Congshi Grand Ancestral Hall covers an area of more than 5,000 square meters and is divided into three halls and five halls. At the foot of Qian Dian Mountain Gate, two ancient ginkgo trees with a history of more than 100 years are flourishing. The stone steps arched along the white marble balustrade pass through the giant stone carving, which is the majestic ancestral hall. It is supported by 36 folded thick giant columns representing 36 branches of Cong's family, carved beams and painted buildings, flying eaves and climbing walls, and rising from the ground. At the front gate of Qian Dian Mountain, two ancient ginkgo trees with a history of more than 100 years are flourishing, and two stone lions with a respect of more than 20 tons are guarding the gate. The Acong Merit Monument, more than 5 meters high in front of the temple, corresponds to a 2-ton multiple incense burner. The whole hall is protected by white jade railings. In the center of the front of the hall, there is a giant stone carving "Two Dragons Playing with Beads". There are carved beams and painted columns on the main hall, and there are corridors leading to the back hall on both sides of the main hall. There is a treasure pool between the cloisters, and the back wall of the main hall stands above the thousands of feet, which is regarded as a backer.
Inside and outside the ancestral temple, huge murals show the brilliant achievements of Cong family from grassland overlord to Han family and their ancestors who moved to Jiaodong to become golden clusters. In the main hall, there are more than 26 generations of sacrifices according to lineage, and there are 36 memorial tablets of Cong's ancestral hall from all over the country. The left hall is Cong's Sage Monument Hall, and the right hall is Cong's contemporary celebrity elite exhibition hall. The cloisters on both sides of the front hall are marble tablets engraved with the deeds of Cong Gong, and there are 24 pictures of filial piety on both sides of the main hall. The cloister is engraved with stone tablets for people to use. There is a marble flagpole in front of the ancestral hall. According to the regulations, there are five flagpoles, a bucket is hung above the flagpole, and flying cranes walk in the forest, which is very solemn. The main flagpole in the middle is 15.88 meters high, carved with the totem of distant ancestors, offering sacrifices to Jin people, surrounded by auspicious clouds; The flying crane on the left and the unicorn on the right symbolize the glory of Cong family as the highest civil and military official.
The historical origin of Cong family, ancestor worship and ancestral hall. Ancestral shrine is a place where ancestral tablets are enshrined and ancestral activities are held. In ancient times, the places where Wendeng Cong had ancestor worship activities were in ancestral halls and ancestral halls. There are two ancestors: one is the ancestors of Liulin Xiaodian, which was established in the first year of Daguan in Song Dynasty, and the other is the ancestors of Qingshigang, a minister given by the Ming royal family to Cong Langong. There is Wendeng Cong ancestral hall in the ancestral hall.
According to historical records, the ancestors and ancestral halls of the ancient Wendeng Congxi, except the ancestors of Liulin Xiaodian, are all near Wendeng Ancient County.
Wendeng Congshi Ancestral Hall was built in the Ming Dynasty, and it didn't exist until Prince Shaobao Lan became famous in the Ming Dynasty. The most popular Cong Family Tree was also revised after Lan Gong. Of course, genealogy should be revised according to various systems at that time. Taking Ouyang Xiu's genealogy in the Ming Dynasty as an example, the literati pursued three generations instead of five. Therefore, according to this official regulation, Cong's genealogy can only be based on Deyou Gong, and the ancestral temple built later is also dedicated to Deyou. There are more than 40 Cong ancestors listed in Filial Piety Ancestors Burial Record, among which De Youzu, who was a salt tax envoy in Wendeng, was the seventh grandson of the first year of Song Daguan. Of the three generations since Deyouzu, 52 were senior officials in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties. As a minister of the Ming Dynasty, Lan Gong continued his ancestral career and pursued the Five Dynasties according to his style of writing, which is completely understandable.
