Shijiagou

Shijiagou

Shijiagou is located 5 kilometers away from Fenxi county. The Qing Dynasty cave dwellings in Shijiagou flourished in the 32nd year of Qianlong. It is said that it was built after the four brothers of Shijiagou became officials. Over 200 years, after several generations of careful construction and expansion, it has formed a cluster type and family type complex with a total area of more than 50000 square meters. Its architectural style is typical of the northern and Shanxi residential characteristics, divided into two parts of the main and ancillary buildings. Shijiagou enjoys the reputation of "the first village in the world" in the Qing Dynasty because of its peculiar, elegant and prosperous architecture

brief introduction

Shijiagou is a folk architecture group of Shanxi merchants, which can be compared with the famous Wangs and qiaos. The terrain is high in the north and low in the south, surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the ditch in the south. As recorded in Yao's genealogy of the village, "you can see the village facing the sun, beautiful mountains and rivers, elegant scenery, the two veins of dragon and tiger are connected, and you can see the ground where you have lived for a long time."

Historical origin

The formation of Shijiagou and the popularity of shijiayuan are closely related to the rise and fall of Shijiagou family. The huge Shi family has gone through the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and has developed for three or four hundred years. Its reproduction and development has gone through the process from prosperity to decline. After nearly a hundred years of hard work, the third generation of shifaze gradually developed and expanded. At that time, it was the heyday of Emperor Qianlong. With the rapid development of the feudal commercial economy, the family of the teacher was working to study the descendants, the combination of agriculture and commerce, the concurrent operation of banks and pawnshops, the usury, the rolling development, the continuous accumulation of funds, and gradually became one of the ranks of Shanxi merchants.

The Shi family, like other Shanxi merchants, used their money to buy land, expand their family business and build houses. They spared no expense, after more than 200 years, built a vast area of luxury courtyard, in order to show wealth. In the process of architecture, due to the constraints of traditional feudal concepts and folk customs, the architectural layout has a typical feudal hierarchy concept, and the decorative art is full of rich folk customs. The architecture can meet the requirements of external contact, concealment and privacy. It not only reflects the patriarchal code of ethics, such as the distinction between the superior and the inferior, the distinction between the superior and the inferior, the order between the superior and the inferior, the relationship between the young and the old, the difference between the inside and the outside, and the return of men and women, but also fully shows the times, society and nationality of the architecture, and also presents its traditional basis On the basis of this, we can find three trends: variability, balance and conservatism.

architectural style

Shijiagou is famous for the residence of Shi nationality. It was first built in 1769 of Qianlong reign of Qing Dynasty. It was gradually expanded by four phases of Jiaqing, Daoguang, Xianfeng and Tongzhi. It covers an area of more than ten hectares and is divided into two parts: main body and subsidiary buildings. There are 31 courtyards of different sizes in the Shijia courtyard. The main buildings are Siheyuan, Erjin Siheyuan, Siheyuan on the second floor and Siheyuan on the third floor. There are main rooms, living rooms, side rooms, halls, study rooms, embroidery buildings, moon watching rooms, gatehouses and stables.

The front of the courtyard is connected by a roadway, and the narrow and long roadway uses the traditional moon gate to separate the space. The courtyard and the courtyard are connected skillfully, either through the dark road, or out of the side door, or up the stairs to connect with other courtyards. It can be said that "when you walk into a courtyard, you will visit the whole village.". The main building is surrounded by a sidewalk paved with rectangular stones, which is more than 1500 meters long. Therefore, there is another saying that "shoes are not wet when it rains for half a month". The whole village has both horizontal space and vertical space penetration, which fully reflects the characteristics of the hilly and gully areas, such as taking advantage of the mountains and climbing up the building on kilns, and integrating into the spatial layout of more courtyard houses in plain areas.

Looking around, the whole building complex is naturally connected with the mountain, blending into a whole, with layers of buildings and courtyards in a row. The magnificent landscape is permeated with the masculinity of the Loess Plateau. It can be said that it is a classic of Mountain Architecture and a model of farming civilization. Its unique style of space treatment, terrain utilization, cave dwelling, architectural decoration, carving and calligraphy is incomparable to many Shanxi Merchants' mansion. Its construction ideas are also worthy of reference. It was once recognized by the international academic circle of ancient architecture as "the first village in the world" for the expansion and utilization of space in mountainous areas.

It is worth mentioning that the architectural carving art is the concentrated embodiment of the folk customs in Qing Dynasty. The wood carving, stone carving and brick carving are respectively decorated with Dou Gong, que Ti, hang, pillar, Zhao Bi, Pillar Stone, plaque, curtain frame, door cover and other aspects, with various styles and rich contents. Taking "Shou" as an example, there are 108 kinds of window lattice patterns.

Shijiagou enjoys the reputation of "the first village in the world" in the Qing Dynasty because of its peculiar, elegant and prosperous architecture. It also survives hundreds of years of turbulence and war because of its remote location. Shijiagou, with its high-grade cultural content, has been gradually discovered and recognized its unique value.

