There is an old saying: "When a husband and wife are passed, all the people cannot be opened", this sentence explains the dangers of the terrain of the guarding pass, which is easy to defend and difficult to attack. This kind of terrain is common in some dangerous mountainous areas, in addition to some artificial defense projects.
In Henan Province, there is a small village called Zhuwa Village, which once successfully resisted the attack of the Taiping Army and later the Japanese army invading China, so that these enemies could not attack for a long time, and finally failed.
So what magic weapon did this Zhuwa village have to resist the attack of the powerful enemy? Why is there such a strong defense? You might as well follow in the footsteps of this article.
In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the rivers and mountains laid down by Zhu Yuanzhang were in turmoil, and the rivers and mountains were not safe. Zhu Qiugui was the grandson of Zhu Yuanzhang's eleventh generation, and his status was noble, in order to avoid being pursued and killed by the enemy. Zhu Qiugui came to the area of present-day YuXian County, Henan Province, and after coming here, Zhu Qiugui felt that the geographical environment was good, plus no one else settled here.
Therefore, Zhu Qiugui led his servants and family members to settle down here and built a small village, and since then Zhu Qiugui's descendants have multiplied and lived here, and this place has become the later Zhuwa Village.
During the Daoguang years of the Qing Dynasty. As a descendant of Zhu Qiugui, the former King of Jin, a scholar named Zhu Zifeng was admitted to an official position and was also a salt envoy. Salt transport made this official position a fat difference, so Zhu Zifeng naturally would not let go of this opportunity to make money.
During Zhu Zifeng's tenure as an envoy to the salt transport, he took Zhu Zigui and Zhu Ziyun, two brothers, on the road of wealth express. With the continuous efforts of the three brothers, the wealth continued to accumulate, and soon became a rich person on the rich side of the local party.
And the three brothers are not unaware of the truth of the tree, the Zhu family's ancestral home is buried with so much wealth, there is no point of defense measures and it is not safe. Therefore, the three brothers planned to transform and design Zhuwa Village to enhance the defense capabilities of Zhuwa Village. The first is to prevent bandits from entering the village and robbing, and to protect the lives of the residents in Zhuwa Village, killing two birds with one stone.
Under the leadership of Zhu Zifeng, a skilled craftsman was invited to renovate and design Zhuwa Village, in order to be able to invite this high-ranking man to go out on horseback, the three brothers can be said to have spent a lot of money, conservatively estimated that there are ten million silver. Although the cost is huge, later history proves that this price is actually not a loss at all.
The entire defense line of Zhuwa Village has a total of three levels, the first is a strong wall, the entire wall will surround the village, the height of the wall is more than ten meters, the thickness is more than five meters. The construction of the perimeter wall alone cost 3.3 million taels of silver. It is conceivable that the materials used here are finely made.
The second line of defense of Zhuwa Village is a unique road. At the entrance of the village, the designer opened an inconspicuous path next to the main road, which is actually the right way to the village, and if you don't pay attention, you will miss it.
In addition, the road inside the village and the road outside will have an angle design of about 120 degrees, which is not conducive to the enemy to see the distribution of roads in the village clearly at the gate, causing a trance of sight and affecting judgment. Thus creating opportunities for the villagers.
There are also many T-shaped hutong design roads inside the village, which are conducive to reducing the crowd, have a separation effect, and help villagers to carry out street battles.
The third line of defense of Zhuwa Village is also the most powerful line of defense, that is, cannons were laid at three important sections of Zhuwa Village, a total of 72 cannons, which were very powerful.
Imagine if these cannons were fired together, they would be destroyed by the enemy in a very short period of time. At the same time, the aiming orientation design of the cannon is also very exquisite, and it will not destroy the remains of the houses in the village when firing.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Zhu Zifeng is worried that some bandits will enter the village by digging tunnels and dig tunnels with the enemies in the village to escape. So Zhu Zifeng ordered his subordinates to lay 19 layers of solid stones on the ground of the entire village, which were compacted layer by layer and very strong.
After making these defensive measures, Zhu Zifeng left several escape routes for the villagers, that is, three ancient wells in the village. If you can't resist, you can also escape through the passage to the outside of the village and transfer some of the property.
Through the exquisite design of the above, Zhu Zifeng and others made Zhuwa Village an iron wall and built it into a village fortress that was easy to defend and difficult to attack. Unless the enemy uses heavy weapons such as aircraft and artillery, the village can be conquered.
The defense project of Zhuwa Village cost the Zhu family brothers a lot of property, and it took more than 20 years to complete, so it can be said that the entire Zhuwa Village is a small city. For thousands of years, the wealth buried under the village of Zhuwa attracted the covetousness of countless enemies, but including the famous Taiping Army and the Twist Army, but in the end they did not succeed.
In 1860, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was on the rise, and two young generals Chen Yucheng and Li Xiucheng led troops around Henan's Yuxian County to attack the west, thinking of attacking Hubei and making the Qing army abandon the siege of Anqing.
When Zhu Zigui heard the news, he was very worried in his heart, because the Taiping Army was different from the usual bandits, and they had the skills to fight. The periphery of his village is still only an earthen wall, and his defense ability is not enough. The Zhu family's wealth was likely to be wiped out by this Taiping Army, so Zhu Zigui and everyone discussed remodeling and upgrading the defenses of Zhuwa Village.
First of all, Zhu Zigui and others tore down the earthen wall, using granite stone heads on the nearby mountains to pile up stone buildings, and at the same time building an artificial moat river was built on the periphery of the stone building, and the inner wall was just filled with soil from the river.