Before the Song and Yuan Dynasties, there was no ancestral temple in Cong family, only a sacrifice to the ancestral grave of Liulin Xiaodian. Sacrifice at temple fairs can best reflect the rise and fall of a clan. From the first year of Daguan in the Song Dynasty, the ancestors of Liulin Filial Piety made the most solemn sacrifice, which should be in the Jin and Yuan Dynasties. According to Cong's ancestral tablet and the Records of Wendeng County, although the Jin and Yuan Dynasties lasted only a hundred years, there were more than 50 ministers of Wendeng Cong's family, which was extremely prosperous in one county and one clan. Just as Chen Qi, the minister of the Ming Dynasty, said that "it began in the Yuan Dynasty and became a famous family in the world", the clan was prosperous and the temple was bound to prosper. Ancestral temple is a common name for ancestral temple in ancient times. According to the different systems of different dynasties, it is divided into large ancestral halls, ancestral halls, branch ancestral halls, special ancestral halls, family temples and other levels. Weihai Congshi Grand Ancestral Hall is undoubtedly a high-level ancestral hall.
According to historical data and archaeological findings, in the slave society in the 2nd/Kloc-0th century BC, there was a place where the emperor worshipped his ancestors-the Family Temple. In Shang dynasty, there was a system of viewing the palace of the king, while in Western Zhou dynasty, it was regarded as the emperor's right to worship ancestors, heaven and earth. "Zuo Zhuan" said: "The great event of the country lies in respecting capacity". Except for the emperor, the real ancestral temple should have started from the Han Dynasty, but at that time all the ancestral temples were built in cemeteries, called tomb temples. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu wrote Family Rites to set up ancestral halls, but the hierarchy of ancestral halls was strictly restricted. Only people with the status of scholar-officials or above can set up ancestral temples, and private buildings are not allowed. Only during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty were private buildings allowed. Since then, the wind of building ancestral temples has swept across the country rapidly, and it has been increasing since the Qing Dynasty. Every village has a shrine, which has formed the unique national cultural characteristics of China.
The Wendeng Congshi Ancestral Hall, now used by Wendeng District Museum, was built at the initiative of Lin Zhougong, a famous family in the late Guangxu period. The land was donated by Linzhou Gong for free, and the materials were advised by the whole family. According to historical data, the clansmen of Fan Deyou's branch proposed to increase copper coins per mu. This temple is magnificent and elegant, which is unparalleled in Wendeng's ancestral hall. At that time, it was the only one in Wendeng that was built according to the specifications of a product produced by our ancestors before. The ancestral temple carved beams and painted columns, two into five towers. The front of the main hall is a wooden screen, which can be fully unfolded when offering sacrifices. There are four stone pillars in the front hall, a pair of stone drums on the left and right, and a splayed brick wall in front of the door. The Congshi Ancestral Hall on the door was inscribed by Zhao, a famous calligrapher in this city. There is a stone tablet engraved with the words "Chengtian" on the rolling shutter door behind the gate, which is the symbol of the fifth son of Wendeng Guangxu in the yuan dynasty. Later, it was occupied by the enemy and puppet troops. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was used by the county cultural center library for a long time. In 2000, the World Congshi Clan Association invested nearly 654.38+ten thousand yuan to repair it, and the Congshi seminar was held in the East Hall of its front hall.
On June 5438+ 10, 2008, the Beijing meeting of the Standing Committee of the World Congshi Clan Association unanimously passed that the Congshi Ancestral Hall built in Chengzi Village was named Congshi Grand Ancestral Hall, dedicated to the19th ancestor of Congshi ancestors since written records, and was worshipped by all Congshi clansmen in the world, becoming the grand ancestral hall of all Congshi clansmen and clansmen in the world.
