, Xie Juilian, a judicial officer from Ji Zhou (a native of Xingan), who had a close relationship with him, visited him at the posthouse where he was staying. During their conversation, Xie asked Su to write a commemorative inscription for the newly built grand stone bridge in Xingan County, but Su declined. When his boat arrived in Xingan County, the county magistrate who came to greet him turned out to be his old classmate Zhang Haogu (from Nankang County, Jiangxi). Their reunion was deeply emotional, and they reminisced about old times. As the boat entered the Jin Chuan River from the Gan River, over a thousand local residents stood on the riverbank, calling out in unison, asking Su to name and inscribe the new bridge. Deeply moved by the scene and feeling unable to refuse the public's earnest request, Su picked up his brush inside the cabin and wrote the three characters “Hui Zheng Qiao” (惠政桥, meaning “Bridge of Benevolent Governance”). These were then carved onto the central arch of the bridge by the stonemasons. The three five-inch-square characters in Su’s handwriting thus remain in Xingan. Legend has it that due to Su’s hurried journey, exhaustion from the road, and the toll taken by his three exiles—leaving him physically frail and emotionally weary, with trembling hands and waning spirit—the inscription was created under pressure, resulting in characters that are thin and rugged. Truly, “one sees the characters and feels as if seeing the man himself,” yet the strength of Su’s brushwork is still clearly visible. Although the bridge has undergone multiple renovations over the dynasties and the exact location of the inscribed stone is unknown, the name “Hui Zheng Bridge” has been in continuous use to this day.

In recent years, Hui Zheng Bridge has been listed as one of the county’s ancient architectural structures under cultural relic protection.

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of Jiangxi Provincial Cultural Relic Protection Units