Chengzi Village

Chengzi Village

Chengzi Village belongs to Yongning Township, Luxi County, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province. It is located 25 kilometers south of Luxi County, Yunnan Province. It is a rare ancient village. The village is the seat of the fifth generation of sergeants in guangxifu of Ming Dynasty, The whole village is built close to the mountain, and the soil storehouses form a series of steps. The most are 17, generally more than 10. The roofs of many soil storehouses are joined together to form a platform of tens of meters or even hundreds of meters. There are more than 1000 soil storehouses in the village, which are connected from head to tail, or from left to right, and combine the villagers and families into one. It's unique and rare. The population of the village is 204.

In January 2019, Chengzi Village was selected as the seventh batch of famous historical and cultural villages in China.

Famous cultural village

Chengzi Village was the settlement area of Yi People's ancestors, and then a large number of Han people moved in, forming a perfect combination of Yi and Han architectural styles. The village primary and secondary schools have a history of more than 100 years. Zhang Chong, the late vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese people's Political Consultative Conference and a famous patriotic general of the Yi nationality, once studied here. During the war of liberation, Panbei headquarters of Yunnan Guangxi Guizhou border column was set up here. With its unique historic landscape and strong cultural atmosphere, the village is known locally as "the Potala Palace in Luxi". Song Linhua, a scenic spot expert of the Ministry of construction and a researcher of geographical science and resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, believes that the houses in Chengzi Village meet the first, second, third, fourth and fifth criteria for applying for world cultural heritage. In 2003, Luxi County Party committee and county government declared the village as "Yunnan famous historical and cultural village" and "Yunnan tourism town".

have a long history

The reason why this village is concerned is that it has a long history of more than 300 years. Secondly, it is a "city". These earth storehouses are called "tuzhangfang" in Ailao Mountain Area of Yunnan Province. However, the biggest difference between the earth storehouses here and the earth storehouses in other places is that they are concentrated, built close to the mountain, accessible to every household and connected to every family. The roof of many families is the platform and yard for drying grain of one family above. Most of the villages are eight earth bungalows with three rooms and two ears. Whether it is one or two floors, there is a 5-6 square meter skylight in the middle of the courtyard. One is for ventilation and light transmission, and the other is for convenient walking on the roof. There is a wooden ladder in the patio, and you can get to other people on the roof. Because there are wooden ladders up and down, and every household is connected by a platform, as long as you enter one family, you can enter another family from the platform until you pass through the whole village. Therefore, the whole village is like a labyrinth. Thirdly, the village is simple and kind-hearted. When you see strangers, the villagers take the initiative to greet them warmly and invite them to their own home for dinner.

Chengzi Village was originally a city. As early as the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, the ancestors of the Yi nationality began to open up wasteland and build houses here. In the Qing Dynasty, the chieftain magistrate of the Yi nationality who ruled Qiubei, Maitreya and Luxi moved from central town (now Luxi County) to Chengzi Village. The expensive yamen of the chieftain magistrate was built on the top of the mountain, which was very powerful. At that time, the city flourished. There was a towering city wall at the foot of the mountain, a moat under the city wall, a suspension bridge on the moat, and gun positions and gun holes on the gate tower of the east city, guarded by soldiers of the Tusi mansion. Jiangxi street and other streets were built in the city, and Han people from other places moved in at this time. In the era of war and chaos, this local storehouse community adapted to the needs of being able to attack and defend, and found its source on both sides. In more than 300 years, it has experienced many wars and foreign invasion, but it has never been broken down. In the village, Li's courtyard, which was awarded the title of "ruiyong batulu" by the court in the early Qing Dynasty, is the largest earthen storehouse with exquisite craftsmanship.

In order to do a good job in protection and development, Luxi County Party committee and government have invested more than 200000 yuan in planning and construction of the village, built a parking lot, improved environmental sanitation, carried out original restoration of "general's house", "sister wall" and "angtusi's house" and other scenic spots, and formulated tourist routes for scenic spots. The village has been connected with Shilin scenic spot, ALU ancient cave in Luxi, jiuxishan Forest Park and Puzhehei scenic spot in Qiubei.

architectural style

Chengzi Village is not far from Luxi County. In Yongning Township, 25 kilometers away, the local people told me that the best time of the day in Chengzi Village is when the sun is born in the early morning, because the gorgeous morning glow and the Yellow ancient dwellings reflect each other. So, the next morning, we ran to Chengzi Village along the perfect line of Panshan road. The fields outside the car soak in the early morning light. The grazing Yi girls, the golden corn hanging under the eaves, and clusters of fiery red peppers make up the colorful wide oil paintings.

