Bao Ning Pagoda is also facing the Li family's big house. The owner of the Li family house is Li Yaohan, a high-ranking GD official in the Republic of China, and the large area of the house and the firm building are the only ones in XX County.

"Nine commanders on both sides of a river, two high-ranking officials covered by fire and smoke." Liang Shirong's hometown has produced big names including high-ranking officials, one of whom is Li Yaohan, who was born in the green forest and was awarded the title of "General Jiewei" by Duan Qirui's government. In this place where high-ranking officials and dignitaries are produced, the glorious story of the Li family is still circulating.

Pushing open the heavy door of history, through time and space, the bell of the Li family culture lingers in this "Li family house" --

The Li Yaohan Mansion, known as the "Li Family House" by the locals, is the largest mansion in XX County. The owner of the big house, Li Yaohan, was a senior official in GD Province, the commander of the Sixth Army of the Guangdong Army, and the commander of the Fifth Army of the Gui Army before the liberation.

The house integrates residential and military defense functions, covering an area of more than 10,000 square meters, with a construction area of 16,000 square meters. The house is located west to east, the main body is two large houses with three entrances in front and back, brick and wood structure, blue brick and stone feet, and water-worn blue brick walls, which are smooth and bright, and have the characteristics of traditional Lingnan houses. It is said that the original decoration is extremely exquisite, and the beams and columns in the house are made of solid thousand-year-old mahogany. Surrounded by high walls, with pillboxes built at the four corners, the walls were extremely strong, and the bullets of the year could not break them. The front house is called the main hall, there are flower halls, corridors in the house, divided into two rows of wings on the left and right, divided into sentry rooms, turrets, stables, wells, houses, garages, warehouses, power plants, warehouses, etc. The back building is called Jiewei Building, because of his title of "Jiewei General", it is a concrete granite structure building, with European style. There is a basement inside, and what is even more surprising is that a well has been dug in the room, which is dug to prevent the water from being trapped in the house. To this day, there is still water in the indoor well, and the well water is still crystal clear. There is also a turret built next to the Jiewei Building, and the window sills from the second floor to the top floor of the big house are all expected to be platforms and gun holes, and the military defense function is very strong. Jiewei is a four-storey building, and Li Yaohan and his favorite wife and concubine lived in this main building. It is said that Jiewei Building also treasures antique cultural relics and rare treasures collected by Li Yaohan from all over the country.

This large house was selected by the famous feng shui master of the time, Pan Ta Shan Kanyu, and a total of 12 precious Kun Dian wood were used on the beams, which are said to have been transported from YNGX and other places. Previously, national and provincial experts had evaluated them and concluded that each article was worth 200,000 yuan. Li Yaohan, formerly known as Beiquan, alias Ziyun, was born in the green forest, and was later recruited by the Qing army, and gradually established his own private armed army. During the Republic of China, he first supported Yuan Shikai as emperor, and later supported Sun Yat-sen to protect the law, and actively established the Military Affairs Yuan. Later, sometimes they united with the Gui system, sometimes with the Yue army, and finally the army was defeated and went into the wilderness. In January 1942, Li Yaohan died of illness at his home in Hong Kong at the age of 64.

Li Yaohan, who was a teenager, studied in a private school for several years, and worked as a private school clerk and teacher. Later, he went to Yangchun to sell raw oil and lost all his money due to gambling, so he threw himself into the green forest under Li Beihaimen. In the winter of the thirtieth year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1904), Li Zhun, the commander of the GD Navy Division of the Qing Dynasty, personally led his troops to arrive at the Heavenly Ruins belonging to XX County in Zhaoqing. Li Zhun selected 80 elite people from the more than 1,000 people who defected to Cheng and reorganized them into the vanguard, Li Beihai served as the sentinel, and the rest were dismissed. Because Li Yaohan did not want to be incorporated into the vanguard and said that he was willing to "make meritorious contributions to his crimes", Li Zhun felt his sincerity and incorporated the ten people led by him into his own pro-military camp. Li Yaohan was brave and resourceful, and made a lot of contributions to Li Zhun, which was deeply appreciated by Li Zhun, and in 1907, he was successively appointed as the chief sailor patrol battalion and the garrison of DA County.

After the first uprising in Wuchang, the Gaoyao branch of the League accelerated the pace of planning the Qing army stationed in Zhaoqing. The Gaoyao branch of the League learned that the high-ranking person Tan Runli had a teacher-student friendship with Li Yaohan, the management band of the patrol battalion stationed in Xinxing (equivalent to the battalion commander), so he instigated his student Li Yaohan through Tan Runli anyway. Tan Xiao was righteous, and Li was finally persuaded. and the success of the Wuchang Shouyi, Li's will was even stronger, and he said that he was responsible for contacting Long Shichu, the commander of the patrol battalion of the army stationed in Zhaoqing, to act in unison.

