Qingming Festival (Maoshan Boat Gathering), a traditional folk custom prevalent in Xinghua City, Jiangsu Province, is one of China's national intangible cultural heritages.
The Maoshan Boat Festival boasts a long history. In the 33rd year of Emperor Jiajing's reign during the Ming Dynasty (1554), Japanese pirates invaded coastal areas from the sea, harassing local residents. The people of Maoshan organized boats, using bamboo poles as spears to assist government troops in resisting the pirates, ultimately annihilating over a thousand enemies. This feat earned imperial commendation, with the court bestowing four "Five-Colored Golden Dragon Flags" as rewards. Proud of this honor, the Maoshan people hoisted these flags annually and held boat races, gradually evolving into the Maoshan Boat Festival tradition. Before Qingming Festival each year, the Maoshan region and surrounding areas spontaneously organize boat gatherings. Participants assemble at midnight, perform rituals before dawn, and the waterways become crowded with boats and swarms of visitors. On the water, banners flutter like waves, bamboo poles and oars stand dense as forests, boats shuttle back and forth like weaving looms, while the sounds of gongs and drums mingle with exuberant cheers from the crowd, creating an exceptionally lively atmosphere.
The customs of the boat racing competition during the Qingming Festival in Maoshan, Guzhuang, and Qintong have a long history, originating from the Southern Song Dynasty. It stems from a real historical event where the people of the Maoshan region assisted Shandong volunteers in defeating the Jin army at the Suotou Lake in Maoshan. In the third year of Jianyan in the Southern Song Dynasty (1129 AD), Zhang Rong, the leader of the Shandong anti-Jin resistance, and Jia Hu gathered thousands of volunteers and two to three hundred fishing boats, battling the Jin forces southward from Liangshan Marsh. In an attempt to control the counties along the canal, the Jin supervisor Tala led elite troops from Shandong, capturing Chengchu (modern-day Huai'an) and then taking Taizhou. The volunteer army seized opportunities to attack, achieving multiple victories. Rong believed that Taizhou and Chengchu were strategic locations, and the recapture of Taizhou would lead to the recovery of Chengchu. Thus, they decided to retake Taizhou first. They engaged the enemy near Qintong Lake in front of Qintong Village, using small boats to feign retreat and lure the enemy to Suotou Lake between Maoshan and Guzhuang. Tala, underestimating the small boats and seemingly low morale of the volunteers, pursued relentlessly, aiming for total annihilation. Suotou Lake, beside the mountain, had a raised lakebed due to weathering, and during the drought, the water receded, trapping the enemy ships in mud. Rong divided his forces into two, half attacking by boat and half on land. Guided by villagers from Maoshan and Guzhuang, the volunteers surrounded the enemy ships, firing arrows and immobilizing them. The Jin soldiers, desperate, leaped from their boats, many drowning or stuck in the mud, with countless casualties. Tala barely escaped, carried to shore by his guards, and fled to Chuzhou the next day with his remaining troops. Rong's army inspected the captives, numbering about 5,000, though the volunteers also suffered heavy losses. Liu Guangshi reported the victory to the court, and Rong was appointed magistrate of Taizhou, tasked with holding a memorial ceremony at Suotou Lake for the fallen Shandong volunteers. Rong chose a high ground at the mouth of Suotou Lake for the altar and invited Maoshan monks to chant scriptures. The site became known as the Memorial Mouth, located by the Tanggang River between Maoshan and Guzhuang (now the site of a crematorium).Before the memorial ceremony, the people of Maoshan and Guzhuang had already buried the deceased volunteers. During the Ming Jiajing period, when Japanese pirates invaded the Lixiahe region of Yangzhou, the locals of Qintong, Maoshan, and Guzhuang organized boat teams to assist the government forces in defending their homeland. This later evolved into the annual Qingming Festival boat racing tradition. Another significance of the boat racing is to honor the unmarked graves of the Shandong volunteers who died in the anti-Jin war, allowing the people of Qintong, Maoshan, and Guzhuang to express their grief and remembrance.