Far away, on the hillside a certain distance away from it, we saw a large area of magnificent earth Palm House growing on the mountain, which was the first impression it gave me. Tuzhangfang is not rare in the Yi area of Honghe. Previously, I saw it in many places in central and Southeast Yunnan. However, it is the first time that I saw a large area, large scale and well preserved tuzhangfang like Chengzi Village.

Our driver is also a local. Seeing us taking photos all the way, he said that he would take us to a place with the best view, so we followed him to the West Phoenix Mountain. Indeed, there is a complete view of the whole village, with more than 600 complete earthen palm houses in the shape of castles, soaking in the soft light of sunrise, warm and solemn.

After entering the village, what we saw was really quite different from the style of the earth Palm House in other places. However, due to the limited time, we left in a hurry after a bit of sightseeing, but we always thought about it and felt that it must have a bright future. In the next few years, in order to have a comprehensive understanding of Chengzi Village, I often went to Chengzi Village and wanted to make a special topic for it. I became good friends with Li Yunfu, the head of Chengzi Village, and Yang Yongming, the local writer. I benefited a lot from their contacts. It was they who made me understand Chengzi Village step by step.

The first is the earth Palm House. This is a kind of Yi folk architecture, very similar to the Tibetan style stone building, flat top, thick, mostly built on the slope, with stone as the wall base, adobe walls or earth walls, mostly bungalows, some for two or three floors. Compared with these commonalities, what is the most special place of tuzhangfang in Chengzi Village?

From outside the village, the most impressive must be its size and appearance. The village's earth palm houses are all built in accordance with the mountain situation, layer upon layer, connected from top to bottom, and connected from left to right. The largest one is 24 families, connected from left to right, with a total of 17 levels, like a small fortress in a big castle, which is very spectacular. From a distance, the layered and bottom-up earth palm houses look like long steps. If it comes to autumn harvest, villagers will pile up grain stacks on the roof, making the whole village more like a heavily guarded bunker.

Li Yunfu said: these earth palm houses have a history of hundreds of years. Why can they be completely preserved? This is closely related to the building materials of tuzhang house, but it needs careful observation after entering the village. This kind of rare earth Palm House is mainly made of local trees with strong water resistance and corrosion resistance and clay with strong viscosity. The walls around the house are made of wood or rammed earth, and the roof is paved with firewood, sticks, pine needles and clay. After being leveled, it is hammered with sticks. Its biggest advantage is that it is warm in winter and cool in summer. Because Chengzi Village is located in a low altitude Canyon, it is hard to stop hot and dry in summer, and it is very cold in winter, so the soil Palm House plays a very good role in protection. And the fire performance is good, because the back wall of the house is a mountain, the two sides are soil columns, the top is soil pressure wood, even if there is an occasional fire, it will not affect the neighbors. For hundreds of years, no fire was recorded in Chengzi Village.

We have seriously summed up the characteristics of Chengzi Village tuzhangfang. In fact, it is the style reflected in the combination of inside and outside that is really different from the others. For example, tuzhangfang was originally a folk building of the Yi nationality. It was purely Yi in appearance, but its interior structure and decoration had a strong Han flavor. We once lived in a building called "jiangjundi"

In the courtyard of the largest house in the village, you can see the typical structure of the Han Nationality: octagonal cornice, quadrangle courtyard, carved dragons and painted phoenixes.

Historical legend

But in Chengzi Village, where ethnic minorities are so concentrated and located in remote areas, why is there such a combination? After several in-depth investigations with Yang Yongming, the answer gradually became clear.

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the imperial court generally changed the Tusi system of Yunnan into Liuguan (mostly Han nationality) by changing the local Tusi (mostly minority nationality). In this way, the upper class was ruled by Han nationality. After the change, the government moved in a large number of immigrants, mostly Han nationality. Therefore, the upper and lower classes had the Han nationality factor. According to the records of Luxi County annals, Chengzi Village was an area inhabited by the Yi people in ancient times, but today most of the Yi people in Yongning Township migrate from the Jinsha River Basin. After the Han people moved in, they would have contact and run in with the local Yi people in all aspects, and the final result, in the most superficial performance, is the combination of Han and Yi.

But why is there such a large scale? Today, there is still a moat outside Chengzi Village, and its shape and planning is completely the pattern of a castle. It can be imagined that it must have been a very splendid city in the past. Today, it is only a township, which is related to the local officials at that time.

During the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, the local magistrate of Guangxi (now Luxi) built a Tusi yamen here and changed it (the old name of Chengzi Village) to Yong'an Prefecture. The arrival of expensive chieftain made Chengzi Village develop rapidly and quickly

Chinese PinYin : Cheng Zi Cun