Especially the Ming kiln next to Fengyuangou, the villagers will tidy up a little in a short time because of the difficulties in life, and live for three to five years. The traces of smoke in the cave, as a place to live, cannot be studied for hundreds of years and generations.
Now people's impression of Guanzhong kiln is just that "the trees are seen in the village but no one is seen", so naturally they don't know much about its origin and characteristics.
Fengyuan earth kilns are mostly flat kilns, that is, caves dug on the flat ground, close to Henan plain earth kilns. A few will build open-pit kilns based on ditches and terraces. The difference between the two is that the Ming kiln is older, mostly because even the elderly can't tell when it was built. It is close to ravines, with dangerous terrain, extremely inconvenient access and very hard soil. It is represented by stones, so it will not fall down for hundreds of years. Flat kilns were mostly built during the period of population growth before and after the liberation of the last century, and three or five families got together in large numbers, which was also the mainstream of underground kilns in Fengyuan. The existing Zhangjiayao ground kiln on Fengyuan is the representative of newly-built Ming kiln, and Baishe ground kiln is the representative of flat kiln (also known as dark kiln). After the construction of new countryside, the remaining underground kilns basically disappeared. Only the Ming kiln by the ditch, after hundreds of years, is uninhabited and useless, and still stands in the wind and rain.
Flat kilns, commonly known locally as Zhuangzi, are divided into four-head, six-head and eight-head specifications. Even numbers mean good luck and peace. The number of heads refers to the number of four-walled caves in flat kiln. Little Zhuangzi is mostly four-headed. The head count in Zhuangzi refers to the size of the courtyard in Zhuangzi, which is often related to the wealth of the residents. Zhuangzi, with eight heads, used to be the standard for his son to marry his wife for a long time.
Building a flat kiln requires a lot of attention. You have to go through Zhuangzi, dig Zhuangzi, open caves, wash walls, dig tunnels, mud kilns, dry Zhuangzi, slip holes, and finally make rain-proof reinforcement before you can move in. It's all done by manpower, and it's a huge workload. It's also a big event in your village, with the help of neighbors. Every year, a village will not build two flat kilns at the same time, which is also related to the large amount of earthwork excavation.
Watching Zhuangzi is similar to watching Feng Shui. Some people use compasses, others don't, but north-south orientation is necessary. Just like people die of old age, with their heads on Ye Taishan and their feet on Weihe Beach, this must be a law. So the gates of Zhuangzi are mostly in the southeast. Zhuangzi focuses more on the evaluation and prediction of topography and hard soil. Too soft soil is easy to collapse, and too hard soil, such as the stones in the ancient Ming kiln, should be avoided, too difficult to dig and easy to give up halfway.
The excavation of Zhuangzi and the excavation of caves are both manual labor, which requires lean labor to avoid the rainy season in September, and it is absolutely impossible without a year. Washing the wall and opening the kiln mouth are both technical ways, and only one or two people with vivid brains can be recognized by everyone. Washing the wall is to use flat lips, from top to bottom, to make the whole excavated wall smoother and more straight. The traces of shovel head washing are neat, which will present an artistic atmosphere no less than oil painting. The flat wall can ensure that the rain will not wet the wall and fall off as much as possible. Washing the wall is the finishing method after excavation. When we started to wash the walls, the people in charge of digging were very idle and would read the comments. This also makes the wall washer dare not neglect at all, read more and talk more, so the wall washing skill is passed down from generation to generation unconsciously.
Generally speaking, the person who washes the wall is also the person who opens the kiln mouth. The kiln mouth should be straight and upright. Especially the semicircle above the cave, the person who opens the hole does not need other measuring tools. With experience and feeling, it will win praise to ensure that the hole is of the right size, beautiful and round.
Outsiders always don't understand how people who live in underground kilns get in and out. During the period of educated youth going to the countryside, an educated youth stood on the back of the kiln and borrowed stairs from the villagers. The villagers didn't know the calendar for some time and were confused. Finally, I realized that he wanted to take the stairs down to the cave, and made a joke circulating in several villages. People who live in Pingyao kiln have special passages in and out, and the general exits are in the south, also called lanes. Usually, the doorway is also the exit of the roadway.
After each cave is excavated, it must pass through the mud wall, that is, the wheat straw and red soil are mixed into mud, and the cave wall is reinforced by another layer, which is called mud wrap locally. So that no fine dust will fall out of the hole after being wrapped in mud. Install doors and windows and a kang, and then it's time to move to a new home.
People who have never lived in a flat kiln are most worried about safety and ventilation. Needless to say, it is safe. I won't hear anyone's cave collapse for decades, as long as the abandoned rotten kiln collapses quickly. Many people don't understand how to make the underground kiln breathe. On the innermost roof of each cave, Luoyang shovel is mostly used to dig a slip hole with a diameter of 10 to 20 cm, and a brick and a half tile are used to cover it to solve the rain problem. Sometimes, this chute can also be used as a special passage for passing small objects and a passage for storing grain.
Before liberation, there was a hidden kiln above the cave entrance, also known as high kiln, to prevent illegal excavation. If a robber or thief comes, the family will take valuables along the stairs and hide in the dark kiln. Pulling out the stairs will cut off the thief's route, which can ensure the safety of their families and is also quite folk wisdom. At the same time, the roadway in Zhuangzi was deliberately dug into a broken line to prevent grave robbers from opening the city gate with a belly roll or a stone roll.
Flat kilns in Fengyuan are rare. In the past century, the way of living, which is natural, warm in winter and cool in summer, and has its own atmosphere, has been replaced by a mansion ovary composed of half-built houses and houses in the new countryside.
A tour of Baishe Ancient Kiln Village and Zhangjiayao Ming Kiln residential attractions can only be regarded as a glimpse of Guanzhong residential areas, that's all. The history and culture hidden behind the underground kiln will become more and more rare and precious with the aging of generation after generation.