Huizhou was known as Xin'an in ancient times, and the scope was in the southern region of Anhui Province centered on Huangshan. It is adjacent to Jiangxi and Zhejiang, with a total area of 9,807 square kilometers and a total population of 1.43 million.

In the area are "eight mountains, half water and half fields, one road and one manor." Since Huizong of the Northern Song Dynasty changed the emperor's name to Xin'an to Huizhou, it has been used to this day.

Ancient Huizhou Prefecture consists of six counties: Yi County, She County, Xiuning, Qimen, Jixi, and Huyuan (now under the jurisdiction of Jiangxi Province).

Since the establishment of the Qin Dynasty for more than 2,000 years, the long history of precipitation, coupled with the humid monsoon climate of the northern subtropics, coupled with the fact that this piece is known as

The people living in the "Natural Park" have created a unique architectural style of Hui style houses with their own ingenuity.

On the land of ancient Huizhou, there are a total of 7,000 ancient residential buildings in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and there are more than 100 ancient villages in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The ancient residential buildings of Huizhou are diverse in form and varied, totaling about fifteen kinds. Such as ancient cities, ancient villages and towns, ancestral halls, temples, academies, gardens, theaters, archways, passes, bridges, towers, pavilions, embankments, #泉, villages.

Huizhou has a long history and profound cultural precipitation, although the mountains and rivers are beautiful, the climate is humid and warm, and the products are abundant, but the land is limited, the villages are dense, and the peasants live in difficulty.

Ancient Huizhou is rich in wood, tea and silk. As a result, life forced people to leave their homes.

"Seek food and clothing in all directions" and go outside to develop. Although there are also those who die in other places or end up with nothing, most of them rely on their own diligence and wisdom to learn something, gain something from their work, and benefit from their experience.

Some people developed from dealing in timber, tea, silk, and rice to dealing in salt, and soon became rich and wealthy on the rich side.

In the heyday of business in Xidi Village, Yixian County, there were more than 100 shops. Hu Guansan, the twentieth ancestor of the Hu family, in addition to running a pawn business, also operates a tea and rice business, known as

"Thirty-six Classics",

"Seven and a half streets," was one of the six richest people in Jiangnan at that time, and his family wealth was "five million gold." After the second half of the Qing Dynasty, the Hui merchants in Nanping Village, Yixian County were called

"100,000 rich?" There are no less than 20 households. After these Hui merchants became rich, they were glorious and prominent in order to glorify their ancestors and make a prominent party, so they built a lot of construction and expanded the manor.

Influenced by Confucianism, after they built a wealthy house, they developed to the combination of Confucianism and businessmen, the combination of government and business, the establishment of schools, the respect for Confucianism, and the road of learning and excellence.

Therefore, when many Hui merchants built houses, they built buildings and expanded gardens according to the level stipulated by the officials, which is the reason for the formation of ancient residential buildings of the Hui school.

Architecture can only be called art, it must have its own unique shape and style.

The ancient residential architecture of Huizhou is only famous at home and abroad and has become the Hui School, on the one hand, it retains the integrity, the unity of style, the diversity of shapes, and the artistry of form; On the other hand, it has a very rich historical and cultural connotation.

Huizhou people advocate natural beauty and pursue a high degree of harmony and unity between man and nature. This is reflected in the feng shui beauty of Huizhou architecture.

They take advantage of the mountainous areas of Huizhou

The environment of "high and low to back, cloudy and sunny and open-minded", guided by the five behaviors of yin and yang, do everything possible to choose the treasure land of feng shui, choose the site to build a village, in order to seek the blessing of God, abundant food and clothing, and prosperity of children and grandchildren.

In ancient Huizhou, almost every village had a certain feng shui basis. or according to the mountain situation, choke the throat of the foothills, the mountain docks, and the mountain passes; Or live by the water, hugging the river meander, according to the ferry, and the key to the current.

