The antique villages of Yi county and Xi county in the south of Anhui province was once the famous commerce town in the Ming and Qing Dynasty. The distinctive architecture of the village implied the social condition, economic and culture in the past. The ancient commercial town had disappeared and the inhabitants also were simple peasant not the rich and elegant merchant and the official any more. But when we enter the old village on the foot of mountain, we can imagine the brilliance of the ancient commercial town.
In the antiquity of China, the government laid stress on agriculture and despise the commerce and merchant. But the appearance of the Huizhou merchant band broke this condition. The bands absorb the Confucian orthodoxy and got great achievement and held sway over the Chinese economic for hundreds of years by the unique commercial principle. It was a flourishing sample in the Chinese economical history.
In other words, the appearance of the Huizhou merchant was the milestone of the economic center move toward north. As the ceaseless wars in the north of China, people were moved to the south in history, especially in south Song Dynasty the king set his kingdom in the south of China and the capital of Ming Dynasty was also in Nanjing. So the economic center of the two dynasties was moved to the south of China. Huizhou lies to south of Changjian River, near to Hangzou and Nanjing, and was the just transition place for the economic center movement. So Huizhou had a flourishing days in the past. Huizhou was a remote mountainous area and a have with good scenery, so many Central plain Shizhu (a social stratum in ancient china, between senior officials and the common people) inhabited there.
After three migrations in history, the population of Huizhou skyrocketed. As the poor soil, flood and drought, the people had to go out for living, and the trade became the 'first living way' for Huizhou people. And the folk's song 'till thirteen or fourteen, to be pushed out home' expressed the scene of the Huizhou people engage in business deals with their fathers and brothers since childhood. The merchants went through the country and became the pioneer and former for Huizhou. So the people said: 'No merchant of Huizhou, no the town.'
The ancient Huizhou was an uncultivated land. Until the Three Kingdoms at the end of the Han dynasty, Sunquan the administrator of the Wu-one of the Three Kingdom, began to develop Huizou. In thirteenth year of Jian'an (208 A.D.), Sunquan consolidated the Shixin, Xin'an, Liyang, Xiuyang, Yi county and Xi county to Xindu prefecture. And this was regarded the origination of the Huizhou prefecture.
And then the Huizhou become the paradise for the literati to with from society. The three big human migrations in the Jin Dynasty, at the end of the Tang Dynasty and in the south Song Dynasty brought many officials to come and live in Huizhou. And these people created the antique culture and build the brilliant ancient village complex.
The period between 14th and 19th century namely the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty was the heyday of Huizhou and the merchant of Huizhou.
The merchants played an important role in the building and developing of Huizhou. They went out to engage in trade and after they became rich they came back to build and develop the Huizhou and make it to be famous commercial town.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the trade and commercial declined gradually. The reason of declining was that the old business way made the Huizhou merchant less competitive edge and could not compete with the merchant from Hujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang province. The Huihzou also became a peaceful town.
The big villages in the south of Anhui province of China are almost the settlement of clansman-the people are same surname in a village such as the Hu's Xidi village, the Wang's Hongcun village. These villages show the strong influence of the patriarchal clan system and patriarchal concept in Chinese traditional society. All the process of founding the ancient villages in the south of Anhui province, even in choosing place, architectures building implicate the traditional Confucianism and the influential geomantic concept of China.
Traditional concept
The Huizhou merchants despise the person who forgets what is right at the sight of profit. They hold the honesty, trust, righteousness as their principle in business and so that they can dominate the China market for 300 years. At the same time, they think highly of their fame and honor and consider it as the symbol of their dignity because they emphasize the Confucianism and righteousness. The honorific arch and the praising horizontal inscribed board show this point.
Many Huizhou merchants go back to their hometown after success. One reason is the influence of the patriarchal concept and the holy responsibility to bring honor to their family. The other reason is they are far afield for long time and homesick. The long-time struggling alone makes them exhausted and desirous to get the happiness of a family union and peaceful life although the debauching city life is fascinating. Most Huizhou merchants choose the peaceful life and this show their pursuit to their nature characteristics of their hometown and the whole human.
Antique house, antique ancestral temple, antique honorific arch are the three superb works of the ancient architecture of Huizhou.
