The influence of Qing society on the development of folk houses

Residential buildings are most closely related to social and economic life, political system, folk customs and technical conditions. Compared with the Ming Dynasty, there did appear many new factors affecting the development of folk houses in the Qing Dynasty, such as: national integration; Rapid population growth; Wood resources decrease and brick materials increase; The bud of capitalist economy; The consumption concept is enhanced; New aesthetic taste of the times; Overseas Chinese introduce western style; A large number of immigration activities; Popularization of new building decoration materials. All the above points promoted the development and changes of folk houses in Qing Dynasty.

The integration and cultural exchange between ethnic groups are mainly manifested in the absorption of Chinese culture by brother ethnic groups. In architecture, Manchu officials and people quickly accepted the form of Han quadrangles, which influenced Jilin, the birthplace of Manchu Zhao Xing. Courtyards are also used for palaces of upper-class nobles and Mongolian princes. The houses of the Hui people are also examples that are greatly influenced by the Han people. In addition to flexible layout, the structure, bay, shelf and decoration of Hui folk houses are similar to those of Han people. In the traditional forms of "three squares and one wall" and "four entrances and five exits" used by Bai people's houses in Dali, Yunnan, we can clearly see the methods used by Han people to deal with courtyard space. Zhuang people in areas with developed transportation and flat terrain have also begun to break away from the traditional dry-column architecture and gradually adopt the form of land residence, which is generally three rooms on the first floor, one hall and two rooms, similar to Han folk houses. Han and Yi people living in Kunming also use "one-envelope" houses. The Li people in the coastal areas of Hainan Island have given up their long-term use of the thatched shed with triangular roof structure, which is called "golden house" by the locals. Tibetan houses in southern Gansu use wooden structures or rammed earth houses instead of traditional stone bunkers. In a word, all ethnic groups in the Qing Dynasty absorbed and merged with each other in the form of folk houses, learned from each other's strong points, and strived to develop their own characteristics, forming colorful and individual folk houses.

The population of Qing Dynasty increased rapidly. The total population of the Ming Dynasty has been hovering between 50 million and 60 million. By the early Qianlong period, the national population had exceeded 1 billion, reached 200 million in the middle Qianlong period, and increased to nearly 400 million in the late Qing Dynasty. However, the cultivated land area has not increased much, so people must solve the housing problem on limited land, and the housing density has increased obviously, especially in the southern region where the population is concentrated and the southwest region in hilly areas. Saving land has become the goal pursued by local housing construction. For example, the quadrangle in Beijing has cancelled the road changes around the whole house and made the plane more compact. Some houses in Jinzhong area have been changed into two or three floors. Towns and towns in the southeast coastal areas develop small row houses along streets or rivers. Land use in coastal areas of Guangdong and Fujian is even more tense. The local people have created a single-bay, long and deep residential form with four or five rooms, which is called "bamboo tube house" in central Guangdong to describe its thinness. Due to the pressure of population growth, ethnic minorities in Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and other regions further developed cultivated land in mountainous areas, moved their families to mountainous areas, and built houses in mountainous areas and hilly areas, which became an important feature of folk houses in the Qing Dynasty. In addition, the use of river slopes to build houses in Guizhou, Xiangxi and northern Guangxi has also become a local habit. Because houses are denser than before, the fire prevention problem is more serious, so the form of closed volcanic wall has become a common form of southern residential buildings, and various beautiful gable shapes have been created, forming a unique urban street view.

Handicraft and commerce developed rapidly in Qing dynasty, and the influence of commodity economy on residential buildings gradually became concrete. For example, workshops or shops in market towns are often combined with housing, and the living form of front shop and back house has appeared in various places. The two-story building in Jiangnan water town takes the form of going to the store and going to the house. The door panels of shops are completely open during the day for production or sale. Qiandian Houwu is also used in southern Shaanxi, Sichuan, Huguang and other places. In addition, houses with banks in Pingyao, Taigu and other places in Shanxi (that is, banks that used to borrow and save money) are also front shops and back houses. In Zhejiang, Beijing and other places, there are still forms of residential rental, which are built in batches in the same form.