Congshi Ancestral Hall is the only existing ancient building in Wendeng City. Since 1990s, the descendants of Cong family at home and abroad have been coming to Wendeng to seek roots and worship their ancestors. It is said that wherever Wendeng people go today, as long as they meet Cong clan, the first sentence is "People come from their hometown, and people named Cong in the world can rank according to their seniority." It can be seen that "the literary comprehensive Deng of the Congshi family in the world" is well documented and recognized by the Congshi family in the world. Cong's family has been a noble family of Wendeng since ancient times. Since the Ming Dynasty, Wendeng Congshi Ancestral Hall has been built several times. At the end of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty, because the original ancestral hall was not grand enough, the famous gentleman Wendeng Jungle State proposed and presided over the new Congshi ancestral hall. Cong's ancestors once had a famous minister-Cong Lan, the minister of Nanjing Ministry of Industry in the Ming Dynasty, so Cong's ancestral hall was built according to the specifications of the first-class official ancestral hall, with magnificent momentum and elegant style. Despite more than a hundred years of wind and rain, we can still see its glory from the existing Cong ancestral hall. The ancestral hall covers an area of more than 800 square meters, with two rows and five columns, carved beams and painted columns. There are four stone pillars in the front hall, a red painted door, a figure-of-eight brick wall in front of the door, and a stone tablet engraved with the four characters "Chengtian" on the circular scroll door behind the door, which was written by Wuzi of Guangxu in Qing Dynasty (1888). The dragon's tail in the back hall is tilted, the eaves are pecked up, and the ridge eaves are decorated with animal kisses. There is a wooden plaque on the lintel, with the words "Congshi Ancestral Hall" written by Zhao, a famous calligrapher in Wendeng at that time. Unfortunately, I can't see it now. 1995, when a descendant of Cong Songpo was playing in Jinci, he was impressed by the huge banner and grand commemorative scene of "The King of the World lives in Taiyuan" in Jinci, and wanted to find his roots and ask his ancestors. So he ran around asking for a sign. 1996 initiated the establishment of "Cong Research Association" with the clan, and moved to Cong Ancestral Hall with the support of the government. After several years' efforts, the first and second volumes of Cong's Origin Tan and Cong's Family History have been compiled and published, and the Cong's website has been opened, which has made detailed textual research and records on the origin, ancestors, ancient and modern celebrities and geographical distribution of Cong's family history.
The origin of Cong's family is recorded in the Congshi Yuantan in detail. Regarding the ancestral home of Cong family, there are two views in the research of surname: one is "Yao has Cong branch". Secondly, "He said that after the Han Dynasty, he moved to Congjia County, Wendeng County, Shandong Province, and took his surname (see" I Talk about Chibei "). Both of them started from Emperor Yao. After the Han Dynasty, most scholars and Cong clan people now trust the latter, because the article "Tomb of Cong Zhang in Wendeng County" records: "The tomb of Cong Zhang, the governor of General Wendeng County, is located in Liulin, four miles northeast of the city, and the epitaph is from the first year of Yuan Dynasty to the twenty-first year (AD 1284). In the first year of Huang Chu (AD 220), he moved to the East and lived in a floating house. In the first year of Qin Dynasty (AD 265), he lived in Congjia County. The word "eternal life" was called "Taiweiyu", and his descendant was Zhixuan. When Jin Zhen was a general of the official martial arts festival, he was ordered by Wendeng County. " In the Preface of Cong Family Tree, it is also said: "Cong's family has lived in Wendeng for a long time, which is not easy to verify. However, back to the beginning, his surname is Jin, and Liulin carved the tablet first. It is the forty-fifth generation grandson of Jin Wenjing, the left phase of the Han Dynasty, who fears eternal life. To the first year, Pi Zi named Miao, the ancestor of my surname, and fled. Since Jingzhao Wannian (now northeast of Lintong County, Shaanxi Province), I have moved to the east to live in a floating house. Starting from Jintai, I stayed at home all night and changed my surname to Cong, so I became famous. He who never sleeps in the sky has the name of Wendeng, and his name is also clustered. Wendeng has had Cong surname since then, and there are more and more teeth since then. In the first year of Daguan in Song Dynasty (A.D. 1 107), Yong Nai was separated from other ethnic groups and buried in northern Qishan (now Zhengqi Mountain). "