When it comes to Yangmei, it reminds people of the poems "Looking at Yangmei to quench their thirst" and "Never say that my teeth are greedy first". When people enjoy Jingzhou Yangmei, it suddenly occurred to them that there are mountains everywhere in the south of the Yangtze River. Why is Jingzhou Yangmei so popular and famous? And Yangmei in Jingzhou is the best one alone?

According to legend, at the end of Ming and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, Wu Sangui led the Qing soldiers to plunder the Central Plains, and was bravely resisted by the people of the Central Plains. When he led the way to the remote wooden cave in Jingzhou, it coincided with the mature season of Yangmei. Wu Sangui's soldiers and horses were hungry and thirsty, so they picked plums to quench their thirst. Wu Sangui ate several pills at a time, and his teeth were cracked. His teeth are bad, but when he is stimulated by sour plums, his pain is even worse. In a rage, he immediately ordered the bayberry tree to be cut down and then went to Guizhou. The next spring, an old man with a white beard came to the wooden cave. He first selected several withered bayberry trees in a place called Shangchong, cut them in half with a sharp axe, inserted the plum branches he brought with him, and then piled them up with mud and rammed them tightly. Strangely, the inserted branches of Prunus mume thrive, and Myrica rubra is completely different from Shan Mei. Red in black, bright, sweet and sour, especially delicious. The villagers were very happy, and everyone followed suit and planted plum branches on the bayberry stump. In less than a few years, the cave was full of mountains and slopes, and the Myrica rubra trees grew again.

This is naturally a legend, but it also reflects people's yearning for beautiful things. Most beautiful things in the world do not fall out of thin air, but are successfully created through the efforts of generation after generation. The old man with white beard is vague, but an old man named Zhou Daohong is a true story.

In the 11th year of Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty (AD 1806), Zhou Daohong, a villager in Mudong, Aoshang, initiated an artificial cultivation experiment of wild Myrica rubra. He climbed mountains and mountains to find the excellent branches of local wild bayberry. As a mountaineer, he certainly doesn't understand the inheritance and evolution in botany, but he finally succeeded in grafting Myrica rubra with his own experience and intuition and years of perseverance and determination.

Legend 2

A long time ago, an honest girl fell in love with a simple young man. Because the young man's family is poor, the girl's family is too poor to love the rich. She tried every means to prevent her from associating with that young man and forced her to marry a local unscrupulous person. The son of the chief who oppresses the people is his wife. But as soon as the girl fell in love with the simple young man, she swore to disobey her mother's orders, and her parents were helpless, so they locked the girl at home and refused to go out. A girl falls in love with her beloved boy all day, and no matter how her parents use it, she can't change her will. Loyal and unyielding, the girl has a crush. On that day in beginning of autumn, she ran away from home and met her beloved young man on Yangmei Mountain. They settled down there with red Yangmei as the medium and formed a beautiful couple.

Since then, in order to commemorate the loyal love of the young couple, every day, dozens of Yi people around Yangmeishan, wearing brand-new national costumes and bringing food prepared in advance, gather at the 24 pass of Yangmeishan in Liangzi. The old people sat around the floor with messy hair, took out the food they brought, ate and drank, bought their homes and talked about the New Year. Young people play lusheng, play strings, sing, dance, date each other or choose their lifelong partners. Because this day is early autumn, the bitter and sour bayberry all over the mountains has matured and exudes a refreshing fragrance. In addition, people celebrate the anniversary on Yangmei Mountain, so they named this festival "Yangmei Festival".