Handmade works of art in Qing dynasty were very developed. In residential buildings, technology was used to decorate the inner eaves and outer eaves, which formed a decorative tendency in the architectural art of Qing Dynasty. Carving techniques are widely used in roofs, screen walls, gatehouses, hanging doors, arches, porch tops in corridors, door and window grids, interior decoration, flower covers, beam frames and other parts. Among them, brick carving prevails in Huizhou, Suzhou, Foshan, Chaoshan, Beijing, Hezhou (Linxia) and other places, and wood carving prevails in Dongyang, Suzhou, Huizhou and Jianchuan. In addition to the decorative treatment of wood structure components, some partition panels and doors and windows are decorated with wood carving panels, which are the most elaborate and complicated in Dongyang and Dali. Stone carving is popular in Quyang, Zhejiang, Shaoxing, Hui 'an, Fujian, Jinjiang, Guangdong, Chaoshan and other places. Among them, the leaking stone window in Shaoxing and the carved stone board painting in Chaozhou are the most exquisite. Marble is widely used as wall decoration in Dali, Yunnan, and tiles are used to decorate the roof in Sichuan and other places. The oil decoration of large-sized houses in southern Fujian likes to use gold plating technology.

In order to restore the productive forces destroyed by the war, domestic immigration activities were frequently carried out from the early Qing Dynasty to the middle Qing Dynasty to adjust the distribution of the national labor force. At the same time, immigration activities also introduced the shape and technology of folk houses to other regions. For example, in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the government immigrated and reclaimed land in the name of "borrowing land to support the people", moved farmers from Hebei to Zhelimu League, and moved people from Shanxi and northern Shaanxi to Jining and Yikezhao League, which gradually made the pastoral areas in southern Inner Mongolia agricultural. The residential forms in this new development area are mostly Shanxi-Shaanxi style, that is, the courtyards are long and narrow, and the wing rooms are mostly short and deep houses with "three broken houses and two broken houses", as well as the traditional cave dwelling form in Shanxi. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to the war in Sichuan, the population dropped sharply, and a large number of Hunan and Guangxi residents moved to Sichuan, and some market towns all came from other provinces. Therefore, the form of folk houses in southern Sichuan obviously has the style of Hunan and Hubei. The gates are all wall doors with brick archways floating on the walls. In the twenty-seventh year of Qianlong (1762), after putting down the rebellion in Junggar, Xinjiang, he managed Urumqi, Ili and other cities 120, stationed troops in the fields, planted seeds with the Han soldiers, and stationed his family, including the Eight Banners, the Mongols and the Green Camp soldiers. , resulting in a variety of residential forms and styles in northern Xinjiang. In the process of "returning home" in southwest minority areas, a large number of Han people moved in, which also affected the changes of local minority living patterns. From the late Ming Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, a large number of residents from Putian, Zhangzhou and Chaoshan in Fujian moved to Tainan and Kaohsiung in Taiwan Province Province, so most of the ancient houses in Taiwan Province Province were Minnan-style houses, while the original Gaoshan folk houses were rare.

Traditional houses in China have always used wood as the main structural material, but since the Qing Dynasty, the accumulation of wood has been increasingly scarce, forcing craftsmen and owners to find new structural materials and structural forms to meet the construction of a large number of houses. The most remarkable point is that the hard mountain purlin structure has developed all over the country since the middle of Qing Dynasty. The bamboo tube houses in Guangdong and Fujian adopt purlin structure. Some ancient architectural methods, such as earth caves and stone houses, have not been eliminated, but have been further revitalized. Even the houses that are still using wooden frames have been improved to save the amount of materials. Compared with the dwellings in Ming Dynasty, the diameter of columns, the diameter of purlins and the cross section of beams in Qing Dynasty were obviously smaller and thinner, and some unnecessary bucket arch members disappeared, and the shape of big moon beam was replaced by straight beams. In order to reduce the loss of sapwood, Suzhou and other Jiangnan areas have developed logs as beam frames. It can be seen that the simplification of wood structure and the extensive use of masonry are the general trend of residential structure development, which has greatly changed the appearance of residential buildings.

In addition, because the economic wealth of society is relatively concentrated in the hands of a large number of wealthy businessmen and bureaucrats, it is possible for them to build large houses with large scale, exquisite quality and matching courtyards, with gardens and living rooms. Based on the requirements of defense, many big houses have many towers, turrets, refuge buildings and other facilities. There are also watchtowers in the southeast coastal villages and towns, or holes are added on the outer walls of buildings and houses to prevent theft.