Some are horn-shaped; Such as the source of the west pit; those in the form of a bow, such as the source of Taibaisi; There are belts, such as the source of high sand; There are zigzags, such as the source of Merlin; Some are wave-shaped, such as Yixian Xidi; There are cloud agglomeration types, such as Shexian submersible; There are dragon-shaped ones, such as Jiangcun in Shexian County; There are also half-moon type, T-shape, herringbone type, mouth type, square type, arc type, straight type, etc.

The forms are different, and the weather is myriad. In the ancient residential buildings of Huizhou, the strict hierarchy of Confucianism, as well as the feudal morality of respecting and inferior, men and women, and ordering the young and the old, are also very obvious.

The perfect unity of practicality and artistry is another typical feature of Huizhou dwellings. The ancient dwellings of Huizhou, most of them are close to the mountains and rivers, the mountains can block the wind, it is convenient to take firewood for cooking and heating, and give people a sense of beauty.

The village is built next to the water, which is not only convenient for drinking, washing, but also for irrigating the farmland and beautifying the environment.

The ancient village of Huiju has relatively long streets, wide and tall white gables, and unique gray horse-head walls.

This kind of structure, saving land, easy to prevent fire, anti-theft, cooling, moisture-proof, so that each family is strictly distinguished, the white wall and gray tile of the house, in the green mountains and green water, very beautiful.

The patio of Huiju can be ventilated and transparent, and the four waters return to the church, and it adapts to the simple psychology of fertilizer and water not flowing into the fields of outsiders.

Huizhou ancient residential buildings, due to the special geographical location across the Jianghuai, is in the north and south of the two major architectural styles of the convergence and integration zone, by the Chu culture, Wuyue culture, Lianghuai culture, Jian'an culture, Tongcheng culture, Huizhou Shang culture influence, formed their own unique architectural style, architectural pattern and architectural art, so has a huge cognitive value, historical value, artistic value, practical value, aesthetic value.

In the old days, most of the urban and rural houses in Huizhou were brick and wood buildings. The Ming Dynasty was characterized by the spaciousness of the upper floors. After the Qing Dynasty, it was mostly a three-room house with one light (hall) and two dark (left and right bedrooms) and a four-room house with one light and four darkness.

One room with more than one entry. The gate is decorated with stone carvings and bricks of landscape figures. The gatehouse has heavy eaves and flying corners, and each entrance has a patio, which is ventilated and transparent, and the rainwater flows into the gutter through the water maple.

Commonly known as

"Four waters return to the church", meaning:

"There is no outflow of money". There is a partition wall between each entrance, and a firewall (horse-head wall) is built around it, and it looks like an ancient castle from a distance.

Generally, a family lives in a tie-in, the middle door is closed, and each family lives alone. The middle gate opens, and a gate enters and exits to pay tribute to the ancestors.

The climate in the mountainous areas of Huizhou is humid, and people generally use the upper floor as the main habitat of their daily life, and retain the indigenous Shanyue people

The legacy of the "nest dwelling". Upstairs rooms are generally spacious, with halls, bedrooms and wings, as well as a patio

"Beauty by the eye". North-facing dwelling: If it is not for the special terrain and the best orientation of the house, you should choose to sit in the north and face south, but most of the houses built in the Ming and Qing dynasties in Huizhou are facing north.

It turns out that the living habits of the ancient Hui people have many taboos. It was popular in the Han Dynasty

"The merchant door should not be southward, and the house gate should not be northward". The reason for this is that according to the Five Elements: Shang belongs to gold, the south belongs to fire, fire overcomes gold, and it is unlucky; The levy belongs to fire, the north belongs to water, and water overcomes fire, which is also unlucky.

During the Ming and Qing dynasties in Huizhou, Huizhou merchants were prosperous, once they made a fortune, they returned to their hometowns to make houses, for Tujili, the gate did not face south, all formed a north-facing residence.

