Datong Street

Datong Street

There are two Datong streets in China, one in Chikan District, Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, and the other in Xifeng County, Tieling City, Liaoning Province.

Old commercial street

Datong Street is one of the oldest commercial streets in Zhanjiang, Guangdong Province. It connects with gudu street, which is the oldest street in Zhanjiang. It is a precious "fossil" witnessing the vicissitudes of the ancient commercial port in Chikan District of Zhanjiang.

Brief history of Zhanjiang: Zhanjiang, with a long history, is the largest city in western Guangdong. Because it is close to the sea, it was ruled by western countries in modern times.

In 1899, Zhanjiang City was "leased" by France. At that time, it was called "Guangzhou Bay". Foreign trade flourished for a time. In 1943, Guangzhou Bay was occupied by Japanese army. After the victory of the Anti Japanese war in 1945, Guangzhou Bay returned to China and was named "Zhanjiang" since then.

Tiger window

Old houses on Datong Street

According to textual research, Chikan (now Chikan District of Zhanjiang City) had a small commercial port in the Song Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, with the lifting of the "sea ban" and the prosperity of maritime trade, it developed. In the past, the area to the east of gugudu and Datong Street was a beach, and the freighters went in and out of the commercial port by the tide.

development

The narrow wooden ladder in the old house can only be used for one person

Along gudu and Datong Street, there are many wharves and unique geographical environment. Datong Street has become a distribution center for import and export goods, including tea, vegetable seeds, ceramics, silk, straw paper and other local products and foreign goods from Fujian, Zhejiang, chaoqiong and Guangfu; brown sugar, peanuts, sesame, jute, straw mat, raw oil and other agricultural and sideline products and raw goods from gaolei area.

Therefore, businessmen with unique vision built shops on the spot and set up shop names. With numerous warehouses and rows of branches, it has gradually become a prosperous commercial street. People take the couplet "prosperous business across the world" meaning, named "Datong Street". This old street is less than 200 meters long and only 2 meters wide. Up to now, we can still see the old road paved with bluestone, the shop buildings in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, and the ruins of the stepped ferry. A glimpse of the leopard shows the prosperity of sea trade and Commerce in those years.

Sunlight shining through the rubble in the corner, the old street plain lifestyle

In the past, the business of Datong Street was mainly wholesale and retail. Groceries, department stores, cloth shops, Chinese patent medicine shops and Suzhou Hangzhou village were everywhere. The goods were exported to Guangxi, Hunan and other places. The famous ones are "xiangshenglong", which deals in fancy yarn, cloth, department stores, stationery, etc., with a wide range of varieties, which is quite similar to today's department stores; "Fulong" and "Dachang" mainly deal in Jingguo, seafood, local products, non-staple food, oil, salt, soy sauce and vinegar; "baotaihe" and "only issue" specialize in raw and cooked medicinal materials, gaodanwan powder, Gaolishen, pearl, Niuhuang, musk and other precious medicinal materials and products Drugs are in demand. Small traders in neighboring counties and towns will purchase goods at Datong Street and sell them separately after returning.

Well preserved antique flowers under the eaves

After the French occupation of Guangzhou Bay (now Zhanjiang), new streets emerged in the 1930s and 1940s, and large-scale buildings sprang up along Nanhua square and Zhongshan Road. The Municipal Center of gravity moved to this area. However, Datong Street still played the role of a business center, with a continuous stream of business customers and busy pedestrians. It was once said that it was necessary to go to Datong Street in Guangzhou Bay.

Datong Street also had the aura of revolution. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, sun Mei, Sun Yat Sen's brother, secretly sneaked into Guangzhou Bay to carry out the anti Qing revolution. He lived in the "Rongxing" shop of Yang Yisan, a businessman in Datong Street, and prepared to build the Guangzhou Bay organ of the alliance to raise funds to support the anti Qing armed uprising.

During the period of the great revolution and the Anti Japanese War, the underground Party of the Communist Party of China established an underground contact point in Datong Street. Chen Qihui's old house beside Datong Street was the underground transportation station of the special committee of the South Road of the Communist Party of China from 1937 to 1940. At that time, comrades such as Chen Xincai, Peng Zhongying, Zhou Nan and Zhi Rensheng traveled to Datong Street for secret revolutionary activities.

After the founding of the people's Republic of China, the commercial center was gradually transferred, and the old Datong Street became a residential area. Most of the people living here were old neighborhoods in the past, maintaining the simple folk customs. When the older generation talks about Datong Street in the past, they will talk about the past in detail, showing a sense of pride.

Address: Datong Street, Chikan District, Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province

Longitude: 110.362279

Latitude: 21.274549