In order to increase the stability and solidity of the stone building, Zhu Zigui also inserted stone strips and viscous soil into the stone cracks to prevent it from collapsing under the impact of the Taiping Army. On the city wall, there are large and small, high and low misplaced gun holes waiting for them.
When Chen Yucheng and other Taiping troops came to the vicinity of Zhuwa Village, when they saw the arrangement of the village, they could not help but sigh: "It is really rich and willful", but also realized that this village is different from what they have seen before, and it will take a lot of effort to attack it, and it will delay the fighters.
Coincidentally, in 1945, it was the stage of the War of Resistance Against Japan. The Japanese army took the lead in launching the Battle of Yuzhong in Henan, but a small group of Japanese troops was unfortunately defeated and came to the vicinity of Zhuwa Village on the way back.
Zhuwa Village is rich in materials and food, and can quickly replenish personal supplies. This Japanese army originally thought that Zhuwa Village was a soft persimmon, but unexpectedly kicked an iron plate.
Because the Japanese army underestimated the strength of Zhuwa Village, coupled with the mutual cooperation of the military and civilians in the village, under the cover of the city wall organs, the military and civilians of Zhuwa Village beat this Japanese army to the point of blossoming. This small-scale war lasted for three days and three nights, and the Japanese army was short of food and ammunition, and finally fled. After these two battles, Zhuwa Village became famous.
In the 1950s, a wall demolition movement arose throughout the Central Plains. The campaign led to the demolition of about 100 ancient villages in the area of Henan's Yu County.
The walls outside the village of Zhuwa were also damaged, and because these walls were effective in preventing floods, local residents kept the walls close to the river. In the final analysis, it was only because of the good defensive capabilities of Zhuwa Village that it survived and remained to this day.
To sum up, neither the Taiping Army, the Twist army, nor the notorious little devils have begged for good fruit to eat under the strong defensive measures of Zhuwa Village. It is said that practice is the only criterion for testing truth, so it seems that the defensive measures of Zhuwa Village can withstand the test of history, which can also be passed down from generation to generation by Zhu Qiugui's descendants.
Today's Zhuwa Village has become a historical and cultural town in Tangjie Town, Pingdingshan City, Henan Province, and there are four natural villages under Zhuwa Village: Wuhu Village, Songzhuang Village, Linfeng Zhai Village and Zhuwa Village.
The most famous of them is Linfeng Village, Linfeng Village is known as the first ancient village in the Central Plains, the village has many natural resources and human resources, the more famous ones are Zhu Ancestral Hall, Zhu Zifeng Residence, Zhu Zigui Residence and so on.
In November 2005, Linfeng Village was even rated as "China's Famous Historical and Cultural Village", and many people visited every year, seemingly wanting to see if the three zhu zifeng brothers really buried their wealth under the ancestral home.
However, with the passage of time, the wealth of the Zhu family has also become a historical puzzle.
The tourism resources in the village are outstanding, and the buildings in the village are well preserved, with the architectural style of the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Whether it is the historical district, ancient temple, environmental style, continue to preserve the traditional style, has a high architectural value. At the same time, because the ancient village retains the architecture of each period since the Ming Dynasty, it presents a variety of architectural styles, and Zhuwa Village has also been named "Ancient Village Museum".
Nowadays, the history of Zhuwa Village has gone through a thousand years, and in addition to retaining a large number of material civilizations, there is also a strong historical culture that has been handed down. Such as farming and reading culture, the residents of the village have been reading for generations, the cultural and educational traditions are strong, and the font in the village can be seen from time to time.
The dashing fonts all show the cultural tastes of local villagers, which has also become an important support for zhuwa village to create a characteristic tourist attraction today.
Zhuwa Village has stood in the long river of history for thousands of years, in addition to its strong defensive measures, what is more important is the unity of the villagers, when encountering enemies, they have fought with the enemy and finally defeated the enemy.
The reason why the villagers are so united is inseparable from the traditional reading culture in the village, which has created a simple and simple customs of the villagers and unity with each other. Today's Zhuwa Village has also been able to preserve this priceless spiritual wealth and continue to pass it on among its children and grandchildren. As Zhuwa Village becomes a tourist attraction, these spiritual wealth will also benefit more people. Let Zhuwa Village live forever in the long river of history.
The ancestors of Zhuwa Village used their wisdom to create defensive projects that amazed future generations, and those who saw these ingenious designs were shocked. At the same time, I also admire the architectural techniques of the ancients! However, it is a pity that the surname of the high person who did not know the design of the defense organ of Zhuwa Village until now has become an unsolved mystery in the long river of history.
Zhuwa Village
Wu Xuede,Liu Yan. History of Ancient Architecture in Henan[M].Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House, 2001.109-151
[2] County Chronicle Office. Zhengzhou:Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House,1996.]
Hou Youbin,Li Wanzhen. Illustration of the history of ancient Chinese architecture[M].Beijing: China Architecture and Building Press, 2003.1-6
[4] Zuo Manchang, Qu Tao, Wang Fang. Chinese Residential Architecture Series - Henan Folk House[M].Beijing: China Construction Industry Publishing
2012.32 -51
Peng Yigang. Landscape analysis of traditional village and town settlements[M].Beijing:China Architecture and Building Press, 1992.54, 108-124
ZHAO Yong. The Protection and Development of Historical and Cultural Villages and Towns[M].Beijing: Chemical Industry Press, 2005.58-73