Art works

Art work Shijiagou

The author is a member of China Museum Association, a national first-class artist, the first person to paint the former residences of Chinese celebrities, the first person to paint the famous historical and cultural cities, towns, villages and streets of China, and the famous painter Mr. thumb.

Shi Family

Shijiagou village, Qiangou village and wayaogeta village in sengnian Town, zhangwagou village and Yaoli village in Heping Town have the distribution of Shi surname. 800-1000 people come from Shijiagou. In the early Qing Dynasty, it was a famous family in central and southern Shanxi Province. Due to various reasons, the teachers' family began to decline in the Xianfeng Period of the Qing Dynasty.

[celebrities and sages]

Learn from the law

The third generation. The founder of Shijia courtyard.

Renhou, born in the early years of Qianlong, was lonely and poor in his childhood. As an adult, he began to do business and became more and more popular. Soon, the financial resources of the teachers' family became abundant. In business at the same time, teachers pay great attention to cultural education. Among the 28 members of the fifth and sixth generations, 11 of them have won such titles as Jiansheng, Gongsheng, Zengsheng and wusheng. The combination of Confucianism and business greatly improved the social status of teachers. Shifaze himself also enjoyed a certain reputation and social status in the eight neighboring townships at that time due to his good governance and high prestige, and was promoted as a local drinking guest.

Shi Mingfeng

The fifth generation. In the 15th year of Daoguang (1835), he donated to the county magistrate of zangjiang Dong Autonomous County, Hunan Province. In the 29th year of Daoguang (1849), he was promoted to Xiangxiang county magistrate of Hunan Province. He had a close relationship with Zeng's brothers, who had not yet made a fortune at that time, and spent a lot of effort to promote Zeng Guoquan into his official career. In the second year of Xianfeng (1852), due to his military contributions and the title of Tongzhi, he became one of the prominent figures in the official circles of the Shi family, paving the way for his family's official career. In the early years of Guangxu (1875), Zeng Guoquan became the governor of Shanxi Province. He opened the middle door to Shi Mingfeng, who was telling him to return to his hometown and visit Taiyuan. He welcomed Shi Mingfeng from afar with a long ceremony. He had a feast and entertained Shi Mingfeng for many days, and made a great contribution to the friendship of his old friends. Zeng Guofan, the then governor of Liangjiang, also sent letters and money to express his gratitude. Zeng Guoquan personally wrote a fine plaque of "dafudi", which was inscribed with the title of Xiang county magistrate and baoqingzhou teacher Mingfeng, and inscribed with the title of Zhili governor and Shanxi governor Zeng. Later, an important person was sent to send Shi Mingfeng back to his hometown with eight sedan chairs. Through Taigu, Qixian, Pingyao, Jiexiu, Lingshi and Huozhou, the officials of each state and county went out to meet and see off with extraordinary style. Then a grand plaque ceremony was held in Shijiagou, where Pingyang Prefecture magistrate, fangyuanzhou county officials and celebrities all came to congratulate the band and Troupe for more than a month. From then on, Shijiagou gained a great reputation and became the first village in the three Jin Dynasty, where officials and scholars did not pay attention.

Self examination

A stone archway at the entrance of Shijiagou village, after more than a hundred years of baptism, although some places have been destroyed, it is no less majestic. The stone memorial archway was built in 1857. It is said that the grandson of the master's family thought that he was ill and died at the age of 39. At that time, his 30-year-old wife, Zhao's, and 25-year-old Zhang's, did not remarry. They had been serving their parents-in-law and raising their children. His successor, shibingcheng, was proud of the officialdom and reported to the emperor for approval, and built this "filial piety archway". The shape of the archway is four pillars and three doors. There are eight wind bells hanging on the eight wings. When the wind blows, it will be more crisp in the dead of night. A total of 465 artifacts were carved on the stone archway, with 360 cats at most and 59 elephants at most. What these numbers represent is still a puzzle that is hard to solve.

Shi's genealogy

Traffic in scenic spots

To Fenxi County, you can take the train, get off in Huozhou City, transfer to a bus, or take a long-distance bus from Linfen, Jiexiu and Changzhi. It's cold to go to Fenxi in winter, and the roads in some mountainous areas are slippery, so we should pay attention to safety. To Shijiagou, you can take a bus to sengnian town in the county town, walk for about an hour, or rent a car from the county town. You can choose villagers' homes for food and accommodation.

Comprehensive restoration

Shijiagou enjoys the reputation of "the first village in the world" in the Qing Dynasty because of its peculiar, elegant and prosperous architecture. It also survives hundreds of years of turbulence and war because of its remote location. Shijiagou, with its high-grade cultural content, has been gradually discovered and recognized its unique value. In March last year, with its extraordinary charm, Shijiagou was recognized by Xi'an international heritage academic association as "the first village in the world for the expansion and utilization of space in mountainous areas", winning a glory for Shanxi.

In recent years, it has been vigorously supported by the state, provinces and cities

Chinese PinYin : Shi Jia Gou