Chenghai Xitang is located in Tangxi Village, Dongli Town, Chenghai, Shantou. It was first built in 1799 as a garden-style villa for Lin Pan, an official of the Qing Dynasty. It was three blocks earlier than the famous Xinxing Street of Zhanglin Port at that time. year.
In front of the garden is an outer pond, with an inlet on the east side. In the past, the outer river was navigable and boats could be parked there. Although Xitang is only an acre, it has rockery, lotus pond, living room and study room, as well as garden flowers and trees.
Legend has it that Lin Pan had a younger brother named Lin Wu, who was a foreign shipping merchant. In 1805, the two brothers were accused of colluding with pirates, and the Lin family property became public and was divided and sold. During the reign of Guangxu, Chenghai Xitang was purchased by Hong Yuanji, the owner of the "Red Head Boat" in Nanshe Township, with a huge sum of money.
After the Hong family purchased Xitang, they specially sent people to Suzhou to find the descendants of Suzhou garden architects, and carefully expanded it according to the Suzhou garden style. Since then, the value of Xitang has doubled, and many poets and poets have come to visit it. After this tour, many people expressed their affection and praise in their pens.
Among them, someone wrote in the poem "Xitang Garden":
The beauty of the garden is comparable to that of Suzhou, and the scenery of waterside pavilions and terraces is secluded.
It is difficult to identify the flowers of the four seasons, but a bay of clear water brings fragrance.
After that, the Hong family built Xitang in every dynasty. Because it and Suzhou gardens were both built by famous masters from "several generations" in Suzhou, it can be called the first "Suzhou garden" in Chaoshan and one of the famous classical gardens in Guangdong.
The whole garden has a construction area of ??about 230 square meters. Although it is built in the style of Suzhou gardens, it still retains the architectural characteristics of the Chaoshan area. The towers, pavilions, rockeries, towers, caves, pictographic stones, pine stones, lotus ponds, etc. in Chenghai Xitang are ingeniously arranged.
Create an infinite beauty in a limited space, connect the mountains and rivers, alternate the trees, and find the appropriate pavilions and pavilions, creating an artistic realm of "no self in three steps, and often looking back in five steps".
Xitang gardening art is superb, the structure is exquisite, and it is unique. Its gardening respects the concept of nature and reflects the thinking of traditional Chinese gardens. Xitang is the most representative of the traditional private gardens in eastern Guangdong during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The general plan of Chenghai Xitang combines topography and use functions to divide the garden space into four parts: the entrance foyer courtyard, the front residence courtyard, the middle courtyard column garden, the tank garden and the rear study room.
At the outer gate of the garden, guests are greeted by a bank of green bamboo and half a pond with rippling blue waves. In front of the main gate, the plaque on the gatehouse is engraved with the two characters "Xitang" in block letters and the dignified strokes are signed "Jiaqing". Jidan in June of the fourth year." But not signed.
The main entrance of the garden faces east, and inside the gate is a closed courtyard. Because a cave door is opened in the middle of the courtyard, people can see the rockery and double-eaves hexagonal pavilion in the garden through the round cave door, just like a picture. Ancient paintings.
The transparent doorway improves the closed feeling of the courtyard. The processing of the door opening makes the connection between the small courtyard and the big courtyard close and the transition is natural, which not only increases the layering of the space, but also makes the small courtyard space have the effect of suppressing the desire to expand.
Through the round door of the small courtyard, the right side of the courtyard is the residential part. The residential hall is a three-bay building. It is a bright and dark bungalow, with partitions on the hall and window coffins in front of the room. The fine wood decoration is delicate and exquisite. Korea. There are verandahs at the front and back of the courtyard, as well as a worship pavilion. The courtyard layout is regular, open and spacious.