The honorific arch is a stone gate symbolize honor. It contains some above theory of Chinese Feudalism. It can cont be built by common people at will, but be built for praising someone's good behavior under the allowing of emperor. So it stands for family honor.
The honorific arches in the village in the south of Anhui are divided into two types: one stands for political achievement, such as the Hu Wenguang honorific in Xidi village. Hu Wenguang was an honest and upright official with great political achievement. So the emperor grants him a honorific arch to praise him. The other expresses the piousness of people to the feudal ethical code, for example the heroic women honorific gate and filial honorific gate in Xi County
The ancestral temples are divided into three types-family temple, branch temple and caln temple. The family temple is the place for worshiping the relatives on the paternal side in five generation. The branch temple is the place for memorial ceremony, funeral and wedding of the Families from a same ancestor. The clan temple is used for the memorial ceremony, discussion, praising or punishing the clan member of the whole clan.
The ancestral temples conclude three gates: first gate, middle gate and inner gate. The first gate is majestic. Behind the middle gate is the big hall for offering sacrifices to ancestors. The hall consist of two halls-upper hall and lower hall. The horizontal inscribed boards which stand for family honor are hung in the two halls. The Xiang hall for consecrating ancestral tablet is behind the inner gate. The clans consolidate their relationship with same ancestor to bring brilliance to the clan together by holding memorial ceremony, praising and punishing activity.
Most of the architectures in the ancient village of the South Anhui province are with garden, yards, fish pool, potted landscape and various plants. The owners of gardens place their life sentiment and aesthetics concept on these gardensand expresses their pursuit to the ideal life.
The gardens in the antique architecture are divided into two styles. One is full of pavilions and carved beams and painted rafters. They are made by merchants for show their rich and honor air. The other style is built by literati or official. They emphasize the elegance and sentiment of circumstance.
Limited by the architecture space, the gardens in the antique architects are always small. But the clever ancient people separate them into different parts to make you can not get everything at a glance. And they decorate the gardens with vivid inscribed board to fulfill them with culture atmosphere.
Architecture culture
The architecture of Huizhou is popular in the Ming and Qing Dynasty. The architectures in this period have two characteristics: the one is to express that merchants' pursuit to high-level life. Before the Wangli emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the Huizhou people are famous with their simple life. But the more and more experience in trade and big city make them to pursuit the more high-level life and luxurious architecture. The other characteristic is the Confucianism in architecture. The commercial economic and Confucianism are the two pillars of Huizhou in material and spirit at that time. So the architecture of Huizhou is plain-color, unique-style, varied-structure, exquisite-decoration and ingenious- arrangement. And all of these characteristics are caused by Donfusianism and commercial culture.
There is a rite of throwing cloth bags in the wedding of ancient Huizhou people. The road from clan temple to bridegroom's home is paved with little black bags. Bride walk on the bags-it mean she will be decent in her whole life. Someone behind bride will throw the bags over the head of bride and sing some congratulations like 'a generation better than the former.'
The architectures in the ancient villages of South Anhui also show the characteristic of 'one generation better than the former.' It becomes gradually higher from gate to yard and to hall. If there are two halls, the back hall is higher than the front hall not only in terrain but also in the whole architecture even the head wall. This architecture style expresses the ancient people's wish of 'one generation excel the father generation.'
The arrangement of the ancient architecture inner are mostly symmetrical structure and abiding by the moral principle of 'Males and females should be treated differently' and 'respect for seniority'.
Usually a big dwelling house contain the front hall and back hall. The front hall is the place for etiquette and for male to meet with guests and do other activities. The back hall is used for old and female and is private room. The reading room is for male but the kitchen and embroidery room belong to the female.
In the local style dwelling house with a house, there is always a room called Guoxiang decorated by carved door. When the guest come, female will avoid into Guoxiang. Because they think Males and females should be treated differently.
The river is very important for the ancient village of South Anhui. The village is long and narrow along the river. So the street along the river is the main road for the villagers. The villager diverts water from river to beautify their garden. In Hongcun village, the yard pools look like pearls string by river.
The local style dwelling houses are made of earth and wood. So if conflagration happens in a house, it will spread to others. So all the antique houses are independent and crowd together impact. And the long and narrow alleys between houses appear. These criss-cross circulation alleys make a maze which looks like a spider web.
