Hakka enclosed house

Hakka enclosed house

Hakka enclosed house, also known as Weilong house, enclosed house and Hakka enclosure, is one of the three classic styles of Hakka dwellings (Hakka enclosed house, Hakka row house and Hakka Earth Building). It is a typical Hakka residential building with rich characteristics. It is one of the most common and preserved Hakka dwellings. It is known as "the ancient Roman castle in the East" and "the living fossil of Han Jin fortress", and has been recognized by Chinese and foreign architectural circles It is called the five characteristics of Chinese residential architecture.

Built in the Tang and Song Dynasties, the enclosed houses flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The enclosed house is one of the five major residential buildings in China, which combines the ancient style of the Central Plains and the regional characteristics of the southern culture. As long as the Hakkas live in concentrated areas, we can see traces of enclosed houses, mainly in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province

Huizhou

Heyuan, Meizhou and Shaoguan, Ganzhou in Jiangxi, Longyan and Sanming in Fujian, Hezhou and Yulin in Guangxi

And other Hakka settlements at home and abroad.

Cai Mengji's former residence is the representative of the famous Hakka circle

, Hehu xinju, dawanshiju, Jiuting shibajing, Tianfeng Shiju, Xinqiao Shiju, Xinqiao Shiju, dongshengwei, linzhai ancient village, huanshuilou, Maosheng Shiju, Hakka paiwu, Guanlan printmaking village, Longtian Shiju, xinziwei, guihutang laowei

Hongwei, Yutian Shiju, Chonglin Shiju, Nanyang Shiju, Datang Shiju, bijilou, sujiawei, sijiaolou, Zeng Sheng's former residence Nanhua Youlu, Renhou Wengong temple, pan'anwei, Mantang Hakka Dawei, jinshidi, dongshengwei, shanshuwei, Chengde building, liyuanwei, renjinglu, Jiji building, Tai'an building, zhaoqingtang, Dexian building, lihuitang former residence, guangludi, chongqingdi, Ruan Xiaoxian former residence, Futian Shiju, Xipu new residence, Xiuling Shiju, Xuanqing new residence, Jishan building, lihemei, zhengpuling Shiju Yutian Shiju, Luolong Shiju, liangxiu xinju, Qiu Fengjia's former residence, changxingwei, jiruilu, niujiaowu, Guanglu Shiju, dihuaju, lianfanglou

Yuan Long Ji, Wang Wang Wu, Li He Mei, di Hua Wei, Da Liu Wu

And so on.

Historical origin

During the period from the Jin Dynasty to the Tang and Song Dynasties, the Han people in the Central Plains of the Yellow River Basin were forced to move southward due to war. After five times of great southward migration, they successively settled in Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hong Kong and the new territories in the south. Because they left the native land of the Central Plains, these Han people who moved southward always called themselves "Hakkas", implying that they wanted to live in other places. Therefore, there is a saying that "every mountain must have visitors, no visitors can not live in the mountains". Ancient local officials registered residence for these immigrants, and they were also called "guest names", which were called "customers" and "Hakkas". This is the origin of the Hakka appellation. In order to prevent the invasion of foreign enemies and wild animals, most Hakkas live together and form the Weilong house, Zoumalou, Wufeng house, Shiwei house, sijiaolou and so on. Among them, the Weilong house is the most famous and the most popular, which is the concentrated embodiment of Hakka architectural culture.

Walled houses began in the Tang and Song Dynasties and prevailed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Hakkas adopt the most advanced techniques of the traditional construction techniques in Central Plains, such as the combination of beam lifting and bucket wearing. They choose hilly areas or slope areas to build dragon houses. The main structure is "one entrance, three halls, two compartments and one enclosure". Most of them live in remote and remote mountainous areas. In order to prevent the harassment of thieves and the crowding out of local people, they built barracks houses in two forms: one is brick structure. 2： Special Adobe structure: mix lime in the soil, use glutinous rice and egg white as viscous agent, use bamboo slices and wooden strips as tendons, and tamp to build earth building with wall thickness of 1m and height of more than 15m. 3、 Granite banded structure (such as longguangwei, Longnan, Jiangxi). The common Weilong house covers an area of 8 mu or 10 mu, while the area of the big Weilong house is more than 30 mu. It often takes five or ten years or even longer to build a complete Weilong house. A dragon house is a great fortress for Hakkas. There are several bedrooms, kitchens, halls, wells, pigsty, chicken coop, toilet, warehouse and other living facilities in the house, forming a self-sufficient and happy social group.

Meizhou, Shenzhen, Huizhou and Heyuan in Guangdong Province, Ganzhou in Jiangxi Province, Longyan in Fujian Province and the new territories in Hong Kong are the main areas where Hakkas live. Hakka houses, the traditional residence of Hakka people, are mainly distributed in eastern Guangdong, northern Guangdong, southern Jiangxi, Dongjiang River Basin, Shenzhen and Hong Kong around the Pearl River Estuary. They are rich in connotation and colorful in form. They are precious historical and cultural heritage. The Hakka enclosed houses in Guangdong and Hong Kong can be divided into 15 types, among which the Dragon enclosed houses, the castle enclosed houses, the watchtowers in Shenzhen and the quadrangle buildings are the most distinctive.

