Chaji ancient town

Chaji is located in Houan Township, Jing County, Xuancheng City, Anhui Province. It is a national AAAA scenic spot, a national key cultural relic protection unit and a famous historical and cultural village in China. There are 108 bridges, 100 ancestral halls and 108 temples in chaji village. Now there are more than 140 ancient buildings. Among them, there are more than 40 bridges, 30 ancestral halls and 4 temples. The "Degang hall house" built in the Yuan Dynasty is located in shuishuilang lane of the village. It has a three-story gatehouse. The front eaves of the hall are low. The eaves and columns are made of nanmu, thick, short and round. The column foundation is covered with plates, without carving. Yongqing hall and Jinshi gate in Ming Dynasty are exquisitely carved and constructed. Chaji village is a well preserved ancient architectural complex.

Chaji ancient town

Zhaji (Zhej ǐ), a village under the jurisdiction of taohuatan Town, Jing County, Xuancheng City, Anhui Province, is a national AAAA scenic spot, a national key cultural relic protection unit, a famous historical and cultural village in China, the first Chinese sketching village and a traditional Chinese village. It is the largest existing ancient village of Ming and Qing Dynasties in China so far.

There are 108 bridges, 108 ancestral halls and 108 temples in chaji village. Now there are more than 140 ancient buildings. Among them, there are more than 40 bridges, 30 ancestral halls and 4 temples.

The "Degang hall house" built in the Yuan Dynasty is located in shuishuilang lane of the village. It has a three-story gatehouse. The front eaves of the hall are low. The eaves and columns are made of nanmu, thick, short and round. The column foundation is covered with plates, without carving. Yongqing hall and Jinshi gate in Ming Dynasty are exquisitely carved and constructed. Chaji village is a well preserved ancient architectural complex. In November 2017, chaji village was awarded the fifth national civilized village.

Historical evolution

Chaji is less than 20 kilometers away from taohuatan. Obviously, the great poet Li Bai will not miss the chance to meet such a beautiful landscape.

Perhaps after farewell to Wang Lun (Li Bai wrote a poem "to Wang Lun" at parting), Li Bai was invited by Zha Shimo (Guan Zhizhong Shulang, Xiao Shulang) to stay in Shimen Bishan of Zhaji. He lingered for several days and forgot to return.

It was not until xueshulang came to entertain him with tea and wine that he woke up like a dreamer. Then he wrote down "ask me what I mean by living in the green mountain, smile but not answer, and feel free. Peach blossom and flowing water are gone, there is another world, not the world.

Since the Tang and Song Dynasties, the cha clan has established a series of family rules, family precepts and family management. In the Jiajing year of Ming Dynasty, Zhajiang reorganized and made ten family rules, fourteen family precepts and five family management rules.

In fact, these family rules, family precepts and family management are the laws of chaji. The clan has the right to legislate against its members, which has the effect of transcending the law of the authorities. In religious etiquette, it also has the effect of resisting the law.

To sum up, their main contents are centered on filial piety and ancestor worship. Today, in chaji, in addition to the residential needs, the existing relics are mainly ancestral halls and memorial archways, which are deeply marked with filial piety and ancestor worship in the clan era.

In history, the most fundamental belief of Chinese people is the belief in the power of ancestors. Undoubtedly, ancestor worship is a kind of classical and long-standing "folk sacrifice".

A village or a family must have its ancestral hall. Generally speaking, there is only one ancestral hall. However, there are many ancestral halls in chaji, because there are a large number of people with surname cha. It is said that in the prosperous late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, there were a huge population of 100000. The people with surname Cha began to multiply more than 1300 years ago, and there were many branches. Once a branch developed (nothing more than Zhongju, Jinshiji, being an official, fenggao, Facai, etc.), later generations would build ancestral halls to glorify their ancestors and encourage their descendants People.

At the end of Song Dynasty and the beginning of Yuan Dynasty, Chayu, a member of chaji, was very prosperous because of his good relationship and wealth. He began to establish a foundation, build ancestral temples and repair genealogy. Later, his great grandson, Cha Guishen, became more developed, and gave birth to six sons (EN yuan, Tu yuan, Bao Yuan, Hong Yuan, Zhen Yuan, Li Yuan). Their descendants built one ancestral hall in Xuande period of Ming Dynasty. Each ancestral hall has its own characteristics. Some of them are magnificent and bold; some are elegant and poetic, and they are exquisitely carved; some see bricks but not wood; some see wood but not brick. By the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, the official career of chaji people had entered its heyday. There were six Jinshi, three Jinshi, brother Jinshi, civil and military Jinshi, civil and military Jinshi, one after another. The official positions such as Hanlin, Jingguan, fengjiang officials, prefectures, prefectures, counties and so on continued in the political arena. According to statistics, in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there were 129 officials above Qipin in chaji The first thing to do is to return home.

In an ancient society based on patriarchal clan system, there is no better way to glorify the ancestors than to build ancestral temples. According to the word of mouth of chaji people, there were 108 ancestral halls in the village at its heyday, which coincided with the number of heroes in "Water Margin".

