A beautiful old house.
Brick carving of ancient houses in Cuilu village.
Cuilu village ancient house.
Liu ancestral hall in Cuilu village.
Text/Xing Yun?
Xingtai, in the south of Hebei Province, is a thoroughfare from north to south, connecting east and west, with obvious traffic advantages. Many legends of merchants have been left in history, as evidenced by the remains of ancient houses all over Taihang Mountain.
However, if Cuilu Village is an ancient village, it is difficult to find a second one in Xingtai, no matter the scale of ancient buildings or the cultural connotation.
For Cuilu Village, experts have commented that the size of the house is comparable to that of Zhouzhuang in the south of the Yangtze River, and the business culture is comparable to that of Shanxi Siheyuan.
1?
Keep the Taihang Mountain Mouth, one village, five households and four surnames.
Leave Xingtai, follow Xingzuo Line, go west about15km, and arrive at Cuilu Village. If we continue to the west, we will enter Taihang Mountain for a short distance. Cui Lu is at the mountain pass of Taihang Mountain. Although it seems that there is no obvious difference between Cuilu Village and other villages, the past glory is actually hidden under the ordinary appearance.
Liu and Wang Jintai, two old people who are familiar with the history of Cuilu Village, said that according to the records of place names in Xingtai County, Cuilu was founded in Sui and Tang Dynasties and flourished in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Several stone tablets currently preserved in Cuilu show that the old street in the village was formed in the early Ming Dynasty.
There is no "City God Temple" in ordinary villages, but Cui Lu does. On the monument of rebuilding the Town God Temple in the Qing Dynasty, it is recorded that Cuilu Village built the Town God Temple, which shows the prosperity of Cuilu Village in the past.
The name of the village is Cui Lu, but there is no Cui in the village. The two old people said that there are actually five families and four surnames in the village: Liu, Yao, Wang and Zhao. Liu is the most popular surname in Cuilu village, accounting for about half of the population of the village, with obvious residential location, mostly distributed in the central area east of Nanbei Street in the village.
Strolling in Cuilu Village, beautifully carved courtyard doors are spacious and tall, and can be seen everywhere. Villagers are used to it, but outsiders often come to visit, especially on holidays.
The shape of courtyard gate is a representative architectural style of Cuilu ancient building, but the courtyard pattern can better explain the prosperity of Cuilu in history. The ancient buildings in Cuilu Village are mostly classic masonry structures with unified style and clear planning. The lower part is made of limestone, and the upper part is made of blue bricks.
Old people recalled that when they were young, the old buildings in the village were more spectacular, a big two-story building with a history of hundreds of years. Regrettably, in the past 30 or 40 years, most old houses have been actively demolished or abandoned because of disrepair. At that time, the architecture of the four-surname family had lost its former appearance.
However, the general pattern of historical buildings is still there. Through the existing buildings, we can still imagine the financial resources of Cuilu Village. Old man Liu said that Cui passers-by used to do business, went far and learned a lot, and many people did business in Shanxi. Qiao's and Wang's in Shanxi used to be business partners of Cuilu people, so the architecture of Cuilu village was also influenced by Shanxi's architectural style.
In the Liu's ancestral hall in Cuilu village, there are two words: Although ancestors should sacrifice far away, children and grandchildren should read foolish poems. Cui Passers-by inherited the ancestral family business, bought and sold all over the country in the old days, accumulated wealth, and in turn attached great importance to education.
Everything is inferior, only reading is high. Paying attention to education makes Cui passers-by open-minded and good at accepting new things. Cui Passers-by made progress in thought during the revolutionary years and devoted himself to the revolutionary torrent very early. Today, many people still have "meritorious deeds of founding a country" plaques hanging on their doors.
2
? The Cuilu business gang from the first village in Shunde, western China, has traveled all over the world.
According to the Liu family tree of Cuilu Village, Liu Ying, the ancestor of Cuilu surnamed Liu, moved to Cuilu Village from Hongdong in Shanxi during Yongle period of Ming Dynasty, so a big family has been here for more than 600 years.
As the largest village in Shunde, Cuilu Village enjoys convenient transportation. In addition, Cui Lu has vision, courage and hard work. Historically, Cuilu opened many businesses, crossing Taihang Mountain to collect leather in Ningxia and Hexi Corridor. In the past, Xingtai was the main fur distribution center in China, and Cuilu Liu Jia was famous in the national fur market at that time.
