White walls and harmony are a major feature of Huizhou architecture. The patchwork horse-headed wall not only has the beauty of modeling, but also has the function of firewall, which can stop the spread of fire.

One of the characteristics of Huizhou folk houses is high walls and deep courtyards. On the one hand, it is to prevent thieves, on the other hand, it is the need for mobile families suffering from displacement to gain psychological security. ?

Another feature of Huizhou folk houses is the inner courtyard centered on the deep patio, surrounded by high walls, with almost no tiles outside, and only the narrow patio is used for lighting, ventilation and communication with the outside world. This basic shape with patio as the center and high walls closed is the focus of attention. Rainwater falling on rainy days flows into the patio from four roofs, commonly known as "four waters return to the hall".

Southern Anhui is famous for preserving a large number of ancient buildings in Ming and Qing Dynasties. Xin 'an is the hometown of culture, and there are many bureaucrats and businessmen in history. There are hundreds of non-commissioned officers in Shexian County alone. Huizhou merchants are all over southern Anhui. "The leaders of rich houses are the first to promote Xin 'an in the south of the Yangtze River", and their great wealth has created this exquisite museum of ancient houses in southern Anhui.

The ancient buildings in Huizhou during the Ming and Qing Dynasties were mainly concentrated in yi county, Shexian, Jixi and Xiuning. There are 365 ancient buildings in Shexian County, including more than 0/00 valuable buildings and 27 ancient ancestral halls, which are concentrated in Xiongcun, Chengkan, Qiankou, Tang Yue and Shen Du villages. Jixi now has more than 100 ancient buildings, concentrated in Xiangtou, Kengkou, fengcun and Shangzhuang.

Ancient villages are generally composed of memorial archways, houses, ancestral halls, water inlets, road pavilions and workshops. Some villages are very large, for example, there are 99 streets and lanes in Chengkan, and strangers often get lost when they go in. Many villages are well organized, and the water system in Hongcun is an example. Hongcun dammed the mountain at the head of the village, and the canals in the village entered every household from both sides of the street and merged into the Moon Pond in the middle of the village.

Then it is diverted to households and flows into South Lake. Every household has large and small canals for washing clothes and drinking water. The layout of residential buildings is generally a courtyard centered on the courtyard, with a height of two floors. Large and medium-sized houses adopt multi-courtyard combination, and the buildings are all white walls and tiles. In the old days, the buildings of many large families were large in scale, decorated with three sculptures in Huizhou, with exquisite layout and patchwork.

Pieces of ancient buildings in southern Anhui are embedded in the vast mountains and beautiful waters of Huangshan Mountain, Jiuhua Mountain and Xin 'anjiang River. It is a world-class park without makeup.

2. Historical legends

Huizhou, a mountainous area in southern Anhui, has a long history and profound cultural accumulation, and has preserved a large number of traditional buildings and villages with similar forms and distinctive features.

The ancient villages in southern Anhui are not only ingeniously combined with topography, landforms and mountains and rivers, but also with the strong economic strength of Huizhou merchants in Ming and Qing Dynasties, culture and education are increasingly prosperous. After returning home, those Huizhou merchants conceived to build houses with elegant, cultured, lofty and detached mentality, which enriched the cultural environment of ancient villages and made the village landscape more prominent.

The biggest difference between the location of ancient villages in southern Anhui and other villages is that the construction and development of ancient villages in southern Anhui have been separated from the dependence on agriculture to a considerable extent. The consciousness, lifestyle and taste of residents in ancient villages have greatly surpassed the ideology of farmers and the ordinary citizen class, and pursued the same taste of life as the literati class, so they have a strong cultural atmosphere.

On the basis of the basic pattern, ancient villages in southern Anhui adopted different decorative techniques, such as building small courtyards, digging pools, arranging leaky windows, skillfully setting bonsai, carving beams and painting buildings, and creating elegant living environment, which all reflected the extremely high cultural quality and artistic accomplishment of local residents.

The site selection and construction of ancient villages in southern Anhui followed the geomantic theory of Zhouyi, which has a history of more than 2000 years. It emphasizes that man and nature live in harmony and fully respect the ideal realm of the natural environment. Paying attention to material and spirit is a dual demand, with scientific basis and high aesthetic concept.

The architectural features of ancient villages in southern Anhui developed with the prosperity of Huizhou merchants in Ming and Qing Dynasties, which can reflect their exquisite thoughts and superb skills to the greatest extent in limited architectural space. This is really a clever architectural form. Later, Huizhou merchants gradually declined, but this Huizhou-style residential building retained its architectural characteristics because it was attached to ancient residential villages, so it has important historical and architectural value.

3. Folk stories

When Yang Sheng 'an, a famous writer in Ming Dynasty, returned to his hometown, he went by water with the champion in Yiwu. The waterway is not wide, so we should take one boat first and then one boat. None of them wants their ship to fall behind.

Wu Zhuangyuan said to Yang Shengan, "I have a pair of couplets. If you are right, you will follow. " Yang Shengan nodded in agreement. Wu Zhuangyuan read the first couplet: "Two boats help each other, and rowing is not as fast as sailing."

This couplet is homophonic, referring to both things and Lu Su of the Three Kingdoms and Fan Kuai of the Western Han Dynasty, meaning "words are not as good as martial arts". Yang Shengan thought hard, but he couldn't be right, so he had to follow. Yang has always kept this matter in mind. 10 years later, my son got married, and the drums and music of "Welcome to the Wedding" sounded, and he cried, "Yes!" Just brush it with a brush. That's right: "Eight tones are played together, and the flute is clearer than Xiao He."

This second couplet is homophonic, which refers to both things and people, and points out Di Qing, a military commander in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, and Xiao He in the Western Han Dynasty. Di Qing is a military commander and Xiao He is a civilian. It means "martial arts is not as good as writing". Although this couplet is correct, it is ten years late.

Extended data:

Southern Anhui is a distinctive local traditional residential building, represented by Xidi and Hongcun, ancient villages located in Nanshan District of the Yangtze River in Anhui Province, and represented by Huizhou (now Huangshan City, Jixi County and Wuyuan County of Jiangxi Province) style and Huaiyang style.

Huizhou folk houses have rich cultural characteristics of Huizhou, while other folk houses in southern Anhui profoundly highlight the style characteristics of the cultural transition zone, which is very different from Jiangbei and northern Anhui. Today, many houses in northern Anhui imitate this style to imitate antique buildings.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Southern Anhui Dwellings