Only Erjia ancestral hall, Baogong ancestral hall and Honggong ancestral hall remain, and the protection situation is not optimistic. They are in danger of collapse and need to be repaired.

In chaji, the only building comparable to the ancestral hall is the memorial archway. Under the leadership of Mr. Cha, who has lived in chaji for generations, I carefully looked at renrang archway, chastity archway and a chastity archway site. Ren rang Fang stands at the entrance of the village. "Ren" is the foundation of Confucianism and the core spiritual requirement; "Rang" is the golden mean, and humility and tolerance is a basic requirement for individuals to deal with interpersonal relationships in society. Mr. Cha said that the original seven white marble archways in chaji were destroyed during the cultural revolution.

The existing memorial archway of chastity was built for a woman named Xu xiugu, with the four characters "qijiexingcheng". According to the analysis of the characters on the memorial archway, Xu xiugu came to Cha's home at the age of 14, but she was not married. Her future husband died of illness, and she was widowed all her life as a virgin. She's probably here for joy. This memorial archway may reflect the guilt of the cha clan towards Xu xiugu. They feel a little sorry for her and set up a memorial archway to praise her highly. But at the same time, we can also imagine how authoritative the power of the patriarchal society was in those years. In chaji, there was always the saying that "three wonderful flowers were carved to complement each other". Three carvings are wood, brick and stone carvings used in architecture. In chaji's dwellings, ancestral halls, memorial archways, bridges, tombs and other buildings, the figures of the three sculptures are scattered everywhere, either elegant, or powerful, or complex, with different poses and magnificent. From here, we can see the ancients' stress on living objects, their professionalism in construction, and their unremitting pursuit of beauty.

Chaji is a simple jade stored in the deep mountains and valleys, which has become gray and elegant with the infiltration of years. Four mountains surround it like giant palms, and it is a treasure of thousands of years of cultivation in the palms. Chaji is said to be a deep mountain Jasper, and only treats it as a thing. It is also feasible to regard it as a tranquil and patient old man. He is open-minded and does not fight with the secular world. He is only willing to keep his home alone. When I think about it, I think chaji is a walking girl. Her youth is everywhere. Her fresh face is rippling with the rhythm of life. Green mountains are her coat, white clouds are her sleeves, and Linquan is her blood. The simple and honest folk customs that have been going down for thousands of years are her pure heart.

Architectural features

There are 108 bridges, 108 ancestral halls and 108 temples in chaji village. Now there are more than 140 ancient buildings. Among them, there are more than 40 bridges, 30 ancestral halls and 4 temples.

The "Degang hall house" built in the Yuan Dynasty is located in shuishuilang lane of the village. It has a three-story gatehouse. The front eaves of the hall are low. The eaves and columns are made of nanmu, thick, short and round. The column foundation is covered with plates, without carving. Yongqing hall and Jinshi gate in Ming Dynasty are exquisitely carved and constructed. Chaji village is a well preserved ancient architectural complex.

Climatic characteristics

Chaji village has a subtropical monsoon humid climate with four distinct seasons. The annual average temperature is about 16 ℃, the annual average rainfall is about 1300 mm, and the annual frost free period is about 230 days.

Architecture

The ancient residential buildings of Ming and Qing Dynasties are located on both sides of the chaji river. There are 80 buildings of Ming Dynasty and 109 buildings of Qing Dynasty. Almost all of the Ming and Qing Dynasties buildings are carved with beams and cornices. Among them, the houses such as De Gong hall, Song Qing hall and AI RI hall are tall and magnificent with exquisite structure. In particular, the four column three-story archway style gatehouse with five Dougong roofs and slightly angled three-story covering gatehouse is simple, elegant and majestic. On the back, auspicious patterns such as Erlong Xizhu, Danfeng Chaoyang, yuyuelongmen, lion rolling Hydrangea are carved with exquisite techniques. Ancient carvings, brick carvings and wood carvings can be seen everywhere in chaji. The wood carvings of the door and window lattice, the stone carvings of the column base of the hall, and the brick carvings of the gate of the gatehouse are all intricately carved and exquisitely carved, with different pictures, or flowers and birds, or animals, or figures, all of which are lifelike; the house structure is multi-level, or three-level, or four-level, with a "four water to hall" type patio in the entrance, and a "beauty's back" is set along the corridor outline of the patio; the wall base is built with stones, and the column base is made of stone Round carved stone, green brick wall, black tile house. The traditional double draped roof is half hidden and half exposed, hiding behind the overlapping gables.

The gable above the roof can not only prevent the fire from spreading, but also have the function of anti-theft. The gables are rich in shapes, such as cloud shape, bow shape, ladder shape, etc., and the top of the wall is like a horse head. The appearance of these ancient dwellings are all green bricks and black tiles. It is not that the ancient chaji people had no financial resources or aesthetic consciousness. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, most chaji people were engaged in business and there were many rich businessmen

Chinese PinYin : Cha Ji Gu Zhen