Brief introduction of Wang family courtyard
The Wang Family Courtyard is a master of residential buildings in Qing Dynasty. Wang Jingsheng family, one of the four families in Lingshi County in history, was founded in the years of Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong and Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty. The building is huge, with "five lanes", "five castles" and "five ancestral halls". Among them, the courtyard layout of five ancient castles is described as "dragon", "phoenix", "turtle", "forest" and "tiger", with a total area of over 250,000 square meters. At present, there are three major buildings, namely Hongmenbao (Dragon), Gaojiaya (Phoenix), Chongningbao (Tiger) and Wangcitang, which are opened by China Folk House Art Museum, China King Museum and Liqun Art Museum respectively. There are 23/kloc-0 courtyards and 2,078 houses, covering an area of 80,000 square meters.
Anyone who has visited the Wangs' Courtyard thinks it is big and imposing. In fact, the three groups of buildings that are open to tourists, namely Hong Men Fort, Gaojiaya Fort and Wang Shi Ancestral Hall, account for less than a quarter of the total area of the Wang Family Courtyard. According to the historical data of the Wangs and the existing textual research, from the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty to the 16th year of Jiaqing in the Qing Dynasty, with the continuous prosperity of the Wangs' family business, the houses in Jingsheng have been gradually improved from west to east, from low to high, forming a huge building complex with a total area of 250,000 square meters, far larger than the Royal Palace Museum in Beijing, which covers an area of 6.5438+0.5 million square meters. In Jingsheng Village, the Wangs occupy at least five ditches, five lanes and five castles on the sites of "Wuli Long Street" and "Jiugou Eight Castles and Eighteen Alleys". Among them, five completely castle-like residential groups show their majestic momentum within the scale of the site.
According to Wang Jiazhi, when the Wangs built five fort groups, namely Hong Men Fort, Gaojiaya Fort, Xibaozi Fort, Southeast Fort and Xia Nanbao, they built five spiritual images of "Dragon, Phoenix, Tiger and Turtle Forest" to cater to the secret realm. That is, Hong Men Castle is the dragon in China, Gaojiaya Castle is the phoenix in the east, and Xibaozi in the west is the tiger. Three people lying on the high slope, lined up, the potential is heavy, arrogant. The southeast fort is a "turtle" and the lower south fort is a "forest". Both of them are manifested in attracting wealth to ward off evil spirits, which are rich in metaphors of stabilizing families and consolidating industries.
Today, people visit the Red Gate Castle and the Gaojiaya Castle, which can be regarded as "Dragon and Phoenix in Prosperity" or "Dragon Tour in Fengxiang". These two castles and the restored and opened Wang Ancestral Hall (namely Xiaoyi Ancestral Hall) were built in the Kangxi period of Qing Dynasty, with courtyards 123 and houses 1 18, covering an area of 45,000 square meters, which is the best preserved architectural essence of the Wang Family Courtyard. In this respect, although it has not returned to the momentum of the five kinds of auspicious beasts of the Wangs, its preservation so far should be regarded as a miracle in China at present. As the internationally renowned scholar and Professor Tsinghua University lamented after the visit, "Wang is a surname, half of the country, home is a quadrangle, and quadrangles are half the city".