During the Anti-Japanese War, the descendants of the Wang family sold their huge family property to outsiders due to opium poisoning and to avoid the war, and fled to Sichuan with huge sums of money. Only one family remains in Jingsheng Town, and it is now considered protected.
Introduction to the Wang Family Courtyard
The Wang Family Courtyard is a masterpiece of residential architecture in the Qing Dynasty. It was built by Jingsheng, a descendant of the Taiyuan Wang family, one of the four major families in Lingshi County in history. The Wang family was built successively during the Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong and Jiaqing years of the Qing Dynasty. The building is large-scale, with "five lanes", "five forts" and "five ancestral halls". Among them, the courtyard layout of five ancient castles is described as the shapes of five auspicious animals: "dragon", "phoenix", "turtle", "lin" and "tiger", with a total area of ??more than 250,000 square meters. The three major architectural complexes of Hongmen Fort (Dragon), Gaojiaya (Phoenix) and Chongning Fort (Tiger) and the Wang Ancestral Hall are now open as "China Folk Residence Art Museum", "Wang Family Museum of China" and "Liqun Art Museum" etc., there are 231 large and small courtyards, 2078 houses, and an area of ??80,000 square meters.
Everyone who has visited the Wang Family Courtyard thinks that the Wang Family Courtyard is very large and majestic. In fact, the three building complexes of Hongmen Fort, Gaojiaya Fort and Wang Ancestral Hall currently open to tourists only account for less than a quarter of the total area of ??the Wang Family Courtyard. According to the historical data of the Wang family and existing physical research, from the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty to the 16th year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty, the residence of the Wang family was Jingsheng. With the continuous prosperity of the family business, it continued to extend in the village from west to east, from low to high. , gradually built and expanded, creating a huge building group with a total area of ??250,000 square meters, which is far larger than the Royal Forbidden City in Beijing, which covers an area of ??150,000 square meters. In the territory of "Five Miles Long Street" and "Nine ditches, eight forts and eighteen lanes" in Jingsheng Village, the Wang family occupied at least five ditches, five lanes and five forts. Among them, the five residential complexes in a complete castle style show their majestic momentum within the scale of the site.
According to historical records of the Wang family, when the Wang family built the five forts of Hongmen Fort, Gaojiaya Fort, West Fort, Southeast Fort and Xianan Fort, they were named "dragon, phoenix, tiger, turtle and lin" respectively. "The five spiritual auspicious symbols were built to cater to heaven's will. That is, the "dragon" in the center of Hongmen Fort, the "phoenix" in the east of Gaojia Yabao, and the "tiger" in the west of Xibaozi. The three of them are lying on a high slope, lined up in a line, and their posture is majestic and full of arrogance. The southeastern fort is called "turtle" and the lower south fort is called "lin". They both ward off evil spirits and show good luck, and have the metaphorical meaning of stabilizing the family and consolidating the industry for generations to come.
The Hongmen Fort and Gaojiaya Fort that people visit today can be taken to mean "dragon and phoenix present auspiciousness" or "dragon flying around and phoenix flying". These two forts and the Wang Ancestral Hall (i.e. Xiaoyi Ancestral Hall), which was restored and opened at the same time, were both built during the Kangxi, Qianjia and Qing Dynasties of the Qing Dynasty. They have 123 large and small courtyards, 1,118 houses, and cover an area of ??45,000 square meters. They are the best preserved Wang family compound. The essence of architecture. To put it simply, although it has not returned to the majesty of the Wang family when the five auspicious beasts were dominant, its preservation to this day can be regarded as a miracle in the country. Just as Mr. Wang Luxiang, an internationally renowned scholar and professor of Tsinghua University, sighed after visiting: "Wang is a surname, a surname is half a country, a home is a courtyard, and the courtyard is half a city."