Social culture of Yujiacun
Yujiacun, also known as Stone Village, has a history of more than 500 years. Speaking of Yujia Village, we have to mention Yu Qian, the national hero of the Ming Dynasty, because all the people with the surname Yu in this village are descendants of Yu Qian. Speaking of Yu Qian, we must mention the great political changes of the Ming Dynasty in China from 1449 to 1457 AD. Yu Qian, an important figure in the "Seizing the Gate Rebellion", was originally from Zhejiang. After he was killed, his Later generations fled to the Taihang Mountains in Jingxing, west of Shijiazhuang, and this is where today's Yujia Stone Village came into being.
The geographical location of Shitou Village can be described as unique. "You can't see the village until you reach the entrance of the village." Because the village is built in a small basin surrounded by mountains with less than one square mile in the middle, and the roads are all at the foot of the mountains, the village cannot be seen until you reach the entrance of the village. There are six streets, seven lanes and eighteen alleys in the village, criss-crossing and twisting. Each street is paved with rubble. The streets are connected by houses, and the houses are aligned with the streets. The planning is orderly, uneven and full of poetry and painting. Living here is stable, calm and peaceful, and it can be called a real "feng shui treasure land". The village has more than 4,000 stone houses, more than 3,700 meters of stone streets, more than 1,000 stone wells and pits, and more than 2,000 acres of stone terraces. There are more than 2,000 stone utensils and more than 200 stone tablets (dozens of which still exist). It is a veritable stone village.
The ancient village has relatively completely preserved the stone streets and stone buildings from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Stone pavilion, stone wall of stone house, stone table and bench, stone mill, stone bridge and stone railing, stone monument, stone well and stone kiln, stone graffiti and inkstone, stone vat cover, stone hammer and stone slab, stone trough and stone mortar, stone There are cave stone niches and many strange and elegant rocks. In short, the sight of stones is really a sight of "the vast land is so clean"!
The most distinctive building in the village is Qingliang Pavilion. It was built by Yu Qian's nephew Yu Jiancheng alone. It was built in the ninth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty. The lower two floors are all stone structures, and the upper floors are brick and wood structures. The shape of the pavilion is similar to that of the Qianmen Arrow Tower in Beijing. There was no foundation, and it was built up from huge stones. Each stone was astonishingly large, some weighing ten thousand kilograms. From today's perspective, it is incredible that the entire building is made of uncarved large and small stones. It was made of stones. There was no construction machinery at that time. I don’t know how he constructed it and how much effort he spent to build this pavilion. There is also an imperial memorial arch in the village. I don’t know which emperor of the Qing Dynasty. A chastity house was built for a widow in a village. Yu Qian, who had been honest and upright throughout his life, was eventually brutally murdered in the name of "intention to rebel", which became an eternal grudge. There are different opinions on the fate of the Yu family. In Hebei Province, far away from Yu Qian's hometown of Hangzhou, there is a small mountain village where more than 400 families named Yu live. After crossing the foothills of the Taihang Mountains and walking on rugged country roads, Xu Quanhai, secretary-general of the Hangzhou CPPCC, led a tracing team to this so-called village. "Yujia Stone Village" is a place where I look forward to finding out every bit of information about Qian Qian.
Yujia Village is a well-preserved stone cultural village located in the central and western part of Jingxing County, Hebei Province, covering an area of 1 square meter. km, with more than 400 households and a population of more than 1,600. It was named "Yujia Stone Folk Village" by the Hebei Provincial Folklore Society on November 1, 1998. It is 15 kilometers away from Jingxing County. Turn right at the Xiulin exit of Shitai Expressway. 5 kilometers away is the Yushi Ancestral Hall, a well-preserved stone courtyard. We saw that to the north of the ancestral hall (the main building) is the ancestral hall, with a gold-lettered plaque with the words "徾见忾知" hung at the front of the door, and engraved wood hanging on both sides of the door. The couplet reads, "The legacy of our ancestors is great, and the fragrance of the water source has been recommended for centuries." There is a Youdao shrine in the middle of the ancestral hall. There are four open-carved golden dragons on both sides of the tablet in the shrine, with the Chinese character "longevity" engraved on it. According to the words of the villagers in Yujia Village, "The first ancestor of the family, Yu Youdao, is the eldest grandson of Yu Qian." The family tree is divided into five sections and is made of yellow satin. The family tree is dotted with the names of the deceased.
According to the villagers, the descendants of the Yu family have a tradition of returning to their hometown to worship their ancestors since ancient times. In the past, ancestor worship was necessary every Spring Festival, and it became more and more grand every year. It is said that in the Qing Dynasty, twelve scholars wore flower feathers on their heads and returned to their hometowns to worship their ancestors with loud gongs and drums.
