Architectural Features of Longhu Ancient Village

Longhu Lake, also known as Tanghu Lake, is named because the west, south and north of the village are ponds (the remains of ancient Caitangxi). The time to open the township should be two years in Shaoxing in the Southern Song Dynasty (Haiyang County Records records that Shaoxing built an underground storage yard in two years). After hundreds of years' construction of Longhu ancestors, during Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty, long hu cun formed a settlement planning pattern of "three streets and six lanes" to defend against Japanese invasion, and hundreds of ancestral temples, mansions, commercial houses, temples and other buildings gathered in the village. Up to now, there are more than 100 well-preserved dwellings, which is a rare large-scale residential settlement for studying Chaozhou immigrant culture, commercial culture, architectural culture and folk culture.

In history, the convenient land and water transportation in Longhuzhai was an important condition for it to become a prosperous commercial port. At the beginning of the establishment of the township, Longhuzhai had the Han River Xixi in the east, the ancient Caitangxi in the west, and the land was the main road leading to Fucheng, surrounded by fertile soil for ten miles. Just at the mouth of the Han River, ancient land transportation was inconvenient, and bulk goods were mostly transported by water. Due to the special position of land and water transportation, Longhu has naturally become one of the material distribution centers in Chaozhou in history. /kloc-After the 6th century, the maritime industry developed gradually. Later, small ports such as Rudong Port, Xigang Port, Dong Xi, Nanlong Port, Dongli Port and Shashantou Port emerged in Chaozhou Port, forming a group of intermodal ports at that time. At present, from the scale of residential settlements left over from Longhuzhai, we can still imagine the grand occasion when aristocratic families lived in groups and wealthy businessmen gathered. Its scale is the embryonic form of a developing city and an ideal living environment that can be cultivated and cultivated. In the eighth year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty, the Sino-British Treaty of Tianjin stipulated that Chaozhou would be changed into a trading port. Due to the strong opposition of the influx of people and the gradual southward movement of the South China Sea coastline, in the eleventh year of Xianfeng, China and Britain changed Shantou into a trading port, and Shantou Port and Zhanglin Port also rose. Like other ports in Chaozhou, the function of the West Port has gradually deteriorated. Longhuzi has also become an inland town.

Due to the change of geographical location in the later period of Longhu, the commercial economy was not stimulated, the overall economy declined, and the traditional concept of Chaoshan could not be demolished at will, so the scenery of Longhuzhai in its heyday was completely preserved. The style and characteristics of these buildings are the same as those of Chaozhou traditional buildings, belonging to Chaoshan architectural style. But it still has its own style characteristics. Looking at the whole settlement building, it can be summarized by "extremely individual"

First of all, on the whole, Chaoshan rural settlements are mostly inhabited by ethnic minorities, usually one surname or several surnames in one township. Longhuzhai, as a natural settlement, has more than 50 surnames, 100 ancestral halls, and hundreds of houses. The length of the straight street is more than one kilometer (Taiping Road in Chaozhou Fucheng was only 1.678 meters long in the early years). It is a rare place in Chaozhou with many surnames and sects. Its large scale is extremely rare in natural settlements in Lingnan area. It can be seen that the settlement scale of Longhuzhai has a unique personality in Lingnan area.

Secondly, Longhuzhai has a history of nearly a thousand years since the Song Dynasty, and there are still a few Song-style building components with refined lines and a large number of Ming-style buildings with quaint styles in the village. Luxurious and beautiful, finely carved Qing architecture; Overseas Chinese relatives' architecture with decorative style on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. It can be described as the coexistence of ancient and modern times, the combination of Chinese and western, and a museum of Chaozhou residential architecture. In terms of architectural form, due to the influence of commercial economy and the limitation of specific geographical conditions, the luxury houses and residential houses in Longhuzhai are less constrained by official architectural forms such as "architectural French" and "Ministry Regulations". In terms of plane layout, due to the limitation of geographical conditions, most houses and dwellings in Longhuzhai cannot develop horizontally, forming a building complex with multiple longitudinal axes, which can only develop vertically along the central axis, with as many as eight houses. The plane layout of these buildings is very rare in Chaozhou residential buildings. In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang made it clear that the official residence system was clearly defined. Ming Hui Dian contains: In the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu, it was stipulated that Qi Huangong had "three rooms and five frames, the door was painted with gold, and the animal face was covered with tin rings"; One product and two products officer, "three doors and five racks, the door with green oil animal face and tin ring"; Three to five products, "three doors and three racks, black doors and tin rings"; Six to nine products, "three frames and one front door, black door iron ring". At the same time, it is stipulated that "the doors and windows of the first-class official residence ... are not allowed to be painted. The house where ordinary people live has only three rooms and five frames, and no fighting arches or colored decorations are allowed. " The individual temples in the village are "quasi-five rooms" wide, with arches and colorful decorations everywhere.