Arrangement abiding by geometry
The geometry theory has great influence to Chinese antique architect. The influence is more obvious on the ancient villages in the south of Anhui province.
At first, the place for building village must have 'Forward Mountain' in front of the village, 'Lailong Mountain' behind it and lion or shaped mountain guard the water gap while the stream is like the waist belt for the village, besides beautiful circumstance, material condition and completely function.
The arrangement of the ancient local style dwelling house is particular about direction 'Xun Shan Gan Xiang-the best direction is facing to northwest. At the same time, the rivers are diverted into villages. This stands for diverting 'luck in making big money' into the village and subsides. In the Chinese geometry system, water means treasure. The ancient villages of the South Anhui emphasize the geometry as well as conform to the nature. The Xidi village and the Hongcun village is just the masterpieces according to geometry and nature condition.
As the Hu's great ancestor found the two streams is from east to west and according to the geometry, this phenomenon means richness and treasure, they built their village like a boat and hope the steam could bring the 'boat' to the flourishing. While the Hong village was design to be an ox. It was said that the villager invited geomancer to check the landscape of Hong village after many conflagration. And the geomancer said here is a crouch ox and they should built the village like an ox to conform the nature condition; at the same time they also needed to divert stream into the village to defeat the fire if they wanted to make the clan blossoming. Afterwards the Hu and the Wang clan get great achievement indeed. It was hard to say whether these achievements were caused by the geometry element.
The ancient villagers of the South Anhui take advantage of landscape as well as make use of river to build their villages. The stream system in the Hong village is a good example of taking advantage of the nature and remolding the nature.
The Wangs of the Hongcun village building up by trade build a surprising stream system according to their business concept. The villagers of Hong village build their village like an ox-mountain as head, trees as horns, bridges as legs and houses as body. To animate the 'ox', they dig an about one-kilometer-long ditch as the 'ox intestine' and divert the stream to every house by the ditch. They turn an old spring into a pool about a thousand square meters as the 'ox stomach'. They also dig a thousands square meters lake in the south of the village.
The marvelous stream system not only improves the environment for the village but also animate the 'ox'.The philosophy theory that man is an integral part of nature, which is advocate by Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, the creators of Cheng and Zhu School, has great influence. The ancient villages in the south of Anhui province are the best proof for this.
Theory that man is an integral part of nature emphases that human and nature are in perfect harmony. The building of the ancient village is according to the geometry principle of 'what does the mountain shape look like, what is the life the inhabitant like.' The ancient villagers choose the beautiful place to build the village. To get better residing environment, they dredge rivers and build river gap and garden. All of these make the village and nature in perfect harmony.
The honorific arch, the ancestral temple and the local style house are the three superb work of the architecture of Huizhou School. The three superb work are high quality in humane not only because they contain the Confucianism and Chinese geometry theory, but also because of the 'three carving' on them. The 'three carving' are stone carving, brick carving and wood carving. The 'three carving' make the whole architecture tasteful.
One of the reasons of 'three carving' appear and develop is the Huizhou merchants have enough financial capacity but can not spend much money on the outer decoration of the building for the limit of the feudalism social stratum policy. The other reason is the rich culture of Huizhou cultivates many skilled craftsmen.
The content of 'three carving' is different according to the owner's cultural grade and pursuit. Each picture of the 'three carving' contains the rich culture meaning. The works of 'three carving' are carved according the material and by different craftsman, so they are in various different styles.
The carved bricks of the ancient of the south Anhui province are mostly used in cover above the gate. Usually the carved bricks look like shoe-shaped gold ingot and mean bring treasure to the family. The content of the brick carving are mostly the animal and plant with fortune meaning or legend or opera scenic.
According to the research of the architect expert, the gate cover of the ancient building was carved with the figure means driving out the evil and ill luck to pursue good fortune and avoid disaster. Over time, the talisman figures become the mascot to express the good wishes. The ancient people choose mascot according to two standards: one is homophony. For example, '(fish)' is homophonic with '' with meaning auspicious happiness in overmeasure. The other is the symbolic meaning of the mascot-bamboo symbolizes the man of noble character and cloud stands for propitious omen. Afterwards legend and opera scenic are instead of the mascot. Finally the function of brick carving is completely appreciation of the beautiful.
