In Jinxi County, Jiangxi, there is a Zhuqiao Village. In my opinion, it is a representative of the folk houses in eastern Gansu, a model of Feng Shui, and a masterpiece of inner management.
Saying that it is a representative of the folk houses in eastern Jiangxi not only means that its architectural and decorative style embodies the basic characteristics of the ancient folk houses in Fuzhou, but also because it has maintained a complete village form and ancient houses. architecture and numerous cultural relics. There are still more than 100 well-preserved buildings from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, including 8 Ming Dynasty residential buildings and 1 Ming Dynasty ancestral hall, the Wenlong Ancestral Hall. They are all made of blue bricks and gray tiles, looking simple and elegant. Most of the houses have upper and lower halls. The door lintels, eaves, rain eaves and interior walls, door pillars, window lattice, column foundations, architraves and ceilings are decorated with carvings and paintings. The village has a main gate, an alley gate, and a main gate. There are three self-contained building groups in the village, including Wenlindi, Shijia Alley, and Bajia Alley. Those four or three houses of the same style side by side are connected by the ear gate. Walking around in rainy days does not get your feet wet.
One feature of the Ming and Qing architecture there caught my attention, which is that the skirts of the walls are mostly built with large pieces of bluestone, and blue bricks are built on top of three or four layers of hard bluestone. It is said that , this is to prevent thieves from breaking into the house. Village lanes paved with bluestones have deep and narrow open ditches close to the walls. If you accidentally fall down at night, you will fall badly. Therefore, the villagers have reason to believe that it also has the function of preventing theft. The emphasis on the anti-theft function of the building reveals the historical information of men going out to do business. From this, we can also imagine the prosperity of Zhuqiao in those days. You should know that the bamboo bridge built in the village during the Five Dynasties has always had a cultural tradition of paying equal attention to Confucianism and businessmen.
It is said that it is a model for building Feng Shui because through it, it seems that some of the mysteries of Feng Shui theory can be glimpsed, which is "touching things brings joy, and there is nothing left to gain." The village faces south and has a fan-shaped layout. From the topography point of view, the environment here is relatively ordinary, with neither high mountains as barriers nor large rivers to protect it. However, Zhuqiao Village adapts to local conditions and uses artificial scenery to create a charm that matches the terrain. It transforms the ordinary into magical and creates a unique and unique place. A natural and harmonious village.
How to "get excited about things without getting nothing"? For example, during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, in order to make up for the terrain defects and perfect the scenery, the villagers built a pavilion on a hill called Yanshan beside the river in the west of the village. They named it Zilan Pavilion after the Song Dynasty poem "The returning wind from the sea raises purple waves". In the eyes of Zhuqiao people, "Although this is a stream, if it is modeled as a sea, who says it's not allowed? Purple waves cannot grow in a stream." It's true that there are mountains and seas in our hearts. Later, another descendant of the Yu family wrote: "However, we don't call it temple or temple, but we call it pavilion. It is high because it can block the emptiness, but it is low. The rice fields are flat and endless as far as the eye can see; The stream is flowing all year round; there are osmanthus, bamboo, and flowers and trees interspersed among them. "
The main gate tower of "Chonglin Ridge in the distance and Huangpo Gang in the distance" is exactly in line with the direction of the mountains. An example of making the most of the terrain. The main gate tower was built in the late Yuan and early Ming dynasties and was designed by Feng Shui master Mr. Liao Yu. Including the main gatehouse, there are three gatehouses in the village: upper, middle and lower. Regardless of weddings or weddings, these three gatehouses are the only way to pass. Moreover, the gatehouses all face the pond, and the passages come out from both sides. Obviously It reflects the ingenuity of fire prevention and theft prevention. There are three mountain gates behind the village that lead directly to the back mountain. In the past, they were specially designed as retreats to prevent bandits and bandits. The houses in the village are connected one after another, making the village a closed building complex. In Zhuqiao Village, which has nearly 200 households and over a thousand people, there are seven ponds, all made of stones, with a moon pond in the middle, forming the image of seven stars accompanying the moon. The drainage ditches in the village are all made of stones, flowing into the seven ponds in the village from north to south. An east-west straight street is connected with a dozen north-south or east-west alleys. The winding alleys are all made of bluestone slabs. Paved.
It is said to be a masterpiece of businessmanship because the ancient well in front of the main gate tower is arranged in the shape of the word "pin", and the ground of the middle gate tower is paved with the characters "Ben" and "人" made of bluestone slabs. This is once again confirmed. It made my aesthetic judgment on ancient folk architecture: those old houses are full of people’s desire for expression, and that kind of expression is exactly the cultural spirit infiltrated in ordinary life. Just as the text in the Yu family genealogy explains the ancient well: "The quality of Sanjing is also the scheming of our ancestors. When farmers see it, they know that there are inherent grades of evil and good people; when scholars see it, they know that poverty can be defended." And the quality cannot be ruined; when merchants see it, they will know that the loyal king's official character is not wrong." What surprised me even more is that the "Yangzheng Shanfang" and "Canglan Shanfang" in this village are from the past. The woodblock printing workshop proves that business culture was one of the sources of wealth here, and the Zhuqiao people claim that they were the first to start woodblock printing in Jinxi.
You must know that the people of Zhuqiao "engraved and curated books as a profession", originally just for the convenience of publishing and collecting books for themselves, so they did not hesitate to open a bookstore and set up a book printing workshop. It’s amazing how addicted to books you are! It seems that in Zhuqiao and even Jinxi, the book printing industry was originally an industry that cultivates minds and talents. People sow words on wooden boards in order to harvest the world's books and talents! They should be called true Confucian businessmen, and they do business in a very chic way. For example, Yu Yangfeng returned to his hometown to open a printing shop. He "published books and placed a board at the inner door, worked hard on the south acres during the day, and worked hard at the bookstore at dusk." This unique lifestyle made me feel that the ancients who learned how to do business Still can't let go of my attachment to the land. In other words, while Zhuqiao people are managing land and business, they are also managing their own hearts and the personality ideals of traditional literati.