Liu's business started with Liu Kesheng and lasted for hundreds of years. At first, the Liu family managed groceries and gradually accumulated them. First, he opened a firm of Yongsheng Kui in Nanguan, Shunde, and then switched to the west to run skins and sell furs. By the end of Qing Dynasty, there were more than 30 fur traders in Nanguan, Shunde. Among them, Yong Maochang and Yong Maosheng, the "Top Ten Leather Goods Stores in Nanguan" in Shunde District, belong to Cui.
On the ancient road, teams of caravans once carried the hopes of merchants in Xingzhou. Cui passers-by started as a caravan. Behind every family with five families and four surnames, there is a magnificent and ups and downs business history.
At present, among the ancient buildings in Cuilu Village, Liu Jia Courtyard is the largest, with two plaques of "Seven generations under one roof" and "Five generations under one roof", which is said to be the honor of the local government in the Qing Dynasty. In the heyday of the Liu family, seven generations of Liu's close relatives lived in different branches at the same time, and one of them was the direct line of Liu's five generations. There are more than 200 people living in the whole compound. Every meal time, the kitchen will ring and the whole family will eat on the same stove.
Liu Jia courtyard is well-structured and well-designed. The whole family lives together, each household is independent, and the courtyard is connected. The Liu Family Courtyard still preserves the stone troughs, horse-tied stones and dismounted stones left by the Liu caravan. There are many archways and wide streets in Cuilu Village, all of which reflect the bustling scene of traffic and logistics.
3?
Cultural integration, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, sculpture and painting, and Dong Jian spirit.
The Liu Family Courtyard is divided into more than ten small courtyards, with a total of hundreds of rooms. The main entrance of the house is a two-story building. On the first floor, the word "Ji" is brick-coded, and on the second floor, it is a watchtower overlooking the whole village, which has both defensive functions. The main house of the compound has heavy eaves and carved beams and painted buildings. Although it has experienced storms, it is still magnificent.
From July to October, 2009, Liu Shunchao, an expert in Xingtai folk history, wrote the Investigation Report of Liu Jia Courtyard in Cuilu Village, and made a detailed textual research on the present situation, history and village culture of Cuilu Village.
According to the survey, Cuilu Village is about 892 meters long from east to west and 300 meters wide from north to south, with a total area of about 267,600 square meters. In the village, Liu Jia Courtyard has the largest construction area, accounting for about one third of the ancient houses in the village, and most of them are basically well preserved, with Yongshou Hall, Yonghe Hall and Yongbao Hall being the best preserved.
There are two screen walls in front of Liu's yard, each 3 meters high and 7 meters long. Liu Shunchao said: "The screen wall is so high, you can imagine how big the Liu family's house is."
Liu Shunchao said that he had visited the ancient house in Cuilu Village with the designer who reconstructed Zhouzhuang in the south of the Yangtze River. At that time, the designer spoke highly of Cuilu ancient house: "Before Zhouzhuang was restored, the scale of the local ancient house was less than half that of Cuilu."
Not only that, there are still many people living in countless courtyards in Cuilu Village. Each courtyard has one or more gatehouses, and the ornaments are beautifully carved and have their own characteristics.
The head of the ancient gatehouse is generally made into the shape of a theater, and the themes are "Three Sheep Open Thailand", "Mei Zhu Lan Ju", "beaming" and "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea". The gatehouse is generally engraved with Chinese characters such as "God bless the people", "behave" and "bend the rules", and is also decorated with patterned borders around it.
The gates of ancient houses are mostly wooden doors, and there are many woodcarvings with colorful patterns. Some are grapes on pine trees, and the branches are full of fruits, and squirrels crawl for food; Have a plenty of auspicious clouds around the beam, flying dragons looming in the clouds.
"The buildings and sculptures of the house are integrated into the traditional culture of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in China, and every careful study is very particular." Liu Shunchao said that it is rare for Cui to live under the same roof for seven generations and five generations. It is inseparable from the family motto of "benevolence, honesty and harmony" of the Liu family. In addition, the Liu family also attaches importance to self-cultivation and advocates "patience". The couplet in the west courtyard of Yonghe Hall reads: Zhang Gongshu is resistant to words, and Sima Ji works hard.
Just as the courtyard culture of Shanxi Courtyard embodies the culture of Shanxi merchants, so does the ancient house in Cuilu Village. These buildings, temples and the prosperous trade of Cui passers-by in history make Cuilu Village embody a unique business gang culture.
Liu Shunchao, an expert in folk history, believes that the Liu Jia Courtyard in Cuilu Village is an ancient residential building with rich historical and cultural connotations, a true portrayal of Shunde's commercial culture in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, a microcosm of Shunde's Nanguan economic development and the spiritual home of a generation of Jishang businessmen.