Sanmentang

Sanmentang

Sanmentang, the secret ancestral temple beside Qingshui River, is located in the middle and lower reaches of Qingshui River, surrounded by water on three sides. It is a unique ancestral temple and a Dong village with rich cultural connotation. It can be called the open-air folk custom museum in the northern Dong dialect area.

brief introduction

Sanmentang village is an ancient Dong village by Qingshui River. More than 5000 years ago, the three surnames Yan, Xie and Wang, who moved in from Hunan, had their own doors, so they were called Sanmentang. It is also said that there are gates in the Middle East, West and south of the village, which are called Sanmentang. This village is one of the 48 famous Dong villages, which has been recorded for a long time in history. There are 19 surnames, 300 households and 1500 people in the village. It is a typical ethnic village.

Sanmentang, a secret ancestral temple beside Qingshui River. The development of Sanmentang is due to the development of wood industry and the inconvenience of transportation in Guizhou in the early years. It was not until the Han Dynasty that the first plank road came into Guizhou, and it was rugged and difficult to walk, which gave rise to the allusions of "Yelang arrogance" and "the donkey of Guizhou". Most of the real freight and passenger transport rely on waterway, thus creating such important water and land towns as Zhenyuan and Rongjiang. The Wujiang River, Qingshui River and Duliu River in Guizhou have become the lifeblood of economy and transportation. Sanmentang is also a big village developed in this period.

Sanmentang is located in the middle and lower reaches of Qingshui River. In ancient times, Qingshui River was delimited by Yangdu river. The upper reaches were called Neijiang River and the lower reaches Waijiang river. Wood merchants from other provinces are not allowed to purchase wood in Neijiang. They can only purchase wood from Sanmentang, Benchu and Qinglang villages. As a result, the Sanmentang with gentle water became a gathering place for wood merchants from all provinces, reaching its peak in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. At that time, there were a large number of people working on the rafts, repairing and sorting the rafts. According to the old people, in the 1950s, we could still see the Sanmentang wharf full of wooden boats and the river full of wooden rafts. The situation was quite spectacular. Sanmentang people are not only rich, but also broaden their horizons, which is a unique phenomenon of multi-cultural integration. The Dong people are divided into the north and the south. Sanmentang belongs to the North Dong. Only the ancestors of the former Sanmentang made a living by selling wood and accumulated a lot of wealth. At the same time, Sanmentang people, who had full communication with the outside world, not only went abroad, but also brought the European architectural style back to Dong Township, resulting in a combination of Chinese and Western architecture.

Sanmentang, a Dong village with rich cultural connotations, is deeply hidden in the hinterland of Miaoling by the Qingshui River. Among them, the colorful tree culture, unique water culture and long history stone culture are the most attractive. It can be called the folk custom museum of the northern Dong dialect area.

history

Sanmentang is located on the Bank of Qingshui River in the upper reaches of Yuanjiang River. It is an administrative village composed of four natural villages: Sanmentang, sanmenxi, wuyanxi and lalaizhai. There are 353 households and 1556 people in the village, all of them are Dong nationality. The villagers belong to 19 surnames, of which Wang, Liu and Wu are the three. According to the legend of the villagers, the ancestors have settled down here for more than 500 years.

Sanmentang village not only has a long history and profound cultural accumulation, but also has a simple national style. The villagers there are united as one family. Especially the hospitality protocol, the deep friendship of hospitality, is too thick to be erased. Several bars at the entrance of Sanmentang village fill the wine cups with Dong's hospitality, making the guests drunk before drinking; several kinds of Dong's camellia oil with different materials make the guests from afar quench their thirst and satisfy their hunger; homemade pickled meat and blood are full of fragrance, which is praised by the guests who have already enjoyed all kinds of food and delicacies in the north and the South; and the enthusiastic wine song of women in national costumes When seeing off the guests, the singing field rings and the guests walk a long way along the Qingshui River. There is also a warm welcome from the river breeze.

When you visit Sanmentang, you can explore the history of timber trading in Qingshui River, appreciate the architectural culture of Dong people, and appreciate the local ethnic customs. During the tour, you can not only enjoy the green mountains, green waters and idyllic scenery, but also visit the farmhouse and enjoy the comfortable and quiet rural life.

When you walk into Sanmentang village, there are many well protected ancient trees, including gingko, metasequoia, beech, camphor, fine silk and other rare tree species. Moreover, each tree is numbered, and its name is written on a small board and hung on the tree. Camphor trees, Liquidambar formosana and other trees, tall and straight, shade a corner, to visitors up and down the river to show the village's long history.