Ancestor worship is a form. What makes us happy is that everyone we interviewed, whether adults or middle school students, knew that Yu Qian was their ancestor, and they all knew that Yu Qian was a loyal and honest minister. The most famous courtyard house in Yujia Village is the "Sihelou Courtyard". This brick building with stone on top was built in the late Ming Dynasty.
It covers an area of two acres, has 100 houses, and a construction area of nearly 1,000 square meters. It is divided into east and west courtyards, both high in the north and low in the south, with buildings on three sides. The lower floors of the main rooms of both courtyards are stone caves and nine beamless halls. The building is grand and tall, simple and elegant, leaning sideways, well-proportioned, spacious and bright, warm in winter and cool in summer. Climb the twenty-one open-air stone steps to the "guest seat" upstairs in the main room. This is a place for entertaining guests, friends, and distinguished guests. The room has thick beams and pillars, no partitions, is wide, tall, and magnificent. In the middle is the door, which is more than two meters wide. Two bright pillars stand on the left and right, with four wooden doors with flower lattice installed in the middle. On both sides of the door, there are short walls tens of centimeters high at the lower part, and flower lattice windows are installed on the short walls. In front of the window is a long corridor. Standing here and looking forward, you can have a panoramic view of Nanshan. There is a row of small rooms behind the west wing downstairs, including the long-term working room, the breeding room, the mill, the grinding room, the warehouse, the tool room, the well room, etc., which shows the grandeur of the people. The gates of the two courtyards are all Xunmen, with a gate tower on the top and a door opening on the bottom. They are wide and tall with tiles and cornices. On both sides of the threshold are stone door piers, two black painted doors, two pairs of ancient door cymbals and door knockers. There are four rows of spherical round nails arranged horizontally on the door panel. In front of the threshold is a stone step, and on the side outside the door there are horse-tying noses and horse-mounting stones. The family of this Sihelou Courtyard produced twelve civil and military talents during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. At that time, it was not easy to live in this remote place in the mountains. This kind of "sihelouyuan" is the best in Yujiashitou Village and is very famous in the surrounding area.
There are nearly 300 courtyard houses in the village, all of which have their own charm. Despite the size of the house, every household is clean and tidy. The courtyard is planted with pomegranate trees and crabapple trees, as well as mountain flowers and strange rocks. There are stone rings and iron rings on the stone fence outside the house for tying animals. There are drainage pipes of different shapes under the eaves. The strange thing is that the pipes face into the courtyard. I asked the owner and the answer was: "There has been a long drought and there is no underground water. Each house has to collect rainwater from the roof."
In Yujiacun, the "Stone Village Museum" is a courtyard with nothing to see. It is far better to go directly to the village to see it. In fact, Huiquan Village and Langwo Village, which are adjacent to Yujia Village, are also ancient villages with hundreds of years of history. They are also typical stone villages. There are no tourists or commercial atmosphere there, so they are worth visiting. We are just worried that with the demonstration effect of Yujiacun, the villagers of those two villages may not always be able to "refuse corrosion and never touch it". We are secretly glad, because next time we come, the ticket may be 60 yuan! "Qingliang Pavilion" is a legendary building, also known as "Shenxian Pavilion". It is located at the east entrance of Yujia Village and is the landmark building of Yujia Village. This pavilion was first built in the ninth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1581). It is said that it was built by Yu Xichun, a man of great strength. It is said that Qingliang Pavilion was originally planned to have nine floors, but when it was built on the second floor, Yu Xichun injured his arm while hanging a wind-moving plaque, and subsequently died of illness. Today, the bloodstains left after Yu Xichun was injured can still be seen on the stone road of Qingliang Pavilion.
Qingliang Pavilion *** has three floors, and the third floor was repaired by the villagers with wooden bricks. Its architectural style is unique, with ingenious conception, carved beams and painted pillars, five ridges and six animals, brackets and double eaves. There is a wind-moving stone plaque hanging on the east gate, and a fan-shaped gold-plated plaque hanging high on the west gate. On the south side is a round carved dragon head, and the fan-shaped plaque has three gold-plated characters "Qingliang Pavilion" written on it. The wind-moving stone plaque is oddly made, with two children surrounded by sika deer and gale. The little wind does not move.
What is strange is that such a tall building does not lay a foundation or fill in auxiliary materials. It is based on a natural stone base. Huge boulders rise on the spot and are completely built from bottom to top. . The stones are astonishingly huge, some are more than several meters long, some weigh several tons, some are intact, and some have few chisels. The structures are rough and unrestrained, and the designs are original. The whole building is full of simple and rough beauty.
In addition, the ancient stage, Zhenwu Temple, Yu's ancestral hall and various wells and stone utensils in the village are also worth seeing.