Look at the culture of the courtyard and taste the culture of Yongzhou
Yongzhou, Hunan, is world-famous for its history, landscape and culture. The folk customs here are simple and the traditional family and clan culture is very strong. In the countryside of Yongzhou, you can see some ancient, well-preserved and large-scale ancient residential groups everywhere. These residential houses were usually built by officials and merchants in ancient times to bless their descendants. According to official and business status, the specifications and shapes are different. The descendants of the residents have enjoyed and carefully protected the ancestral property of their ancestors for generations. As a result, there are precious cultural properties like today. With their scarce cultural value and historical value, they have become an extremely valuable cultural heritage in the history of the Chinese nation and architecture.
(1) The Zhou Family Courtyard
The Zhou Family Courtyard is located in Qianyantou Village, Fujiaqiao Town, Lingling District, Yongzhou. It was built during the Zong Jingtai period of the Ming Dynasty (1450-1456). ), built in the 30th year of Guangxu (1904). The descendants of Zhou Dunyi, the acting scholar of the Song Dynasty, moved here to live and multiply in the mid-Ming Dynasty. It lasted for 26 generations and lasted for nearly 600 years, so it was named Zhou Family Courtyard. Although the construction spanned a long time and was built by generations of descendants, the overall planning and layout seemed to be made by one person and in an orderly manner.
The Zhou Family Courtyard consists of six courtyards, namely the "Old Courtyard", "Red Gate Tower" and "Black Gate Tower" built in the Ming Dynasty, and the "New Courtyard" and "Ziyan Tower" built in the Qing Dynasty. "Four Houses" and "Four Great Courts". The six courtyards are arranged in the shape of a Big Dipper from west to east, leaning on the mountain, with the south high and the north low, as if you were sitting on a Taishi chair. On the whole, the six courtyards are divided and combined, and they are integrated into one. They are independent courtyards, but they are also harmoniously connected with each other. The courtyards are stacked on top of each other in an orderly manner. Among them, the "Four Major Courtyards" are the largest, with a construction area of more than 10,000 square meters. The Zhou Family Courtyard has more than 180 front and side houses, more than 1,300 large and small rooms, 136 large and small patios, and 36 pavilions. It covers a total area of more than 100 acres and has a construction scale of 45,000 square meters. The exquisite carving and painting skills of the architectural decoration of the Zhou Family Courtyard, the rich historical and cultural content, the strong national atmosphere, the wide range of content and themes, and the rich expression techniques are all amazing. Among the large number of patterns, the lotus pattern is the most common, which is a reflection of the famous work "Love of the Lotus" written by the ancestor Zhou Dunyi.
According to genealogical records, the descendants of the Zhou family in this Zhou family compound are of the same ethnic origin as Lu Xun and Zhou Enlai. In the mid-Ming Dynasty, the descendants of Zhou Dunyi, the acting scholar of the Song Dynasty, moved here to live and multiply. According to historical research, Lu Xun is the 31st generation grandson of Zhou Dunyi, and Zhou Enlai is the 32nd generation grandson. They are one generation younger than Lu Xun. They share the same surname with Zhou in Qianyantou Village and are descendants of Zhou Dunyi’s second son Zhou Tao. For more than 500 years, there have been no "miscellaneous people" in the village, and the village has lived together with blood ties as a bond. It has gone through 27 generations so far. More than 260 households and more than 900 people currently live in the Zhou Family Courtyard. They all live in the ancient courtyard passed down from their ancestors, and the history and culture are still passed down in daily life. The Zhou family's good family tradition of "farming, studying and passing on the family" has resulted in the emergence of numerous talents here. Over the past 500 years, there have been hundreds of people, ranging from the scholars, candidates, and scholars selected through the imperial examinations in the feudal era to the college students and graduate students who have stood out in the modern college entrance examination. Among the outstanding ones are Zhou Xisheng, an imperial scholar of the Ming Dynasty who served as a minister of household affairs; Zhou Chongfu, a third-rank official of the Qing Dynasty who followed Zuo Zongtang to recover Xinjiang and later returned to his hometown to lecture at Pingzhou Academy, and so on.
In 2007, the compound was awarded the title of "China's Famous Historical and Cultural Village" by the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Culture, and the Cultural Relics Administration. It also enjoys the reputation of "The First Ancient House in Xiaoxiang" and "Hunan Residential Treasure". .
(2) Longjia Courtyard
Longjia Courtyard is located on Daguanling in Xintian County, Yongzhou. It was first built during the Yuanfeng period of Song Shenzong and has a history of 930 years. . Because the Long family has always lived together as a family with only one surname, it is called the "Long Family Courtyard". It is the residence of a descendant of Long Bogao, the prefect of Lingling who was famous for his "Eight Virtues" during the Eastern Han Dynasty. After more than ten generations of continuous efforts, a "three halls, nine wells, twenty-four lanes and forty-eight buildings" pattern was built in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. building groups. The compound is built on the mountain, surrounded by mountains on three sides, with a pond in front. On the left is Qinglong Mountain and on the right is White Tiger Mountain, which is consistent with the traditional Chinese Feng Shui theory of "Qinglong on the left and White Tiger on the right". The entire village covers an area of 45,000 square meters, with a construction area of 5,780 square meters. The main building consists of 48 ancient houses, Crescent Pond, Pushan Hall, Longshan School, Bade Pavilion, Hebao, etc.