On September 19 of the Xinhai year of the lunar calendar (November 9, 1911 AD), Long Shichu led 3 battalions in Zhaoqing Prefecture, Li Yaohan led 1 battalion in Xinxing Patrol Battalion, a total of 4 battalions, as well as 3 battalions of Yan Qihan, 2 battalions of Xiong Changqing and 2,300 people of Kong Xianghui organized by the revolutionaries to raise an incident in Zhaoqing, declared independence, separated from the Qing court, attached to the Republic of China, and stationed in XX county in December.

After the Qing army was in Zhaoqing, on December 8, Long Shichu led some officers and soldiers to participate in the early Northern Expedition of the GD, Li Yaohan took over the remaining camp Yong, and with the approval of Zhu Zhixin, Li Yaohan expanded the headquarters into the patrol battalion standard (that is, the regiment), in March 1912, Zhou Zhizhen changed the Zhaoqing patrol battalion to "Zhaojun". The Zhao army was divided into three standards: Li Yaohan was the first standard, stationed in Gaoyao, Deqing, Sihui, and Xinxing.

On May 1, 1913, Sun Yat-sen instigated Chen Jiongming, the governor of GD, to oppose Yuan independently, and Yuan Shikai appointed GX Long Jiguang as the envoy of GD Xuanfu. Liang Mai, the governor of DQ County, together with Li Yaohan, opposed GD independence, opened the door of convenience, helped Long enter Guangdong through Zhaoqing by waterway, and captured Chen Jiongming's blockade of the river defense gunboat at the mouth of the Sichuan River, and the Zhao army was expanded into 5 regiments and 15 battalions, and Li Yaohan was promoted to the commander-in-chief of the Zhao army. In 1914, he served as the guard of Luozhen in Zhaoyang, and Li Yaohan openly played the banner of "Zhaojun", constantly expanding the basin, and went to Shunde and Xiangshan (now Zhongshan). Zhaojun is active in the historical stage of GD.

In 1916, Yuan Shikai was proclaimed emperor, Cai Yi, Tang Jiyao declared independence in YN Cen Chunxuan, and Lu Rongting declared independence in GX, formed a protective ****, and waved an army against Yuan. Li Yaohan accepted the instigation of the Chinese revolutionaries and attached himself to the Protector Army to oppose Yuan.

In July 1917, Sun Yat-sen went south to organize the military government of the protector of France, and Zhu Qinglan, then a senior official of GD Province, responded positively, which aroused the dissatisfaction of Chen Bingkun, the overseer of GD. In order to squeeze out Zhu Qinglan, Chen Bingkun wooed Li Yaohan and recommended him as a senior GD official. In September 1917, with the support of Chen Bingkun, Li Yaohan was appointed as a senior official of GD. In the spring of 1918, the Beiyang government ordered Long Jiguang to attack the Yunnan and Gui warlords who advocated "protecting the law", and both sides sent people to win over Li Yaohan.

After the old Gui faction defeated Long Jiguang, Li Yaohan, who was at both ends of the first rat, was suspicious and was forced to resign in September 1918.

Li Yaohan returned to Zhaoqing after being dismissed, and Shen Hongying's troops from the old Gui clan launched a surprise attack when they transferred HN from Guangzhou to Zhaoqing, and Li Yaohan was defeated. In 1920, Chen Jiongming led the Cantonese army back to expel the old Gui lineage, and Li actively supported it, and later served as a senior adviser to the Office of Senior Officials. However, the situation changed, and Li Yaohan's position turned to the Gui line, and in 1923 he joined Shen Hongying's camp against Sun Yat-sen, and soon Shen was defeated, and Li Canghuang fled to Hong Kong, and since then he has faded out.

Li Yaohan looted a lot of money from the green forest to the senior GD official, and after stepping down as a senior official, he spent a lot of money to build a Li family house and Jiewei Building in his hometown of Paradise Town (because Duan Qirui was named "General Jiewei" during his reign). The big house covers an area of 16,000 square meters, there are bunkers built at the four corners, and the original house is equipped with a flower hall corridor, a wing room, a sentry room, a gun tower, a barracks, a stable, a well, a power plant, etc., which can accommodate more than 1,000 people, and it is said that it took 7 years to complete. Local people rumored that the Jiewei Building behind the big house treasured antique cultural relics and rare treasures collected by Li Yaohan from all over the country.