To this day, Huizhou still retains tens of thousands of ancient houses facing north. House set house: Huizhou house is very deep, the entrance door is the vestibule, the courtyard is set up, the hall is set up to live in the hall, the hall is separated from the back hall by the middle door, the back hall is set up with a hall and two bedrooms, the hall is behind a fire wall, the patio is set against the wall, and the wing rooms are built on both sides, which is the first entry.

The structure of the second entrance is still a ridge divided into two halls, two wells before and after, there are partition fans, there are four bedrooms, and two halls.

The third entry, the fourth entry or more entry in the back, the structure is the same, one into the set and one into the house, forming a house set of houses.

Heavy eaves: Hui style houses are built with double-layer eaves. The formation of this heavy eaves custom has a widely spread story.

It is rumored that during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Shezhou was a place under the jurisdiction of Li Yu, the queen of the Southern Tang Dynasty. Zhao Kuangyin launched the Chenqiao Mutiny, established the Song Dynasty, personally conquered to Shezhou, just when Song Taizu arrived outside Haiyang City, Xiuning County, the sky suddenly changed, heavy rain is coming, Taizu went to a tile house to take shelter from the rain, in order not to disturb the people, Taizu ordered not to enter the room, but the eaves of Huizhou houses are very small, far less than the eaves of the Central Plains, plus this day is heavy and rainy, everyone is drenched in soup.

After the rain, the residents opened the door and found Taizu like this, thinking that the death penalty was inevitable, and he couldn't kneel on the ground, but Taizu didn't blame and asked: Why is the eaves of Shezhou so narrow?

The villager replied

"This is inherited from our ancestors, and it has always been so." Taizu said: "Although the old system of the ancestors cannot be changed, you can build another eaves underneath to facilitate passers-by to shelter from the rain." A pavilion at the gate of the village, even said to be reasonable, so immediately complied, since then, Huizhou gradually all the houses have been built on the upper and lower two layers of eaves.

Full top bed: Huizhou traditional bed. Because the top of the bed, the back of the bed and the head of the bed are surrounded by wooden boards, it is called

"Full top bed". A curtain hangs in front of the bed, like a message desk. The bedpost is mostly made of quince wood, because the flowers and fruits of the quince are born with the same tree for several years, and they are taken

"Four generations in the same house" and

The color head of "Five Generations of Prosperity". Bed boards are commonly used 7 pieces, apartment

"Five men and two women" means. The front of the bed is more elaborately carved, and the left and right sides are generally carved

"Danfeng Chaoyang", the upper tooth plate is carved

"Double Dragon Playing Pearl". The railings around the bed are generally carved

"Phoenix Peony",

"Squirrels and Grapes",

"Mandarin ducks playing in the water" and other exquisite patterns. Pressing table: the traditional furnishings of Huizhou houses. On the central wall of the hall of Huizhou folk houses, there are many paintings and couplets in the middle hall, or written on large red paper

The five characters of "Heaven and Earth Monarch and Teacher" are framed into scrolls and hanged. There is a long table under the scroll, and two saddle-shaped feet are placed on the table, and the scroll is unfolded down to the long table and rests on the foot

In the "saddle", the picture is flat and stable, and this long table is called

"Pressing table". Architecture is a symbol of social civilization in a historical period and a microcosm of social life at that time.

In the hundreds of years of ups and downs, the people of Huizhou have preserved a precious treasure house of folk art for future generations with their lives and blood, in the face of turbulent historical changes, in the face of the smoke and flames of war, and in the face of natural and man-made destruction.

Since the reform and opening up, the protection of historical and cultural heritage has become a sacred duty of government departments at all levels, from the central to the local level.

Many heritage sites such as Xidi and Hongcun have been declared as world cultural heritage protection units. Many ancient villages in Xiangshe County, Juyuan and Yi County have been protected and developed into tourist resorts, and many local governments have taken various measures to protect and renovate the ancient dwellings.