The wood carvings of the ancient village of the south Anhui are mostly used for decorating the inner of building, such as doors and windows, beams, Dougong( a system of brackets inserted between the top of a column and a crossbeam), Queti ( pattern on the corner of door frame) and the daily furniture such as table, chair and bed.
The content of wood carving is determined by the owners' financial capacity and cultural appreciation level. Generally speaking, literati and official like animal and plant while the rich merchant prefer the opera scenic and character. The content of wood carvings also shows the owners' wishes and pursuit.
The door and window, beam, chair and tale, bed and cupboard are adorned with relief sculpture. But the Dougong(ditto)and Queti (ditto) are decorated by sculpture and penetrating sculpture.
A craftsman needs several years to make the carved wood for a building. The carved wood of a luxurious building is the crystallization of the craftsman's over-ten-year even scores years labor. For example, the Chengzhi hall of Hong village seems as a museum of wood carving, and is called 'the folk Imperial Palace'.
The stone carvings are used on honorific arch, the foundation and stone pillar of ancestral temple and the leaking window of the house. The honorific arches are majestic and with a lot of cariving pattern which is rich in content and various in technique. So an honorific arch is regarded as an art treasure of comprehensive stone carving.
But neither the honorific arch nor the foundation and stone pillar of ancestral temple is the building with the most stone carving. It is the carved stone leaking windows of the house. The patterns of the leaking windows show the owner's pursuit. If the owner pursuits perfect morals, he would choose pine, bamboo and plum-the three plant friends which thrive in cold. If the owner desire to go back home after get success, he would choose the falling leaves as pattern-the falling leaves mean a person residing elsewhere finally returns to his ancestral home. The rich-meaning leaking windows not only beautify the house but also increase the culture atmosphere.
Inscribe board is a fine work of Chinese traditional culture. And we can see it in the famous mountain and garden building in China. It expresses the unique feature of the scenic spot and the creator's sentiment in concisely and vividly words.
The inscribed boards of the ancient village in south Anhui are usually hung on the doorway. According to content, the inscribed boards are divided into two types. One is to describe the scenic such as 'Jing Hua Xiang Chu', 'Huan Yue' and 'Ting Yue'. They show the owner's culture appreciation level. The other is to express the owner's under thought about the life such 'Liu Geng', 'Get Some Happiness' and 'Thinking Problem in Another View', and they show the owner's philosophic concept about the life.
The life in the ancient villages in the south of Anhui is luxurious as well as elegance. The ancient people show the position in the clan by luxurious building, exquisite sculpture and room arrangement. The biggest honor of the clan member is to consecrate the memorial tablet of their successful ancestors in obvious position. So the successful official and merchant are always preoccupied with thinking of going back home to shed luster upon one's ancestors.
In additional, there is a strong traditional clan concept in the clan villages. According to the 'rules of clan', whatever any families build the house, the house must around the family temple. The family temple must be around branch temple and the branch temple around clan temple. So the village expands like running snow ball. And this shows not only the cohesive force of clan, but also the centripetal force of the clan members.
The elegance of Huizhou people life is caused by the influence of scholar merchant culture and the improving of their realm of thought. Although the people in the south of Anhui become rich by business, their life taste is elegant. Their architecture style shows this point.
On the top the outer wall both side of the building is sticking up 'horse head wall'. The 'horse head wall' is terrace-shape and covers the ridge of roof and slope roofing. The houses of these villages are wood and brick and easy to on fire. If a house is on fire, the fire can easily spread to other house. And the high 'horse head wall' can cut off fire efficiently.
The 'horse head walls' are usually two terraces, but some of them are three terraces in the bigger building and called 'five Chinese famous mountains point sky.'
The black tiles draw out the outline of the white hierarchical walls. And if we stand on a high place to look down the village, the outer walls which are irregular in height look like thousands of running horses. This scenic contains the style of traditional Chinese painting-be alike in spirit and impression of dynamic aesthetic feeling. So they are called 'horse head wall.'
The local style dwelling houses are almost with high outer walls. There is no window in the outer wall because the rich merchants need it to guard against theft. Another function is to cut off fire.
Although the high and close outer wall can make the owner safe, it also causes the troubles on ventilation and lighting. So the clever designer make skylight as a gap for ventilation and lighting.