The house is connected to the garden through the vase door of the pavilion. In front of the pavilion, the courtyard floor is paved with small red and black stones with a pattern of "Double Phoenixes Facing Peonies". Facing the courtyard is the stacked stone rockery, the main scenery of the Xitang Garden. The entire courtyard is elegant and quiet. The central garden of the courtyard is planted with bamboo trees and is surrounded by a bay of pools and carved railings. The narrow part is a horizontal flat bridge that connects to the house-style eaves.
Go through the vase-shaped side door of the hall's eaves corridor, and then step into the small horizontal stone bridge at the foot of the mountain. In front of the bridge, there is a sculpture of a stone-shaped carp, leaping up and down, lifelike, which is called "Carp Jumping over the Dragon Gate". Whenever the moon is full, it stands on the top of the bridge. It can be seen that there are double seals of the bright moon on the left and right sides of the pond, so it is called "Xitang Seal of the Moon".
At the back door of the lotus pond in the east of the bridge, there is a water pavilion, which is placed on the bottom of the pond. It is raised out of the water with stone slabs and is in a hexagonal shape. There is a poem carved on the stone:
Clouds and water float on the cliff. , the trees asked Feige.
The scenic spots are clear and quiet, and the whistling and whistling are full of pleasure.
There is a deep cave under the rockery called "Crane's Nest". It is said that the parrots can recite short poems and are very cute. Above the cave. The four characters "autumn water and long sky" are engraved on the majestic stone wall.
The stone road at the foot of the mountain is winding and winding. Next to the small bridge, there are several poles of golden bamboo planted, brushing against a piece of rock, with the word "湹湌" engraved on them.
You can climb the rockery along the small stone path. There is a stone rockery with a cave at the foot of the mountain.
Entering the cave, you can climb the stone steps to reach the top of the mountain. There is a double-eaves hexagonal pavilion on the top of the mountain, called "Biluo Pavilion". The stone mountain beside the pavilion stands like a lion, a horse, a lion and a deer, which is full of humor. Surrounded by rocks in the form of monkeys, dogs, deer and horses. To the north of the rockery, the pavilions face the pond and the eaves reflect the water, making it quiet and quiet.
To the west of Linchi, there is a piano-shaped stone table, called "Qintai". On the right side of the Qintai, there is a nine-story scenic tower. In front of the tower, there is a stone beside it. On both sides, there are smiling pear trees and elm trees standing tall, covering the trees with their shadows whirling in the gentle breeze.
There is a Fang Pavilion with double eaves and spire in the south of the pool, standing on the waterside. In the middle of the back of the hexagonal water pavilion, there is a stone wall, about as high as there are people. To the southwest is the hall, with elegant furnishings, where you can hear the singing of birds and the fragrance of flowers.
In the hall in front of the water pavilion, there are hanging authentic calligraphy works by the famous calligrapher and painter Tang Yin of the Ming Dynasty, Lu Runxiang, the number one scholar of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty, and He Shaoji, the famous calligrapher and painter of the Qing Dynasty, who Hong Yuanji once spent huge sums of money to purchase. A collection of "Twenty-Four Histories". Across the hall, the orchids are fragrant and the camellias are in full bloom.
The study at the back of the garden is a two-story pavilion building, which is connected to the rockery in the garden. The pavilion stands majestically near the pond and reflects on the water. There are flying blue waves in the sky, attracting the wind and the moon. Surrounded by small corridors, the upper level has direct access to the rockery. Climbing up the stone steps, you can see the sparkling waves of the wide pool outside the garden, reflecting the mountains and farmhouses in the distance.
The garden boundary uses rockeries and pavilions instead of special walls to introduce the scenery outside the garden into the garden, which not only expands the viewing field, but also increases the sense of openness of the garden. This fully reflects the characteristics of the small courtyard, the large proportion of the building, and the scenery outside the courtyard.
Under the green porcelain windows on the garden wall, there are two petrified wood logs, standing in the shade of green trees, mottled and old, unique and quiet. Being in "Xitang" is like going to Suzhou and Hangzhou.