Qi County is one of the national historical and cultural cities, known as "Zhaoyu" in ancient times, and was named after "Zhaoyu Qi Zexu".

Its history dates back to the Neolithic period. The research of the ancient cultural sites of Liangcun proves that as early as the matrilineal clan commune period 5,000 years ago, the ancestors lived on the land of Qi County.

In ancient times, Qi County was the existence of absolute bull breaking, Qi County people are outstanding, and there are many celebrities in the past dynasties. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 100 celebrities listed in Cihai, Ciyuan, Dictionary of Chinese Celebrities in Past Dynasties and Zhonghua Dictionary, and 225 celebrities listed in Shanxi Tongzhi, including politicians, military strategists, thinkers, writers, calligraphers and painters, opera artists, medical scientists, educators, martial artists, Jin merchant industrialists and revolutionaries.

To name a few, Wen Yanbo, the prime minister of the Tang Dynasty, was a native of Qi County, one of the most famous prime ministers in the early Tang Dynasty, and the military generals of the early Tang Dynasty and the peerless emperors jointly cast the rule of Zhenguan.

There is also the first queen of Tang Gaozong Li Zhi, the one who was framed by Wu Zetian and lost her posterior position, and she is also from Qi County.

Wang Jue and Wang Seng are also from Qi County, and Wang Jue is also the prime minister of the early Tang Dynasty, and he is a person who is more powerful than Wen Yanbo.

The great poets Wang Bo, Wang Wei, and Wen Tingyun are also from Qi County, and Luo Guanzhong, who wrote about the Three Kingdoms, is from Qi County.

Of course, in modern times, Qi County is the most famous is the Jin Shang, Qi County Qiaojia, Huitong the world, and more famous than Qi County Qiaojia is a compound, Qi County Qiaojia Compound.

Qiaojia Compound, also known as Zhongtang, is located in Qiaojiabao Village, Qi County, Shanxi Province, and was founded in 1756.

During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Qiao Quanmei and his two brothers separated from each other, and bought several residential plots in the northeast corner of the intersection and built buildings. The main building is a brick house on the top of a hard hill, with a brick and wood structure, with window lattices but no portals, and stairs are built indoors to go upstairs.

It is characterized by thick walls, small windows, solid and firm, and is a five-outside courtyard. To the east of the main building is the original house, which has also been renovated as a side courtyard. The second entrance door in the side courtyard was also rebuilt into a study school, which is the earliest courtyard of the Qiao family's compound, that is, the old courtyard.

Legend has it that there was a five-way temple outside the courtyard, and there were two locust trees in front of the temple, which grew strangely and strangely, and was called "sacred tree".

Between the main courtyard and the side courtyard, there is a large brick carved earth shrine, carved with a stone mountain and a deer with a mouth of Ganoderma lucidum. There are four brick carved lions and a ruyi in the land shrine, which is a metaphor for "four times ruyi". There are also sycamore and pine trees on the ancestral wall, and six pairs of deer are put together, which means "Liuhe Tongshun".

After Qiao Zhiyong took charge, he continued to build a large number of buildings for the sake of Guangmen. He bought a large homestead across the alley on the west side of the old courtyard, and built a building courtyard, which is also five inside and three outside, forming a two-story confrontation, and the main building is a hanging hilltop exposed pillar structure.

After the completion of the Ming Building, Qiao Zhiyong built two horizontal and vertical quadrangle courtyards across the street from the two floors, so that the four courtyards were located at the four corners of the intersection of streets and alleys, laying the pattern of later integration.

In the middle and late Guangxu period, the local law and order was unstable, and in order to protect their own safety, Jing Yi and Jing Yan of the Qiao family spent a lot of twists and turns and silver taels to buy the right to occupy the streets and alleys at that time. After Qiao's family obtained the right to occupy, they blocked the entrance of the alley, and the alley was built into the side courtyards of the northwest courtyard and the southwest courtyard; the street entrance was blocked on the east side and the gate was built; the ancestral hall was built on the west side; and the courtyard on the north floor was expanded into two outer courtyards, and two new corridor gates were built. There is a fence between the courtyards, and the top of the arched gate is used as a bridge to connect the north and south courtyards to form a castle-like building complex.

In the early years of the Republic of China, the Qiao family's population increased, and the housing was insufficient, so they purchased land and expanded westward. Ten years after the Republic of China, Qiao Yingxia and Qiao Yingkui built a new courtyard close to the southwest courtyard, and the pattern was similar to that of the southeast courtyard.

At this point, the Qiao family compound has completely formed the pattern and area of the future.

The whole courtyard is in the shape of a double "Xi", divided into 6 courtyards, 20 small courtyards, 313 houses, construction area of 4175 square meters, three sides of the street, surrounded by a fully enclosed blue brick wall of up to more than 10 meters, and the gate is a city gate type hole type.

Qiaojia Courtyard is a majestic and magnificent building group, the design is exquisite, the craftsmanship is fine, embodies the unique style of China's Qing Dynasty residential architecture, has a fairly high ornamental, scientific research and historical value, is an unparalleled art treasure house, known as "a pearl of northern residential architecture", known as "the royal palace has the Forbidden City, the private house looks at Qiao's house" said, famous in the three Jin, famous at home and abroad.

But to tell the truth, the locals in Shanxi didn't know much about the Qiao family compound in the eighties, and many didn't know that there was such a house with such a courtyard.

It was only two years ago that the Qi County Government used this ancient mansion to set up the Qi County Folk Museum, and then it was opened to the public the following year.

Therefore, it has only been open as a tourist attraction for a few years, and it is not well-known at all.

And to make this place famous all of a sudden, you have to wait for a movie to come out.

That movie is called Hang the Red Lantern High, which is a tragedy of the times directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Gong Li.

This movie hasn't come out at this time, and even Zhang Yimou doesn't have the idea of it, because this movie is based on it, and the adapted one will not be written and published by the author until 1990.

"A Group of Wives and Concubines" is a novella written by writer Su Tong. This work artistically reproduces the terrifying scene of Chinese feudal etiquette devouring human nature by depicting the tragic fate of Song Lian, a female student who has "received education in the new era", who voluntarily marries into the orderly feudal family Chen Mansion in the high-walled deep courtyard, and finally goes to a mental breakdown in the open and secret struggle of "a group of wives and concubines".

The red lantern hanging high is based on this one, but the foggy Jiangnan background in the original work has been changed to a poignant and magnificent northern deep house compound.

And among them, the most shocking or envious red lantern hangs high, which is like the ceremony of the emperor's fortunate flop, lighting and sealing the lamp, etc., are all created by Zhang Yimou.

But Qiao Feng didn't care about this, he changed the plot of the TV series in the Qiao family's compound that he had watched, and then pressed the ceremony of lighting the lamp into the story, and told the girls with great interest along the way.

Because it was a tragedy in itself that the red lantern was hanging high, Song Lian, who was so sad that there was no hope, was finally driven crazy.

This is the opposite of Qiao Feng's ultimate wish of having a group of wives and concubines, so he can't tell the story in the movie, he can only tell the legend of Qiao Zhiyong's life that belongs to the Qiao family and the story of Qiao Zhiyong's life that Qiao Zhiyong married six wives and lived together without shame.

As for the fact that the Qiao family has a family rule that no concubines are allowed, Qiao Zhiyong's six wives are all married, but the fact that the five of them died and continued to be continued, Qiao Feng directly ignored it.

Anyway, the story is from life and higher than life, in order to instill feudal dross in the women, it doesn't matter if you change it.