A day of gaining knowledge: getting to know Yongding Tulou and meeting the bustling Yunshuiyao

The first time I heard about "earth buildings" was in the architectural history class at the university. The teacher's lecture was plain and simple, and I didn't think it was very strange. It wasn't until I went to the scene in person and listened to the locals telling stories one after another that I suddenly sighed: How could people be so powerful in the past!

Tulou is actually a general term. Generally speaking, there are three famous national tourist attractions: Yongding Tulou, Nanjing Tulou and Yunshuiyao. Among them, Yunshui Yao was named after the merger of three villages, mainly because the movie "Yun Shui Yao" was filmed in Changjiao Village more than ten years ago, and it became a tourist attraction. Gradually, the three surrounding villages were merged and named together for convenience. . The other two villages are Huaiyuan Tower and Hegui Tower (distributed from south to north, Yunshuiyao Photography Base is located roughly in the middle of the two earth buildings).

Nanjing Tulou is known as "four dishes and one soup". This itinerary does not include it. I will share it with you again when I have the opportunity~

Since it is a "visit" to the Tulou, let's go ahead Flower viewing is definitely not allowed. In order to save trouble and convenience, I participated in a group tour provided by a travel agency for this short trip. I recommend "Xiamen Zongsifang Travel Agency". The itinerary is very fulfilling: the two tour guides are very considerate and the sales are natural and will not make people uncomfortable. There is a lot of feeling in the subtleties.

Everyone in the Yongding Tulou area has the surname "Jiang", and in the village, people who are called "Xiaojiang" will respond to "a hundred responses". As the local saying goes, Tulou is 30% looking and 70% listening, so before visiting, read this summary of mine. You can fully understand the Tulou without joining a group to listen to the explanation~

Most of the people who live here in Yongding Tulou They are Hakkas. The Hakkas are Han nationality. They moved from Luoyang, Henan Province, to Fujian and gradually took root. The people here are hospitable. When passing by places where Guanyin and other gods are worshiped, old people will hand incense to tourists. If you have religious beliefs, you can accept the incense and pay homage to it, and donate some incense money. This is a custom. Of course, if you don’t have faith and don’t accept the incense, it’s okay to say thank you and wave your hand.

Next is the key content of the earth building, knock on the blackboard ~

Let’s first talk about the formation of the earth building. The earth building was built by the Hakkas at that time to prevent bandits from invading and to resist wild beasts. Enclosed building with at least three floors. The first floor is the kitchen, the second floor is the granary, and the third floor and above are residences. At the beginning, they were all square earth buildings. The corners did not get sunlight all year round, especially because the climate in Fujian was very humid, so they gradually evolved into round earth buildings. The allocation of rooms in Tulou is also very fair - by drawing lots, you will be allocated a room on each floor. The only inconvenience is the stairs. The stairs are public, so everyone knows, just like what you saw in "Big Fish and Begonia", you have to run around in the earth building and return to your room: in Pick up hot water on the first floor, go to the third floor to take a shower, and then pick up the water and dump it...

Another important point is that except for the Tulou Museum, other earth buildings cannot be visited upstairs, because There are also some residents living there. After the earth building is successfully applied for World Heritage status, the people inside can build houses with government subsidies, or they can continue to live in them.

Entering the Tulou District, the first thing is the Parkview Building. As the name suggests, it is related to overseas Chinese. The male owner of this earth building has four sons. The eldest, second and fourth sons all went to Southeast Asia to develop in the early years and never came back. It is these three sons who paid for the construction of the current earth building. This earth building is now owned by an old man in his nineties, who is the third son of the male owner. Parkview Building is also known as the "Doctor's Building". This earthen building housed 11 doctors in the 1970s and 1980s. The eldest son always has nine sons and one daughter, "nine dragons and one phoenix". Five of the sons and one daughter have obtained doctorate degrees, and each of the five sons married five doctorate wives, so there are 11 doctorates. This earth building also has the best lighting. There is no additional building in the atrium, it is just a flat piece of land, and real sunlight falls into the courtyard.

Next is Chengqi Tower, also known as the "King of Towers" because it is tall, heavy, rough and majestic. It is said that during the construction process, it was always sunny when the wall was being rammed. It did not rain until the water came out of the lower wall beams. The people of Chengqi Tower felt that God was helping them, so they called Chengqi Tower "Tianzhu Tower". The introduction of this building should start with a jingle: Four floors high, four circles of buildings, four hundred rooms up and down; circles within circles, circles within circles, after three hundred years of vicissitudes. The houses in a circle do not block each other and do not affect the lighting.