The once glorious Lee Yiu Hon Mansion was listed as a county-level cultural relics protection unit in 1981. However, in addition to the Jiewei Building, which is managed by the local government as a cultural relics protection unit, a row of tiled houses in the front building has been rented to a processing factory as a processing site, and many cultural relics and monuments in the house have been damaged to varying degrees, which is heart-wrenching.

Ideals are a thing of the past. And the once beautiful Li family's mansion is now like a beautiful lady hidden in thousands of acres of fertile fields, waiting for someone with a heart to discover and explore. Those legendary stories, like the legendary underground chamber of Jiewei Tower, are like a big mystery that will be passed down forever.

Let's talk about another high-ranking official of the Republic of China, Zhai Wang (1877-1941), the word Haoting, a native of Zhusuo Village, Tiantian Town, XX County, GD Province, and Li Yaohan are fellow villagers, the two have similar early experiences, Li Zhun recruited An when Zhai entered Li's pro-military camp with Li Yaohan, with Li Yaohan's continuous promotion, such as when Li Yaohan was promoted to the commander of the Navy Yamen pro-military management belt, Zhai Wang was a sentry officer under Li Yaohan, after the Wuchang Uprising, as Li Yaohan's old subordinate, Zhai Wang was promoted to patrol battalion management band. In 1918, during the confrontation between the Yunnan and Gui armies and the Long Jiguang troops, Mo Rongxin of the Gui family co-opted Zhai Wang, Chen Junyi and others of the Zhao army to contain Li Yaohan. After Li Yaohan was dismissed, the vacant position of senior official urgently needed to be filled, Zhai Wang was elected by Mo Rongxin as the acting senior official of GD Province in September 1918 because of his holding of the Sixth Battalion of Zhao Army, and the previous Zhai Wang's compliance with Mo Rongxin's crusade against Long Jiguang.

Compared with Li Yaohan, Zhai Wang served for a shorter period of time, and his erratic stance quickly led to ostracism. In June 1919, Lu Rongting split with the Beiyang warlords during the Liangguang Tour, and Lu discovered that Zhai Wang was suspected of "fornicating" with Beiyang, so he sent a telegram ordering the GD overseer Mo Rongxin to dismiss Zhai and remove him from his position as a senior official. After receiving 200,000 yuan from the GD financial authorities, Zhai Wang immediately went to Hong Kong and announced his "resignation".

Zhai Wang dropped out of school since he was a child, and later joined the triad, and followed Li Beihai as a green forest, robbing the rich and helping the poor. In 1904, Li Zhun, the admiral of the Qing Dynasty, went to Heaven Town to appease him, appointed Li Beihai as the sentry officer, and Zhai Wang as the chief, and went to Zhaoqing with Li Beihai. During the Xuantong period, Li Yaohan served as the commander of the navy and the pro-army management belt of the Yamen, and Zhai Wang served as a sentry officer under Li Haohan. After the Xinhai Revolution, Zhai Wang led an uprising with Li Yaohan in DA County, and soon went to Zhaoqing to serve as the patrol battalion management belt. In 1913, Zhai Wang was promoted to commander, and was awarded the third-class Wenhu Medal by Yuan Shikai and the rank of major general of the army. In 1917, Zhai Wang was promoted to the guard of Zhaoyang Luozhen and led his troops to Guangzhou. In 1918, Mo Rongxin of the Gui family attempted to squeeze out Li Yaohan and divide the Zhao army, and Zhai Wangnai was appointed as a senior official in GD Province.

In the autumn of 1919, Mo Rongxin ordered the GD junta to order the arrest of Li Yaohan, and reorganized the Zhao army, and also tried to force Zhai Wang to resign. Zhai Wang relied on six battalions of troops stationed in Guangzhou and refused to resign. As a result, the GD financial authorities paid Zhai Wang 200,000 yuan, and Zhai Wang claimed that he was ill and went to Shamian (then the British and French concessions) for medical treatment, and handed over the post of senior official of GD Province to Yin **** Fang, the governor of Yuehai Province, and resigned after Zhai Wang arrived in Hong Kong.

In the winter of 1920, Chen Jiongming led his troops back to GD to expel Mo Rongxin and appointed Zhai Wang as the commander-in-chief of the Haozi Battalion. Zhai Wang returned to Guangzhou from Hong Kong in an attempt to incorporate the old headquarters of the Zhao Army, but his plan failed.

In 1923, Zhai Wang returned to his hometown and died of illness in 1941. He was 64 years old.