Ancient archway: Archway is the highest honor symbol in feudal society, which is used to flaunt merits and promote feudal etiquette. There are many archways in Shexian County, which has a long-term relationship with the development and rise of Huizhou merchants and the origin and influence of Neo-Confucianism in Zhu Cheng. Ancient Huizhou people who took Confucianism as the main content of their spiritual world, the natural condition of insufficient cultivated land became the main driving force for them to expand their living space. Shexian people have left their homes and gone out to do business, and their footprints are all over the world. Going out is as short as three years and five years, and as long as several decades. In order to take care of Gaotang's parents, it is generally necessary to get married before going. If you can't make a fortune doing business outside, you will be ashamed to meet your elders in your hometown. Businessmen have made a fortune, and their money is prominent. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Huizhou merchants reached their peak, and there was a grand occasion of "no town and no emblem". For more than 300 years, their financial resources have affected the economic lifeline of the country. Of course, the imperial court was impressed by Huizhou merchants and favored them. Therefore, Huizhou merchants have entered a benign development track of "attaching importance to business, becoming an official with literature, and protecting business with officials". Huizhou merchants who traveled all over the world, in order to honor their ancestors, asked the emperor to allow them to return to their hometowns, repair memorial archways, and make meritorious deeds, longevity and chastity monuments, which will last forever. There are many Ming and Qing memorial archways in Huangshan City. The famous ones are Shexian Paifang Group, Shexian Xidihu Paifang and Shexian Shifang.
The archway evolved from Lingxingmen. It turned out to be, but xing. Emperor gaozu stipulated: sacrifice the spirit star first every day. In the sixth year of Song Renzong Tiansheng (1028), the outer wall of suburban platform (a building dedicated to heaven and earth) was built and the Lingxing Gate was set up. Move back to the Confucius Temple and pay homage to Confucius. Later, people thought that the sacrifice of spiritual stars in the Han Dynasty was to pray for a bumper harvest, and it had nothing to do with the Confucius Temple. See also Changing a Spirit Star to a Star. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties (Southern Song Dynasty), especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, this kind of building was not only placed in the altars and Confucius temples in the suburbs, but also built in front of temples, tombs, ancestral temples, offices and gardens, or in front of streets, back streets and intersections. It is also used not only to worship heaven and Confucius, but also to praise merit, good manners and virtues, etc. Therefore, the Lingxingmen not only became the Lingxingmen, but also became the memorial archway. As far as its construction intention is concerned, archways can be divided into three categories: one is the sign square; The second category is Gongdefang; The three categories mark the achievements of the imperial examination.
Ancient ancestral temple: Ancestral temple is a temple dedicated to ancestors or sages. Huizhou ancestral halls are all over urban and rural areas. The existing ancestral halls were first built in Hongzhi period of Ming Dynasty, but there were too many in Qing Dynasty. As an important public building at that time, ancestral temples were generally located at both ends of villages and towns, or near mountains or places with slopes, with a large scale, with at least two entrances and at most four or five entrances. The buildings are built according to the terrain, and the main buildings are placed behind the temples, which has changed a lot. One side is composed of two or more three-in-one courtyards on the central axis, with archways. The plane of the temple is mostly quadrilateral. In Shexian county alone, there are more than 12 general temples and branch temples in large towns and villages, such as Xucun and Changxi, and there are still 5-6 existing ones. The ancestral hall is luxurious in appearance, and the foyer is mostly built by Wufeng Pagoda. The eight-character walls on both sides are decorated with exquisite brick carvings, while the other three sides are simple. Its structure is the same as that of residential buildings.