Huitong Village

Huitong Village

Huitong village is located in Jinding Town, Zhuhai City. The village is the same color Lingnan dwellings, every family is gray tiles, green bricks, cornices, architectural layout is neat, the shape of the same color, embedded in the "chessboard" grid formed by the neat homestead. In 2006, Huitong ancient village was promulgated as a district level cultural relics protection unit, and declared as a municipal level cultural relics protection unit.

The new village

Along the Qiguan highway built in the 1930s, we come to the Jiqing Pavilion donated by the gentry for pedestrians to have a rest in the shade. A quiet rural road leads people to Huitong village at the foot of Fenghuang mountain. On both sides of the winding path, agriculture and forestry, orchards and paddy fields alternate. The water is bright, the mountains are green, and the land is rich. In the increasingly open space, groups of snow-white ducks roam leisurely in the pond. Under a large and dense camphor tree, there is a section of ancient village wall. After a horizontal stone bridge, they come to Huitong village. Looking up, two watchtowers and three ancestral halls are neatly arranged on the main street in front of the village: the ancestral hall with typical Lingnan style, the pure hard mountain top, the green brick wall, the porch, the platform and the ridge are all decorated with exquisite stone carvings; while the tall watchtower with strong Western style shows the ambition and vision of that year, which interweaves the vigorous building outline in front of the village Both Chinese and Western languages make everyone who comes to visit her feel the unique charm of the combination of Chinese and western in this famous Lingnan ancient village.

historical background

Historical records

According to the records of Xiangshan county annals, Mo Yujing (Hao Huitong), "the beautiful scenery of the mountains and waters of ailigang" invested in "Yongzheng Renzi" (1732) to "buy the land", and then let the villagers of Bao and tan, who used to live in the same village with him, move here, while some people can't afford the "cost of building plates", and he "exhausted the funds". Villagers feel its high righteousness, because the name of the village is Huitong.

Industrial Development

After the Qing government opened up the Westernization Movement in the middle of the 19th century, they went to Hong Kong, Macao and overseas to make a living together with the villagers. From 1870 to 1931, three generations of Huitong villagers, including mosiyang, Mo CAIQUAN and Mo Gan, successively acted as compradors for Swire Pacific, the largest British commercial organization in Hong Kong, for 61 years. They have accumulated abundant wealth for the shipping industry, sugar industry, shipping industry, insurance industry and import and export trade of Swire Pacific. At the same time, they have also brought more than 1000 ethnic people out of the country and created a management team that understands the Western business. As a result, they have established a large number of new national industrial and commercial enterprises in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Fujian and other places, which has promoted the development of China The process of modernization of China.

Modern transformation

During the period from Tongzhi to Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, Huitong village was rebuilt under the unified planning with the investment of wealthy overseas clans at that time. The main buildings include two watchtowers, three ancestral halls and more than 40 dwellings.

Huitong village, a combination of Chinese and Western culture, is located in a secluded and secluded place, with the spatial guidance of suppression first and then promotion, which coincides with the poetic pursuit of Chinese tradition. Sitting in the east-west direction, high in the East and low in the west, surrounded by mountains and water, is in line with the concept of geomantic prospecting in traditional Chinese villages. The village layout has absorbed the advanced ideas of western modern village planning, and the pattern is strict. The rarest thing is that Huitong village has preserved the unique style of the ancient village, which contains rich and precious architectural historical relics and cultural historical information, despite the ups and downs of China's modern politics and economy for 170 years.

building structure

Three streets and eight alleys

The core structure of Huitong village is commonly known as ". Its "three streets" are: Xiaheng street in the village from north to south along hehuatang, Zhongheng street and Shangheng Street parallel to it and rising along the mountain. "Eight lanes" are eight East-West stone streets. "Eight lanes" connect three main streets along the mountain from bottom to top, and "three streets and eight lanes" crisscross each other vertically, forming a square and regular "chessboard" spatial organization structure.

The modern modular design method is skillfully used in the design of the single residential building. Taking the main house and front yard of the traditional residential building as the core, and increasing the left and right study rooms and front and rear courtyards as the variables, the residential building has evolved to meet the needs of various family population, intergenerational increase and the order of seniority and inferiority, so that the whole village style is unified and changed, with a strong sense of rhythm.

The ancestral halls and dwellings in Huitong village are of high quality, and most of them adopt the traditional Chinese wood structure beam system, which is mixed with lifting beam and gable load-bearing. Stone columns are carved on the external eaves instead of wooden columns to avoid wind, rain and tide. The hollow carving technology of stone beam bracket, sparrow bracket and corbel is very superb, which has not lost its style for more than 100 years.

