Guanger house

Guanger house

Guanger house is located in Shiqiaotou village, Xiba Town, Liantan Town, Yunan County, Guangdong Province. Local villagers call it "Qing Dynasty Castle". In fact, this "ancient castle" is neither a noble Castle nor a military fortress, but an ordinary mansion for the reproduction of the common people.

Human history

The owner of guanger big house is Qiu, ranking second. Because of his baldness, he is called guanger. It took him and his five sons 10 years to build the house. It has been nearly 200 years since it was first built in the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty. The whole house is square, covering an area of 10 mu, with 136 rooms. The highest part of the roof is about 20 meters, and the outside is surrounded by a one meter thick wall. The highest part of the wall is 13 meters.

The big house is a green gray fortress with five in and five in internal structure. There are 136 rooms (it is said that each room is a family). When the population was the most prosperous, there were more than 700 people living here. Except for the family members, they are all descendants of Qiu family. There are sun farms, halls, warehouses and living houses. After closing the door for a few months, the people inside can be self-sufficient, just like a small kingdom. In terms of building structure, the big house fully considers the functions of fire prevention, anti-theft and flood control. It is the only big enclosed house with these three functions in China.

Architectural function

Guanger big house stands on the beach of Nanjiang river. Every year, the water of Nanjiang river rises, and it is inevitable to be flooded. If the people in the big house want to survive and avoid the fate of leaving their hometown, they must prevent flood. In addition, bandits often come to eat big families in troubled times, and the big house should consider anti-theft. The whole building is of brick and wood structure. What should we do in case of enemy fire attack, so we need to consider fire prevention. Based on these three points, when the Qiu family was building this "fortress", they did a lot of work on the walls, doors and internal drainage system. Therefore, the walls, doors and internal drainage system of guanger house fully reflect the survival wisdom of the people and ensure its stable standing for 200 years. The wall that experts call breathing, the wooden anti-theft door with nine vertical and five horizontal, the sink on the door and so on, attract countless tourists to explore. Guanger house is located in Shiqiaotou village, Xiba Town, Liantan Town, Yunan County. It was first built in the 15th year of Jiaqing (1811) of the Qing Dynasty and took ten years to complete. Qiu Yuanqing, the founder of the big house, is known as Zehui and Runfang. Because of his bald head, he ranks second among his brothers. People call him "guanger", the house "guanger big house", also known as "Qing Dynasty Castle" and "Guangyi big house".

Light two big house sit northeast to southwest, with compass measurement is "sit Gen to Kun and ugly not". The whole building is square, low in the front and high in the back. The internal structure is divided into five parts. Each part is separated by a patio and connected with the front and rear halls on both sides. The last part of the roof is the duty room, which is the highest point of the whole house. It can monitor the movement around the big house. The front seat faces southwest, the front door is in the middle, and there is a side door on both sides. There are 136 large and small rooms in the house, including a well, a warehouse, a mill, a rice threshing room, a secret room, a sun drying yard, etc. It is understood that when the Qiu family had the most prosperous population, there were more than 700 people living here.

The most distinctive feature of this Qing Dynasty castle is that it follows the principles of geomancy to select the site and determine the orientation of the building, and imitates the palace building in layout. There is an obvious central axis in the center of the big house. The front door and the main building are located on the central axis, and other rooms are symmetrically distributed on both sides of the central axis, with compact structure and distinct primary and secondary.

In terms of defense function, the builders of the large house absorbed the experience of Hakka enclosed houses and made innovations. The door of guanger house can be inserted with three layers of wooden boards, which can be filled with mud and tamped. The wooden board, water and soil can work together to resist the pressure of flood more than enough. In addition, there are nine vertical and five horizontal wooden security doors against thieves. If the burglar burns the door with fire, the wooden door can also be safe, because the round hole on the top of the door can be filled with water to put out the fire.

In case of continuous rain and waterlogging, a wooden pumping device is installed at the stairs of the big house to pump the water out of the house in time. In case of external flood and waterlogging, people moved from the first floor to the second floor. The second floor was connected with the house, and many iron rings were set up and spare boats were tied. These boats became the means of transportation for people to communicate with each other in the big house. According to reports, when the flood broke out in the 1960s in Nanjiang River, which is only more than 80 meters away from guanger Dawu, villagers of Shiqiaotou village in Xiba went to Dawu to avoid the disaster.

In addition to the anti-theft function of the gate, on the top of the wall of the big house, there are passages around, a lookout platform, and 16 gun holes on the wall. It is said that during the Anti Japanese War, a small Japanese detachment fled to Shiqiaotou village in Xiba. When they saw that guangerdaowu had many organs, they did not dare to attack rashly.

architectural style

In terms of architectural style, guanger house retains the characteristics of Lingnan ancient architecture. From a distance, the phoenix tail and wok ear wall on the roof of guanger house are particularly attractive.

As for the Fengshui pattern of guanger mansion, some people call it "crocodile Shanghai", and Qiu's descendants call it "Aoyu Shanghai", which means that the mansion is like a crocodile or a fish by the Nanjiang River, the gate is like a fish mouth, facing the Nanjiang River, the tallest building behind the mansion is like a fish tail, and the mansion is like a big fish bowing its head and opening its mouth, with the momentum of swallowing the wealth of Nanjiang river. The author thinks that it is more appropriate to describe the Fengshui pattern of guanger house as "Aoyu Shanghai", because Aoyu was the mascot symbolizing the examination in ancient times. There is a couplet in front of the middle door of guanger house: "Heaven teaches dragon and tiger mountain with two pillows, and the boundary between East and West is a Jin". This couplet properly summarizes the geographical environment and geomantic pattern of guanger house. Behind the house, there are Huyan mountain in the East and Longyan mountain in the West. These two mountains are the "backers" of the house. In front of the house, Nanjiang river flows gently from the South and bends northward around the left side of the house As the river flows, it divides a whole beach into two parts, East and West, forming a natural boundary between the East and West. This is the pattern of "collecting water and going to the church". The "mountain management" is the pattern of "mountain management" and "mountain management" is the pattern of "mountain management".

Guanger big house has unique structure and exquisite decoration. The gray carvings, wood carvings and murals inside the house are magnificent. Even the design of the main patio floor tiles is unique. For example, the second patio floor tiles are arranged in "Gong" pattern, which means hard work outside; the third patio floor tiles are arranged in "Hui" pattern, which means don't forget to go home; the fourth patio floor tiles are arranged in "Gong" pattern, which means hard work outside The word "human" implies that people live in harmony and prosperity.

Address: Shiqiaotou village, Xiba, Liantan Town, Yunan County, Guangdong Province

Longitude: 111.72519808466

Latitude: 22.930610014252

Chinese PinYin : Guang Er Da Wu