Another function of the skylight is collecting the luck in make big money. Because ancient Chinese merchant believe in the concept that water means treasure according to Chinese geometry. They regard the rainfall as gold and snow as silver. The skylight is used to collect the rain and snow, and makes them flow into yard. The ancient merchant called the process 'four current flow into the house.' And the process means rich water does not flow out.
The local style dwelling house of the ancient villages in south Anhui is simple and plain appearance-white wall and black tiles. But inner decoration of the house is very brilliant and exquisite. The carved bricks carved stones and carved wood show the exquisite Chinese traditional carving. The couplet on pillar and inscribed board enforce the cultural atmosphere and show the extensive and profound Chinese culture. The carvings, inscribed board, garden, winding corridor and the arrangement of living facilities make the whole building very sufficient.
This building style of brilliant inner and simple outer precipitates the connotation of scholar merchant culture.
The connotation is also reflected in the behavior of the Huizhou people. They prefer the elegant inner to publicizing behavior. It can be said that the Huizhou people have more wisdom between the wisdom and courage.
Entering the south of Anhui province, we can frequently see the house with white and black tiles in trees. We can not help to ask: why don't the rich and opening minded merchants use bright color of their building?
Because the feudal government made a serious regulation on using color according to hierarchy. The outer wall of the common people's house cannot be adorned by colorful painting and ornaments. And the clever Huizhou builders design the black and white outer wall driving inspiration from the black and white pattern of 'Supreme Ultimate'. Because Zhuangzi [n thinker in the Period of Warring States (475-221 B.C.)] said 'the plain and simple is most beautiful.' The black and white walls create a peaceful and the quiet scenic with green trees.
The Huizhou people regard the attending school as the most important and best thing and the business just as a manner for living. To make descendent adhere their thinking, the ancient Huizhou people abstract their experience and thinking into the couplet on pillars. The concise couplets not only enforce the cultural atmosphere but also exhibit the owner's pursuit to the beautiful.
The ancient can be divided into three types-one is used to describing landscape; the other is carved with motto and another is for expressing the writer's ambition. Each family puts particular emphasis on the content of couplet according to the experience of starting a business. The owners of the couplets just require the descendant to adhere the words on the couplet and never require others. So we can see the self-cultivation of the ancient Huizhou people.
There is a folk adage in Huizhou--'do not cultivate in previous life and be born in Huizhou; be push out for business till thirteen or fourteen.' The adage points out the custom of engaging into business. The Huizhou men go out for business when they are adolescent. When they age, they come back for marriage and then go out again. So in the ancient village, there are mostly the old, women and kids in the past.
The women in south Anhui are educated in old-style private school before marriage. So they are well cultured in literature. After wedding the husband is out for business and sends money back on time, and they do not worry about clothing and food and concentrate on household jobs. They read, play cards and go to the opera in their spare time. But they spend their most time lonely. So when they meet something unfortunate, they compose their grief into a song with Chinese ancient rhymes and sing out in crying way.
This is the unique 'crying song art' of the women in the south of Anhui.
This is the necessary ornament in the house of Huizhou merchant and driving from the business custom. The best example is in the Lufu Temple of the Xidi village-on the narrow table in front the screen wall which is facing to the gate of house, there are ancient striking clock in the middle with vase on its left, a brass mirror on its right. This arrangement means quiet and is derived from the Chinese pronunciation of the vase and mirror-'Ping Jing'. And this arrangement also shows the owner's attitude to the world and life.
The meaning of the vase and mirror is not just pursuit the calm life. They are the symbol of the owner's best wishes to their family. They hope that their families are safe and healthy in out for business and can come back after success. As the people of Huizhou are suffering war and are forced to leave home much more and have to go out for business as the population increasing sharply, they are unwilling to leave the native land. So many merchants are desire to go home after success.
The people in the south of Anhui province are circumspect about their behaviors because of the influence of the self-closing concept and feudal culture, and their ancestors' lesson. This point can be seen on their attitude of emphasis on education. The ancient people teach their descendant by taking themselves as example. In other aspect, they invite the teacher home to training the kids. In addition, they hang the meaningful and concise couplets and inscribed boards in the house to warn the family. And all of these make the Huizhou people diligent, circumspect and honest and also cultivate the Huizhou merchants' attitude of being careful and less courageous.