Qixia fairy house

This Chinese and western garden style Zen house is called Qixia immortal hall. It was built by Mo yongru, Mo Shiyang's direct grandson, in memory of his wife in the 1980s. It is also a country club for this successful comprador to spend his summer vacation and make friends. It made Huitong village the first village in Xiangshan County to use electricity and show movies in 1922, because Mo yongru, who was enthusiastic about making the Qixia fairy house open to villagers, made it a semi open garden in Huitong village, bought back diesel generators from Hong Kong, put them in Qixia fairy house to supply power for the whole village, and even invited movies from Hong Kong every few months The team screened Chaplin's film for villagers in Qixia fairy hall.

The main building of Qixia fairy hall is the gatehouse which has the functions of looking out, guarding and defending the enemy of Chinese style watchtower and guard of western style gatehouse, and the Zhaitang which is modeled after Shanghai Taigu foreign company. In the courtyard full of vitality of ancient trees and exotic trees, There are also Chinese style hexagonal pavilions with double eaves and sharp roofs, Japanese style xieshengmao pavilions with square base and Indian style litchi eating pavilions, which show the mixed style and artistic conception of multi-cultural architecture and add to the legend of Huitong village.

The settlement location and village planning of Huitong village condenses people's living concept of advocating nature. The Qixia fairy hall, watchtower, ancestral hall and the well-organized Qing Dynasty dwellings in the village form a complete ancient architectural complex, showing the features of Modern Lingnan architecture. Its courtyard style residential layout, the key carving of ancestral hall and the use of watchtowers and gates show the characteristics of residential culture in modern Xiangshan area. As the most complete modern village preserved in Zhuhai, Huitong village is not only the materialized epitome of comprador culture represented by the Mo family, but also a typical example of the combination of mainland culture and marine culture in the construction of villages and towns. It embodies the historical information of cultural, social and economic development in Xiangshan area for more than 100 years. It is a living specimen of Lingnan Modern History and the existing history of Huitong village core area Historical buildings are 7897 square meters.

Protection status

For a long time, all walks of life in Zhuhai City have attached great importance to the protection of historical and cultural resources of Huitong ancient village. From 2004 to 2005, Zhuhai City, while preparing the urban planning of Tangjiawan new town zoning plan and other urban planning, invited the Institute of urban planning and design of Tongji University and the National Research Center of historical and cultural cities to jointly prepare the concept planning of Tangjiawan historical and cultural town and Tangjiawan new town zoning plan The plan for the protection of historical and cultural towns includes a special study on Huitong ancient village.

Patriotism and love of the country, passed down from generation to generation, ancient and modern title, endless, with the times, and create brilliant. This legendary village in Modern Lingnan will glow with new light in the new era.

After more than 100 years of great changes, the declining Huitong village still sticks to its former glory. At the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, in a small village like Zhuhai, going to Hong Kong or even abroad to seek gold became the most fashionable job for those with great vision. They really realized their dream. They built the most beautiful buildings in Huitong village of Zhuhai at that time. In those neat marble residential complexes, they enjoyed the earliest electric lights and aristocratic treatment in Zhuhai. Today's still solid house has become a witness of history. Although it is shrinking, it has recently been rated as a cultural relic protection unit at the district level by Xiangzhou District, which is enough to show people's respect for them.

Suspected paradise

On June 13, it still rained heavily in the morning, but it suddenly cleared up at noon. My colleagues and I set foot on the journey of exploring the village together. Just walked into the village, my colleagues immediately sigh: Paradise! This is a truly original village. The ancient trees are dancing in the village. Almost all the houses under the shadow of the ancient trees are ancient and fragrant houses of the Qing Dynasty. Although there are occasionally several white contemporary buildings, the flowers, plants and trees here are well preserved. The first gun tower at the entrance of the village has become a landmark building, which looks simple and solemn under the blue sky and white clouds. The main street of Huitong village is about 100 meters long. On one side of the street are contemporary buildings, which form a sharp contrast with the old houses on the other side. Compared with those well planned old houses with a history of more than 100 years, these contemporary buildings are slightly thin. From the aspect of appearance, these ancient buildings are very elegant. It's no exaggeration to say "carved fence and jade". The exquisite decorative patterns and carvings on eaves, lintels and panes can be seen everywhere. The air of ancient elegance comes to our face.

Reading the vicissitudes of the world

Casually drilling into an old house, the situation inside is quite disappointing. Not only are the weeds overgrown, giving off a choking musty smell, but most of them are empty, and some of them are even piled up with useless debris, which makes them look messy. It can be imagined that the exquisite layout and decorations of the former residence have been looted, leaving irreparable pain. But if you understand its history, you don't have to worry about it. it is reported

Chinese PinYin : Hui Tong Cun