This earth building is also home to talented people. In the third circle of the earth building is a private school. Teachers will be invited to come to the home to teach children of appropriate age. In the fourth circle, you can also see the name plaques of the descendants here who won the first prize in the imperial examination. The fourth circle is the middle room, which is the family meeting hall. Marriages, dispute mediation, and even difficult relief are all held and handled here. The fourth circle witnessed the stories of various events in this big family, including the fact that the twins won the top prize at the same time, which was also recorded on a plaque. I deeply feel that this is a family that attaches great importance to education, and I admire the foresight of its predecessors.

Finally, there are Wuyun Tower and Shize Tower, which are relatively "ordinary". Wuyun Tower is not allowed to visit. It experienced a 6.8-magnitude earthquake before, and the wall collapsed by almost two meters. Now after the earth building was applied for World Heritage status, there is a special department in charge. During the humid season, the wall is pushed outward from the inside. It is said that it has been pushed out by 0.9 meters. Local people say that Wuyun Building is a rather strange building. One reason is that this earth building has no foundation, which may be to meet the construction deadline. The other reason is that this earth building once had an additional floor due to population growth, and now the outer wall Physically, you can see the traces of stamping.

That’s all we know about Yongding Tulou. The tour guide kept reminding us: You can buy some fruits, but try not to buy other things in the scenic area. We still have to go to regular places~

When we arrived at the Yunshuiyao Scenic Area, the tour guide introduced that all the villagers of this generation were named Jian, and we entered the realm of the Jian family~

After seeing the Yongding Tulou, and then to Yunshuiyao, in fact, the focus of our expectations is no longer on the Tulou itself. . The most impressive thing about Huaiyuan Building is the plaque "Sushi Room". Everyone will definitely think of "Inscription on the Humble Room". The owner of the earth building probably had the same mentality at that time. When visiting Huaiyuan Building, the focus is on the door. The outside is a thick iron sheet, and the traces of bullets can be clearly seen on it. It is an earth building with a story. If you have a rich imagination, you may be able to write a powerful novel... Huaiyuan Building has only one gate. There are Bagua painted on the top of the gate, and below the Bagua are three big characters "Huaiyuan Tower". The name of Huaiyuan Tower has two meanings: one is that the owner of the building comes from the Jian family in Huaiyang, Hebei, and the other is to warn the descendants of the Jian family to be careful. Have high aspirations. Friends who are interested can read all the couplets in Tulou. They are very meaningful, so I won’t go into details here.

The Earth Building Museum is the only earth building that you can visit upstairs. It is also a good experience to take photos upstairs and see the structure of the room~ (10 minutes to visit and 1 hour to take photos, if you are not in a hurry words)

Bang, clang, clang... the protagonist Yunshuiyao Ancient Town appeared, and it certainly lived up to my expectations. If you come here during the season when there are not many people, you can clearly hear the chirping of birds, flowing streams, and the windmills spinning endlessly. Thousand-year-old banyan trees stand one by one beside the stream and in front of the door. Here you just need to slow down, see with your eyes, listen with your ears, smell with your nose, sit on a certain stone bench, and maybe the whole afternoon will pass. If you are not in a hurry, staying here for one night should be a good experience.

The last one, Hegui Tower, I think it fully reflects human wisdom and persistence. This is an earth building built on swamp land. At that time, young Jian Ciping went to take the imperial examination and passed by this land. It was said that when looking down from the mountain, it looked like a child's bellyband. He specially found a Feng Shui master to identify it. After finding the Feng Shui treasure land, he gave up the imperial examination and devoted himself to building an earthen building on this swamp. As soon as he finished renovating the first floor, the entire floor sank under the swamp. People at the time thought he was crazy and it was impossible to build a house on the swamp. The persistent Jian Ciping used more than 200 pine logs to pile and pave the ground, and then continued to build it. The final total investment of Hegui Building was 15,000 taels of silver. It covers an area of ​​1,547 square meters. It is still solid, stable and well-preserved after more than 200 years. It is also the tallest among all known earth buildings in Fujian. Now walk into Hegui Building and jump up and down on the atrium steps inside, and you can still feel the cobblestones vibrating. There are two wells in the building, eighteen meters apart. The water levels in the wells are both higher than the ground. The locals call them "Yin Yang Wells": one well is as clear as a mirror and the water is sweet, while the other well is turbid, yellow, filthy, and completely undrinkable. . There is also a local legend that it was the women who were in confinement who came out to fetch water themselves, which led to the emergence of the Yin well. In fact, the scientific explanation has a lot to do with the location of the two wells. One was in the center of the swamp and was surrounded by cement; the other was accidentally dug on the edge of the swamp and was surrounded by pebbles.

The results can be imagined.

A rich trip to Yunshuiyao Tulou, listen carefully to the story of Tulou, and feel the charm of history and culture. The rise and fall of a nation is indeed inseparable from knowledge. These earth buildings are quietly telling: every descendant who comes out of the school is their pride.