Due to the psychological factors or conditions of the builders, the individual buildings in the village are unconventional in the treatment of components and architectural symbols, forming a distinctive personality. The most prominent is the cornice truss in Fu Huang, which spans three spans and is about12.8m long. It is a rare super-long component in domestic traditional buildings. The belly width of the main entrance of the ancestral temple is half of the width of the building, and the proportion is extremely gorgeous, so it is called "wide-mouth shrine". Inside the drum stones on both sides of the gate of Tianhou Palace, flowers (reliefs) with the theme of playing ball with two lions are engraved. In the Central Plains, it is a common style that the lower part of the drum-holding stone is carved into Sumitomo, the middle part is a drum, decorated with relief patterns, and the upper part is carved with lions. (According to the Building Law, carving a drum into the shape of a lion is technically called pulling the lion's arsenic or touching the lion's arsenic. ) But it is an isolated case in Chaozhou. The keeper of the Tianhou Palace painted two dignified, solemn, kind and kind women. Although China's door gods are mostly taken from battle-hardened military commanders, such as Qin Qiong, Weichi Gong, Yue Fei, Guan Yu, Han Xin, Zhao Yun and other male historical figures, there are still female generals with Mulan and Mu painted in some areas. But Chaozhou temple has no precedent. As for the image of the keeper of Tianhou Palace, it is not ordinary, but should be unique to Longhu.

In aesthetic research, many scholars put forward the view of "freshness". That is to say, in the creation of beauty, the unchangeable aesthetic feeling does not exist, and even a mature, aesthetic and expressive creative form cannot exist for a long time and has always been loved by people. Only those newer creative forms will attract everyone's attention and produce new aesthetic feeling, which is "freshness" That is, the concept of "fashion" that everyone is familiar with today. This is reflected in many artistic creations and practical product form design works, and the freshness of residential architectural form is "personality". The architecture of Longhuzhai is produced under the constraints of similar architectural techniques, similar building materials and similar lifestyles, regardless of the builder's psychology or conditions at the time of construction, but in essence it is to increase the personality of its architectural works and let people get aesthetic feeling from personality. So as to form the architectural modeling of a thousand houses. Only the changes of body shape and mass and the rich changes of formal beauty can win the praise of beauty.

Author; Ji Min Oh

Learning website

Chaozhou longhu town still retains many ancient buildings from the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The famous North and South Gate of Longhuzhai, Yaofu, Fangbodi, Taiqing, Fufu (the former residence of Xia Yulai) and Longhu Academy have recently become good places for tourists to visit. And many learning places here are equally eye-catching.

Those who are interested say that Chaoshan used to be a rich family, so we must build a study, carve beams and paint buildings, and decorate the terrace with bamboo trees. In the Song Dynasty, rich people in Longhuzhai paid attention to culture and education, set up study rooms in their own houses and hired well-educated teachers to teach their children. Commonly known as "a teacher teaches an apprentice." During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the study of Longhu developed rapidly. Among them, some were founded by rich families, and some were founded in the name of clans. In its heyday, there were no fewer than 30 study rooms in the village. Most of these study rooms have beautiful environment and exquisite decoration, which is a good place for local teaching and educating people.

Longhuzhai is a place with many surnames, so the names of the study rooms are all named after their surnames, such as Huang's Jiangxia Family School, Xu's Levin Family School and Xiao's Study Room. But most of them are named after the gentry, literati and juren, such as "Li Hua Seal House", "Reading My Book House", "Embracing the Classroom", "Rain Garden" and "Xiangyi Book House". The name of the study has different meanings and tastes. In addition, each study is decorated with couplets or poems written by celebrities. Dr. Huang, who survived today, said in "Read My Bookstore": You can only know Sima Bi by reading history, and you are not allowed to write my poems. The "Maoqiao Poetry Village", which was originally located in Nandi, was written by a scholar when he was 20 years old. He said: Reading is always at Maowei, and the stream rises to level the bridge. The Lanting in Hualou Lane is easy to talk about, and there are books in the stone room. Lan fell in love with Shi Jie. The intersection of children is not colored. "It can be seen that there were thick books everywhere inside and outside the study at that time.

In the past, the study rooms in Longhuzhai were mostly for boys and girls. According to records, during the Chongzhen period of the Ming Dynasty, Huang Zuoyu, a well-off local foreign minister of Chaozhou Prefecture, not only set up a library in his yard for boys to read, but also set up a virgin study in Zhongping Lane for his girls to read, which is rare in neighboring villages.

Due to the emergence of a large number of study rooms in Longhuzhai and the establishment of Longhu Academy (founded in Ming Dynasty), Longhuzhai is full of humanities and talents. A large number of celebrities came out from here, including more than 60 people including Jinshi, Juren and Gong Sheng, including 53 people including Jinshi and Juren. Among them, Yao, a flower explorer in the Northern Song Dynasty, Liu Zixing, an envoy in the Ming Dynasty, Xia Maoxue, an imperial envoy, and Huang Yanqi, a poet, are all a large number of celebrities. The laity Xiang Yan said in a poem after a famous house in Youlong Lake Ancient Village:

Brilliance is only encouragement, and looking back makes people feel more real.

Whether the old new bridge is old or not, I dare to recognize Zhu Zhen.

Many teachers who left their hometown to teach in Longhuzhai study devoted their lives to the growth of students. Next to the north gate of Longhuzhai, the well-preserved ancestral hall of Mr. Wang Dongchu is still preserved, and there is an inscription inscribed by the government constitution in the temple, which is unique in the surrounding areas. This reflects from one side that the wind of respecting teachers and attaching importance to education in Longhuzhai has a long history and has been passed down from generation to generation.