The trunk of a 200-year-old banyan tree that stood on the banks of the Nanjiang River toppled as the flood waters roared down from the Leishan Mountain 3,700 meters above sea level. They crashed onto a cement bridge that crossed the river; a potent symbol of nature's force.
Carrying a rope with him, Su Zhaohui, 43, tiptoed onto an ancient wooden covered bridge about 100 meters up stream from the modern cement bridge. He undertook his daring rescue mission dressed only in his underwear.
"The bridge was the oldest thing in our village. We were willing to do anything to protect it," said Wu Wenfeng, 73, the zhailao (spiritual leader) of the Dong people of Shangzhai Village, Diping County, Liping Town, Southwest China's Guizhou Province.
"No!" a cry swept across the crowd of more than 300 who gathered on the banks of the river to help try and secure the bridge.
It shook severely in the waves, but Su ran back onto the bank.
"Shut up!" Su yelled out angrily, trying to stave off the inevitable. He bound one end of the rope onto one of the beams.
"I could hear the wood creaking as I made each step. It swayed madly," he recalled later.
On the bank several young men hurriedly bound the other end of the rope onto a giant chestnut tree. Beside them men and women were inserting iron wires into ropes as others watched on anxiously, some wiping away their tears.
An old faithful friend was under threat and there was little anyone could do.
Flower Bridge
The Shangzhai Village has been there by the river for more than three centuries.
On the southern bank their ancestors opened up a small patch of plain wasteland, which was precious in the mountainous province. They reclaimed from the mountain slope terraced fields, each of which measures no more than 20 square meters.
For generations, the ethnic Dongs lived a hard life by planting mainly sweet potatoes and rice. Their life turned a little better only in last few decades as the young left for cities and towns and sent back the money they earned with labor.
In 1882, their ancestors built the wooden bridge across the river.
It opened up the only convenient route to travel from the mountains of Guizhou to the relatively plain areas of the bordering Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Many travelers had died trying to swim across the river.
The bridge has been one of the most beautiful of more than 500 "huaqiao" (flower bridges) in China.
Also known as "fengyu qiao" (wind and rain bridge), such bridges are typical in villages of the Dongs, who, with a population of more than 2.5 million across China, live mainly in compact communities in Guizhou, Guangxi and Central China's Hunan Province.
China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage has inscribed this one on the list of Chinese cultural relics of national importance, and the State Postal Bureau had it made into a special stamp and issued it in 1997.
The "flower bridge" at Shangzhai is 57 meters long and 5 meters wide.
It rested on two lines of stone piers, 7 meters tall each, and on more than 30 beams between the piers, which were made of trunks of fir trees on both riverbanks.
It had three "flower towers." The one in the middle, 5 meters tall, had legends of the Dongs' history painted inside it, while the other two, 3 meters tall each, had landscapes, animals and birds painted on them.
Wooden sculptures of dragons and mandarin ducks stood on top of the arched cover, when those of other birds and animals rested on its upturned eaves.
The bridge is fully covered with a roof and eaves to provide shelter from the rain. There were two lines of benches on the bridge.
At the two ends there were three couplets in Han Chinese characters, elaborating on the beauty of the bridge and the landscape.
On the northern bank a pavilion was built and on the southern a stone stele established. On the latter was carved in Han Chinese teachings of such virtues as respect for ancestors and hard work.
They were entitled "qian gu tiao yue" (teachings forever).
"The Dong had no written language until 50 years ago. A Han scholar of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) stayed for years at the village so the educated villagers can speak and write the Han language," Wu, the spiritual leader, explained.
"The Han language spoken here sounds somewhat awkward. The elderly still use some grammar and pronunciation of the Ming Dynasty," said Hou Tianyou, chief of the provincial cultural heritage administration.
"Everyday I crossed the bridge on my way to school," said Xiao Qinglin, 15.
"The bridge witnessed so much of our life. On it we celebrated our festivals, and competed for a girl's love in the moonlight when we were young," said his father Xiao Yongsheng.
Wu has villagers gathered in front of the stele on important occasions, like meeting guests from villages on the other side of the mountain.
River of thunder
At 8 am on July 20 more than 300 villagers met before the stele without Wu's prior knowledge.
"The flood sounded like thunder. The 80-year-olds here said they had never heard their grandparents mentioning that big a flood. It had been raining for days but no one expected such a great flood from the mountain," said Xiao Yongsheng, a villager.
"We gathered all iron wires and ropes from our houses, rubbed wires into ropes and fastened them to parts of the bridge and onto the old trees by the river.
"It was noisy and hectic until about 12 noon. Then the northern end of the bridge broke into parts and within 10 minutes the whole bridge was washed away.
"People became silent all of a sudden," he added.
Yang Zaihua, a villager in his 20s, jumped into the water about 50 meters to the lower reaches of the bridge, where the waves surged about 1 meter high and the water was therefore "calmer" than beneath the bridge, said villager Su Zhaohui.
More than 110 men and women jumped in immediately after him. They salvaged in the flood about 200 parts of the bridge, including two beams, each more than 20 meters long.
"We didn't have help from the outside. The whole county was suffering from floods and the major roads were all cut off by the water," Su added.
About 200 young men from neighboring villages and towns, together with Zhang Xianming, the deputy county magistrate, and Yang Zhixiong, the county's police chief, walked eight hours in the rain to cross the mountain, and only witnessed the loss of the bridge.
The helpers and villagers, about 380 in total, walked 50 kilometers along the river in the next 10 days, taking with them rice balls and sweet potatoes as food.
Their march ended at Sanjiang of neighboring Guangxi, where the
Nanjing River flowed into the Duliu River, a branch of the Zhujiang River (Pearl River) running across southern China.
They visited 280 households in the villages along the river and bought back from 80 of them about 70 per cent of all the components of the bridge, including 26 beams, with money from the county government.
"The whole village was wild with joy when each group arrived with some components on their shoulders," Xiao Qinglin recalled. "I was more than happy to see the beams and fences again."
With support from the State and provincial cultural heritage administrations, the local Dong artisan villagers are now working to have the bridge restored.
The new bridge will retain the original looks and structure, with the original components reinstalled.
The restored bridge will be raised about 1 meter higher than the old one above the water surface, said Hou from the provincial cultural heritage administration.
"The restoration is expected to be completed before the rainy season arrives next May. Things are much easier as we have many of the original components," he added.
"The loss of the bridge was like the passing away of an old friend, and then she came back to life when we found the components and put them together again," said the villagers' spiritual leader Wu Wenying.
