The legend of Nanxi Ancient Village
It is said that a long time ago, there was a demon lion causing trouble in the mountain behind the village. The Queen Mother of Tiangong learned about it and turned the demon lion into stone and lowered three locks in a row to lock the feng shui. So far, the weather in Jinjia Village is going smoothly and the population is prosperous. There are well-preserved sets of old family trees in the village. The village genealogy records that in 121 BC, his ancestor Jin Rixi was the prince of Xiutu, the Xiongnu who was stationed in Wuwei. He returned to the Han Dynasty with Hunxie, the king of the Xiongnu. Emperor Wu granted him the title of Horse Supervisor and Minister, and gave him the surname Jin.
In the Tang Dynasty, in order to avoid the Huangchao Rebellion, the Jin family chose Nanxi and led their people to live here for more than 1,120 years. There is an ancient emblem road next to the stone lions behind the village, leading to Fuliang, Jiangxi. Perhaps, the villagers also used to "buy tea in Fuliang" from here. When I was tired and thirsty, I took a rest in the road pavilion. Like all Huizhou merchants, I used the rice and water in the road pavilion and filled it up when I came back. The wildness and fighting spirit of the Huns gradually faded away, leaving more of the elegance and integrity of the Huizhou merchants. Most of the houses in the village have pink walls, gray tiles and horse-head walls. They are Hui-style buildings with doors and faces, which are not much different from the folk houses in southern Anhui. Only one watchtower built in the Yuan Dynasty still retains some of the imprint of the Xiongnu nation.
The Huns were brave, brave and good at fighting. In addition to living in tents when migrating and fighting, they generally lived in watchtowers to defend themselves against the enemy. The angle between the walls of this watchtower is only 60 degrees, like the edge of a sharp sword piercing the blue sky. The walls are thick, the doors and windows are narrow, and arrows seem to be shooting out of the gun holes at any time. Perhaps, the descendants of the Huns in the village once inspected the outside world in this building, and perhaps had fierce battles with foreign enemies. Now the watchtower has been abandoned, and only the eagle-like tiles on the eaves still silently tell the past thoughts of the Huns.
The Dacheng Temple built in the Ming Dynasty is the Jin clan ancestral hall. It has tall lintels and towering gables. It covers an area of 1,200 square meters and has three entrances, front and back. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Jin family was a prominent local family, and many of them served as officials in the imperial court. There are 99 pillars in the ancestral hall, which is magnificent and solemn. I don’t know whether they wanted to be comparable to the imperial palace, or they had other plans. It is said that the descendants of the Huns originally planned to build 100 pillars in the ancestral hall. After being reported, they had to saw off one of the pillars to prevent it from falling to the ground. A calamity. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the carvings on the pillars vaguely have the shape of dragons, and the patterns on the stone piers also fully reveal the martial characteristics of the Huns. Perhaps, the Huns' thoughts were just to spread their wings like an eagle, fly to the blue sky and fly to the grassland. The people in the village did not fly away after all. They settled down and lived a leisurely life. During festivals, the villagers, like most farmers in southern Anhui, entertain themselves by singing opera in the ancestral hall, singing the gentle Huagu opera and Huangmei tune. On the face of the villagers, however, there is still a hint of the Huns' characteristics. The sound of cavalry gradually faded away. The descendants of these grassland nomads finally took root here. After thousands of years of collision and integration, they gradually became indistinguishable from the Han people.