Layout style

No matter how big or small the Weilong house is, there must be a Heping and a half moon shaped pond in front of the gate. The Heping is used for drying grain, enjoying the cool and other activities. The pond has the functions of water storage, fish culture, fire prevention and drought prevention. Inside the gate, there are three halls: upper, middle and lower, and two or four compartments on the left and right. It is commonly known as the cross room, which extends backward. At the end of the left and right cross rooms, a wall shaped house is built to encircle the main room. There are more than ten small rooms and more than twenty large rooms. The middle one is called "dragon hall", so it is called "Weilong" house. Generally, there are only one or two fenced dragons in a small one, while there are four, five or even six fenced dragons in a large one. In hualuodunluo house in Xingning, there is a six fenced dragon house. In architecture, the common feature of the enclosed house is that it takes the North-South meridian as the central axis, the East and west sides are symmetrical, the front is low and the back is high, the primary and secondary are clear, the location is orderly, and the layout is regular. It combines the pond in front of the house and the "dragon" behind the main hall into a whole, with the hall and patio as the center to set up dozens or hundreds of living units, which is suitable for dozens, more than 100 or hundreds of people to live in one house There are also study rooms and martial arts training rooms, which are amazing.

Weilong style Wailou

It is also called semicircular or square enclosure, mainly distributed in Meizhou, Huizhou, Heyuan, Shenzhen of Guangdong Province and Ganzhou of Jiangxi Province. The Dragon enclosed house is the most common type in the enclosed house, which is the embodiment of the typical Hakka traditional etiquette and ethics, geomantic omen and philosophy. Generally, the enclosed houses are built on the back of the hillside, and their structure is based on the main hall or hall house in the middle. The main hall is generally two to three entrances in square structure, which is divided into upper hall, middle hall and lower Hall (three entrances). On the left and right sides of the main hall are horizontal rooms with the same square structure. From the main hall to the outside, the concentric semicircular housing structure is expanded layer by layer, and each layer is called a "Wai" or a "Weilong". The number of storeys of the Dragon enclosure is generally equal to the number of rows of the horizontal house on one side. The common dragon houses include "two halls, two horizons and one dragon" (there is a main hall in the middle, a row of horizontal rooms on both sides, corresponding to a layer of dragon), "three halls, two horizons and one dragon", "four horizons and one dragon" (one dragon corresponds to two rows of horizontal rooms), "four horizons and two dragons" (two dragons), etc., which can reach as many as "ten horizons and five dragons".

Generally, there is a semicircular pond in front of the Dragon House, which makes it look like a Tai Chi pattern: the land house is Yang, and the water in front of the house is Yin. This is also the embodiment of Fengshui Theory in Hakka culture.

Circular enclosure

Typical: the round dragon houses of Fujian Tulou, or Tulou, yuanlou or yuanzhai for short, are mainly distributed in the west of Fujian. Because of its round shape and fully enclosed design, it was known to the world earlier. The Hakka style round house may be the result of the combination of the Hakka Round House of Weilong style and the earth building of Fulao people in Southern Fujian. Compared with the Hakka enclosed houses, the round earth building has stronger defensive function. To build a round building, special loess is needed. The newly excavated yellow mud is piled up for three months. After a special fermentation process, the "cooked mud" is formed. After several mixing procedures, the boiled glutinous rice slurry is added with black sugar or honey, and then poured into the cooked mud to stir together. Since Zhao'an came to Yunlin, Taiwan, Zhao'an visitors may not be able to find suitable building materials in the local area, so they can't build round buildings. They can only build houses in the shape of "Fei" and form a village.

Square Wailou

Typical: quadrangle building. The square buildings are mainly distributed in southern Jiangxi and northern Guangdong, also known as quadrangle building. As with the circular Wailou, the quadrangle building focuses on the defensive nature of the building. Generally, there are two to four storey Wailou on the four sides, and the four corners are watchtowers or turrets, just like fortresses. In the middle, the ancestral hall form of "three halls and two horizons" is still maintained, or condensed into a ancestral hall. The representative square houses include dongshengwei, Longnan Guanxi Xinwei and yanyiwei in Anyuan, Jiangxi Province. Dongshengwei is the largest Hakka square house in China. Guanxi Xinwei and yanyiwei have been listed as national key cultural relics protection units and declared as world cultural heritage in 2019.

Chonglin Shiju, located in dashanxia village, Zhenlong Town, Huiyang District, Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, is the largest Hakka enclosed house in Huizhou City, Guangdong Province (the second largest in Guangdong Province)

Oval Wailou

The oval enclosure is the front apron (originally the part of the pond) of the general dragon enclosure, which is also called the front enclosure, thus becoming a shape similar to a football field with a runway. This kind of enclosure is more defensive than the Dragon enclosure. Representative examples are "Wei Nan Tang" in tufang Township, Changting County, Western Fujian Province, and Weilong Wu community in Dongshi, Taichung.

The design and construction of Weilong house are scientific, practical and ornamental, showing the outstanding talent and superb skills of Hakka ancestors. Weilongwu, together with Beijing Quadrangle, Shaanxi cave, Guangxi bar style and Yunnan yikeyin, is known by Chinese and foreign architectural circles as China's five major characteristics of residential buildings, and also as the "exotic flower of world residential buildings". Today, the Hakkas have stepped out of the enclosed dragon house and gone to the West

Chinese PinYin : Ke Jia Wei Wu