The courtyard has typical characteristics of southern Hunan, with clear water walls and small green tiles made of blue bricks, a hard top with wind and fire walls, pavilions, exquisite wood carvings, gorgeous paintings, and dignified and simple screen walls.
"Poems and rituals are passed down from generation to generation, and we don't care about anything other than farming." There are 128 couplets in the Long Family Courtyard, more than 20 square meters of plaques, and nearly 30 square meters of hall seats. They all reflect the farming culture and the idea of seclusion; it also inherits It shows Long Bogao's honest, careful, modest and thrifty character. The couplets not only have exquisite calligraphy, but also have different fonts for each couplet, which has high artistic value and scientific research value.
Most of the large and small halls in the courtyard are front halls and back halls, with three rooms in width, an open hall and a second bedroom, which are symmetrical from left to right. There are patios in front of the hall for lighting and ventilation. The main halls are all made of green bricks. There is a place for worshiping ancestors on the back wall, and there are ancestors' tablets. On important days or important things, such as getting married, building a house, having children, etc., the descendants and grandchildren will pay tribute here. The ancestors offer a stick of incense and pray to the ancestors for their blessings. The wall opposite the main hall of the courtyard is a screen wall with a three-clawed golden dragon painted on it, which has the function of exorcising evil spirits and confining the house. The three-clawed dragon is painted instead of the five-clawed dragon. One of the meanings is that the ancestors have the surname of dragon and the ancestors should not be forgotten; the other is that the five-clawed dragon can only be used by the emperor, for fear of causing death.
In 2013, the compound was listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit.
(3) Li Family Courtyard
The Li Family Courtyard is located in Longxi Village, Panshi Town, Qiyang, Yongzhou City. It was built more than 500 years ago in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. The ancestors of the Li family After moving to Qiyang from Jiangxi and becoming rich through the lumber business, he started to build the "Li Family Courtyard". After more than 300 years of expansion and construction by thirteen generations of descendants, it finally completed the old house courtyard, Diaozhu Courtyard, The clan residence consists of the upper and lower courtyards and the Pinzi Bookstore. The remaining courtyards include the upper and lower courtyards and the Li family ancestral hall, covering an area of more than 11,000 square meters.
The courtyard is an ancient commercial house, backed by green hills and facing a large lotus pond. The house is made of blue bricks and black tiles, with raised cornices and ups and downs. The clear spring flowing down from the back mountain merges into a stream through the diversion canal and jingles down from the right side of the house, forming the overall layout of the house in a vertical arrangement. It's like an ink landscape painting, hidden among the green mountains and clear waters.
The main entrance of the compound is the Li family's ancestral hall. In front of the ancestral hall, on the flagpole stone representing merit, stand two tall flagpoles with two gauze lanterns. On the door frame of the ancestral hall, "Fifth Grade Military Merit" is written. , "Jinshi", "Fengzheng doctor" and other honorary plaques tell the story of the family's past glory. The angled roof stacks in the courtyard give people a sense of movement as if they are about to take flight. The houses in the courtyard are connected layer by layer, with mottled woodwork, flower windows, and bow-supported carvings. They are rich in content, each one is beautiful, and no one is repeated. And they all contain the meaning of good luck and good luck, demonstrating the superb wisdom and skills of ancient construction craftsmen. There is a ceiling on the roof of the courtyard, and there are exquisite stone carvings and paintings on the courtyard walls and pillars. The patio is paved with large strips of bluestone, which can increase lighting when it is sunny, and can store water or drain water quickly when it rains. The entire house has interconnected doorways and is well-proportioned. The roof ridges and the tall horse-head wall in front complement each other. Some green plants have grown from the top of the wall or from the cracks in the tiles, matching the gray tiles, making it unique and elegant.
The TV series "Tao Zhu" and "Autumn Colors of My Hometown" were filmed here.
Similar clan compounds include the Huang Family Courtyard in Ningyuan County; the Xi Family Courtyard and Shude Villa in Dong'an County; the Sanhuai Hall and the Li Family Ancestral Hall in Lengshuitan District; and the Shuangpai County Courtyard. The Deng Family Courtyard in Jiangyong County; Shang Gantang in Jiangyong County, etc. Throughout the dynasties, the clansmen living deep in these clan compounds, like their ancestors, maintained and upheld the achievements of their ancestors and passed on the spirit of the clan. Walking into these courtyards, touching the blue bricks and carvings, and being intoxicated by the rich aroma of traditional culture always gives people the illusion of traveling through time and space. Compared with the high-rise buildings in modern cities and the modern new homes in the countryside, these compounds are like dazzling planets, frozen in the never-ending time.