There is also the neat and well preserved ancient stele standing at the gate of the village, which records the villagers' process of raising funds to build Yidu boats and bridges and roads from Ming Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, reflecting the local people's enthusiasm for public welfare since ancient times. The roads leading to all places in the village are paved with large stone slabs, or inlaid with pebbles of Qingshui River into flower steps, which are very neat. The two roads in the village are paved with stone slabs, which are convenient for people to walk. At the crossroad, this stele of "shiliukaoxiang" records the process of road construction. On the hillside behind the village, there are three wells, which were built by the village women spontaneously. A stele beside each well records the names and the number of coins of the workover workers and the women who lost money, indicating that the women in the village are also as enthusiastic about public welfare as men.

The two stone arch bridges and the two stone slab bridges here were built 400 years ago. They are still strong and strong for people to walk. Dozens of tall and towering fire sealed brick houses are decorated with different patterns, which are magnificent and beautiful. Each brick house has a Taiping cylinder, which is inlaid with five big Bluestone slabs. The stone slab on the front is carved with various exquisite patterns, such as double dragons playing with pearls, danfengchaoyang, hundred birds singing in spring, fish leaping over the dragon's gate, etc.

There are two ancestral halls in the village. This is Taiyuan ancestral hall, the ancestral hall of the Wang family. Built in 1908, covering an area of 300 square meters, the exterior wall is made of green brick and pointed with white ash, which is very firm. On the whitewashed wall, all kinds of flower patterns are painted with ink and wash. On the top of the gate, clay sculptures in the shape of six cabbages are vivid and eye-catching. On the walls and pillars, there is a dragon winding pattern, inlaid with porcelain from Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, to make dragon scales, shining in the sun. On both sides above the lintel, there are various figures, reliefs and paintings. One hundred meters apart is the ancestral hall of Liu's family, with a more unique shape. Liu's ancestral hall, covering an area of 250 square meters, was first built in the early years of Qianlong in the Qing Dynasty and rebuilt in the middle of the Republic of China. The high rise of the gable, wall ridge staggered ups and downs. The front and side walls are covered with figures, flowers, animals and other clay sculptures and ink paintings. There are not only dragons, phoenixes, unicorns and all kinds of flowers, fishes and insects, but also historical figures. Whether they are painted or not, they are lifelike and vivid. Above the gate, there is a flying eagle, two towering wall columns, and 44 Latin letters. A colored plastic clock sets the time at 9:12 a.m., which is full of dawn. The front window is western architecture. The gate and courtyard are all traditional Chinese buildings. As high as 8 meters of wall, people can see its majestic posture from a distance. This is the only building on the Qingshui River that integrates western architectural style. It has been well preserved and listed as a cultural relic protection unit.

The ancestral hall of the two families is a treasure of Chinese architecture. There are countless wooden columns with the marks of wood merchants on them, which shows that the business of Qingshuijiang wood trade was very prosperous in those years. At that time, Sanmentang was a famous waisanjiang and an important wharf for timber trading. The booming timber trading naturally brought prosperity to Sanmentang. Seeing these stone tablets, stone slabs and brick houses left behind, it seems that they are telling people a little-known story.

Walking through the two stone corridors and two railings built in the Qing Dynasty, you come to the Sansheng palace. Sansheng palace is the epitome of wood merchants gathering and prosperous business. Sansheng palace was built in the Ming Dynasty. Local people have long used it as a school of righteousness. The gate frame of the palace is a blue stone pillar, more than 4 meters high, standing majestically by the Qingshui River. There is a 4.2-meter-high and 1.5-meter-wide stone tablet at the gate of the palace, which is engraved on both sides with dense inscriptions, describing the process of building Sansheng palace and advocating Yixue. At that time, when there was no mechanical traction, people used some methods to carry these huge objects weighing tens of tons here and erect them. You can see the vigorous calligraphy and exquisite engraving. The inscriptions, excellent calligraphy, and vivid carvings on the stone tablets are called "three wonders of Qingjiang", which spread to several counties along the border of Hunan Province. From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, many scholars came to Sanmentang to watch these three wonders, leaving many stories.

The origin of Sanmen

Sanmentang, surrounded by water on three sides and crisscrossed by streams, is an indissoluble bond between villagers and water since ancient times. As for the origin of the "three gates", there are two theories related to water. The first is that there are many fish ponds in the village (up to 17 at most), and there are three gates in the East, South and West, which are named "Sanmentang"; the second is that the most populous ancestor of Wang's family, whose ancestral home is SANMENTAN in Qianyang, Hunan Province, went upstream to fish and settled here. Because of the close pronunciation of "Tan" and "Tang", it is wrongly called "Sanmentang". Sanmentang people really rely on water to live and multiply by virtue of Qingshui River and its tributaries, such as Sanmen river and Dalai River, to create a unique "water culture".

The following figures are amazing: Sanmentang has 5 water piers, 6 stone arch bridges, 10 stone slab bridges, 17 lotus ponds, more than 20 ancient spring wells and more than 100 Baoye bridges. These water related buildings are the material carriers of "water culture". They are the material materials for observing and studying the historical relics of Sanmentang and have cultural relic value

Chinese PinYin : San Men Tang