The layout of Wei Long building

Meizhou Wei Long House is the style and form of Hakka residential buildings. Hakka residential buildings have different changes in different historical periods and regions, including Yuan House, Wei Long House, Zoumalou, Sijiaolou and so on. But the most representative is the dragon enclosure. Weilong Building is a typical Hakka residential building with Lingnan characteristics. Hakka dragon house, together with quadrangles in Beijing, caves in Shaanxi, railings in Guangxi and seals in Yunnan, is known as the five traditional residential buildings with the most local flavor in China and one of the five characteristics of China residential buildings by Chinese and foreign architectural circles. According to the investigation of historians, this kind of residential building is very similar to the ancient aristocratic courtyard and has its historical origin. In ancient times, due to war and famine, Hakka ancestors moved south to the mountainous areas at the junction of Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian. After the Hakka ancestors moved south to settle in Lingnan, they not only spread advanced farming techniques, but also maintained the original traditional building style. The overall layout of the enclosure is a big garden, and in the overall shape, the enclosure is a Taiji diagram.

The main body of Longwei is a hall, which is an extension of two halls and two horizontal halls and three halls and two horizontal halls. It built a half-moon paddock behind the main hall, connected with the horizontal roofs on both sides, and surrounded the main room in the middle. There are two halls and two fences, three halls and two fences, four fences and two dragons, six fences and three dragons, and some have as many as five dragons. The surrounding dragon houses are mostly built on the mountain, and the whole house spans between the hillside and the flat, forming a double arch curve with low front and high back, low sides and high middle. The buildings are stacked on top of each other, and looking forward from the top of the house is a broad prospect. Looking down from a height, the front is the half moon pool, and the back is Longwei. Two semicircles are combined to surround the main room, forming a circular whole.

The central axis room in the paddock is Longtang, opposite to the ancestral hall in Shangtang, which is the storage hall of public goods. There is a half-moon space between the enclosure and the purlin, which is called "flower head" or "melting tire" The "tire-melting" slope is used for planting flowers and trees or paving with gravel and pebbles, rather than paving with stones or concrete, which means that the dragon god is not blocked but turned into a tire, and it is a land of feng shui. Between the main house and the tires, a deep ditch is opened as the boundary between the enclosed house and the main house, which is mainly used to facilitate drainage and prevent the main house from getting wet. There are upper, middle and lower halls on the central axis, which are opposite to the central axis. Shangtang is mainly a place of worship; The nave is a place for discussion and banquet; The next hall is the seats for musicians and bearers in wedding and funeral etiquette. The left and right halls between Shangtang and nave, nave and Xiatang are North and South halls. Also known as "Cross Hall", it is a public meeting room. The rooms on both sides of the upper, middle and lower halls side by side are the main rooms; The rooms on both sides of nave and Xiasantang are the main rooms; The main room next to nave and Xiatang houses is a flower house, where children of this ethnic group study, with small patios, rockeries, flower beds and so on. In front of the fence and between the pond is a field for drying grain. Go to the entrance of the pond. The main house-the outer layer of the horizontal house is a half-moon enclosure, some are one enclosure and some are two enclosures, hence the name enclosure. The arc-shaped fence guards the main room, forming a defensive barrier. Generally, the windows in the paddock are relatively small, which are natural observation holes and shooting holes, so it is convenient to use martial arts such as bows and arrows, soil guns and soil guns to fight against invading enemies. In fact, the architectural design of Weilong Building has a great relationship with the situation of Hakka people in Meizhou at that time. Hakkas are Han Chinese who migrated from the Central Plains to the south since the Tang and Song Dynasties. Most of them live in remote mountainous areas and are excluded and bullied by local people. In order to unite against aggression and survive, they had to live together and build a defensive castle-style house-Dragon House, to resist the invasion of bandits and locals. There is also a solid multi-layer "turret" in Longwei, which can be used to store food and forage, and can also shoot invading enemies from the commanding heights. If bandits come to harass and rob, as long as the gate and half the door are closed, the villagers will carry weapons into the dragon circle and turret to fight.