Lanxi Yao nationality township, Jiangyong County, Yongzhou City, Hunan Province

Lanxi Yao nationality township

Lanxi Yao Township belongs to Jiangyong County. It is a well preserved ancestral home of GouLan Yao people. They live together according to their surnames, one surname and one gatehouse. The gatehouse is perpendicular to the main road, and there are 13 secondary roads. Each surname extends backward along the main road and the lanes set around the secondary road, forming a living pattern with blood as the main vein.

administrative division

Lanxi Yao township has 10 administrative villages, 58 villager groups and 6115 people (2017), including xianghuajing, Dongzhou, Fuxia, shanshuikou, Xinqiao, Shixing, Daxing, Huangjia, Shipan and Shangcun.

Township characteristics

Goulanyao village is like an ancient world. Villages, roadways and dwellings are all in an ancient style. Yao nationality houses with typical characteristics are all built with big green bricks, and the eaves around the houses are tilted; the eaves are decorated with color paintings or brick carvings, and decorated with small blue stone lattice windows. In particular, the construction of the gatehouse here is very particular. Each gatehouse is connected by 16 wooden columns with a diameter of more than 30 cm, all of which are three-story structures. Under each wooden column, there are blue stone carvings, drum stone carvings, Liang Fang carvings, and wooden benches in the gatehouse for people to rest or hold small gatherings. These three villages in Lanxi still have more than 300 dwellings of Ming and Qing Dynasties, forming a unique Yao village landscape. "At the foot of the mountain, the orchid sprouts are short, the river is soaked, the sand road between the pines is clean, and there is no mud. Who says life is more difficult? If you look at the flowing water, you can still go west. Don't sing "yellow chicken" with white hair It is said that Su Dongpo once came to Lanxi, and the beautiful countryside made him poetic and romantic.

Settlement pattern

As for the origin of goulanyao, the inscription on the stage built on the tripod in Shangcun in the 22nd year of Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1757 AD) records that "Yuzu lived in the mountains in the past, the mountain couplets revealed, and the stream was flowing." It means "Gou" here means "collusion" between mountains. "Blue" refers to the color of Shangcun well, the source of Lanxi river. According to the records of goulanyao people's annals, "yulanxi, who lived in the Han and Wei dynasties, moved into Meishan, Qianjiadong, Qingzhou, Ji'an and other places from Sui and Tang Dynasties to yuan and Song dynasties." There are 13 surnames of Jiang, Ouyang, Huang and he in the three villages, all of which are goulanyao, with a population of more than 2900. It has lasted for more than 40 generations and more than 1000 years, but the location of the village has not changed, the family and the ethnic composition have not changed. It is a well preserved ancestral home of GouLan Yao people. They live together according to their surnames, one surname and one gatehouse. The gatehouse is perpendicular to the main road, and there are 13 secondary roads. Each surname extends backward along the main road and the lanes set around the secondary road, forming a living pattern with blood as the main vein.

geographical position

Due to its special geographical location, the Yao people of GouLan have lived a self-sufficient life for thousands of years. The surrounding mountains form a natural barrier against foreign invasion. They also built solid gates at nine mountain to mountain junctions, three in each village. It is said that during the period of fierce fighting and disturbance from the outside world, there were watchmen on the towers here, with lookouts and gun holes. The strong city gate has always been open at sunrise and closed at sunset, patrolling day and night and guarding in turn. There are hundreds of kilos of big bells on the door. If there is a police, all the bells will ring in unison. According to relevant records, on the eve of the Japanese surrender, they entered taochuan cave to burn, kill and rob, and tens of thousands of taochuan people took refuge here. One day, the Japanese army chased to the gate of Guanwang temple in Lanxi. They saw that the guard was tight and they retreated in the face of difficulties. A disaster was avoided.

Humanistic Folklore

Since the Tang Dynasty, there have been five theatres and 66 temples, including forty temples, eight nunneries, five temples, three pavilions, two temples and one palace. In this village, the land of social circles, dance pavilions and singing platforms, pavilions and bridges can be seen everywhere outside the village. These buildings are simple and elegant, solid and beautiful, and each building must have a tablet. There are still 17 well preserved temples, including Panwang temple, Xianggong temple, Tiger Temple, Guangong temple, etc., the largest of which covers an area of more than 400 square meters. Besides many ancient buildings and inscriptions, there are also many festivals for Yao people here. According to the inscriptions, the general manager temple in Shangcun is the general manager of the festivals organized by the temples in the three villages. On the second day of the first month of each year, the patriarch and the temple master gather in the general temple to decide which temple will hold the program this year and which village will slaughter the cattle to worship their ancestors. Goulanyao has festivals almost every month. In addition to the normal festivals, there are zhuniajie, Changxin Festival, Xini Festival, Zhongyuan Festival, Panwang Festival and so on. Every section must play, every section must dance. During the festival, the Yao people of GouLan dance big drums and play Lusheng to celebrate together, or play dragon and lion dance, go from village to village, or even invite troupes to sing for three days and three nights. These customs have been followed up to now.

Ancient village architecture

There are still more than 100 stone tablets in the ancient village. The earliest one was discovered in the second year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1369 AD), more than 600 years ago. The contents of these inscriptions are very rich, which can be summarized into four categories: first, Gongde steles, which mainly record the whole process of Yao people building temples and Taoist temples, the list and number of promoters and donors; second, landscape poems describing local scenery; third, exhortations and emotional poems; fourth, government decrees. The numerous inscriptions are a historical book of goulanyao.

Chinese PinYin : Hu Nan Sheng Yong Zhou Shi Jiang Yong Xian Lan Xi Yao Zu Xiang