As a prime location in the ancient city of Xinghua and a gathering place for merchants from all over the world, there is a deeply hidden Classical Garden of Jiangnan in the Baziqiao Cultural Tourism Leisure Block - Li Garden.
A corner of Lee Garden
Li Xiaobo, the owner of Li Garden, was a salt merchant in Yangzhou in the Qing Dynasty, and he opened a pawnshop called "Deben Dadian" in the east of the fourth arch building of East Avenue in Xinghua City, the best in the city. The location of the former pawnshop is just south of Li Garden.
Li Xiaobo is also a loyal practitioner of hedonism, and he did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to invite the famous garden builders to design a private garden hidden in the depths of the residence, named "Li Garden".
Li Garden is also known as "Yu Garden Half Mu". The four characters of "Yuyuan Half Mu" are inscribed by Zhang Hao, the prefect of Xunzhou in Guangxi in the Qing Dynasty and known for his elegance.
The main entrance of LiYuan is located at No. 13, Wu'an Street, in the Baziqiao Cultural Tourism Leisure Block, facing west and east, and the brick carved door is "Xinghua County Chamber of Commerce". In 1934, the Li family fell in the middle of the road, and the descendant Li Meige sold the property and garden to Gu Lunan, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, as a fixed office space for the Xinghua Chamber of Commerce, so this door has survived to this day.
Lee Garden Boat Hall
The core building of Li Garden is composed of three parts: the Boat Hall, the Square Hall and the Guihua Building, and the "Li Garden Boat Hall" is the most famous.
Regarding the origin of the ship hall, there is a story circulating: across the wall from Li Yuan was the Xinghua County Prison, which was commonly known as the "Great Forbidden" and "The Door Faces West", but the strict high wall could not stop the sound of handcuffs and shackles when the felons walked. Li Xiaobo listened to it in his heart and was quite uncomfortable. He thought left and right, and finally came up with a strategy, it was better to build a boat hall in the garden, and symbolize the departure of the merchant ship with the sound of handcuffs and shackles, which dissolved all the inauspiciousness and at the same time gave the pawnshop business a beautiful meaning of smooth sailing.
Therefore, he asked the craftsmen to borrow from the stone boat shape system commonly found in Jiangnan gardens to design a unique painting boat on land - the boat hall.
Interior view of the ship's hall
The ship hall is a boat-type building with a canopy roof on both sides, and the south cloister has a slope board, symbolizing the "springboard". The bow of the ship faces west, pointing to the county jail (now the Xinghua City Museum), and there are wisteria trellises built against the wall, symbolizing the "ship cable". The bow of the ship has a beautiful hanging, and there is a plaque "Free and Popular", which is inscribed by Sheng Weifu of Yiren.
Inside, it is a "cabin", with a large double-sided carved floor cover as a front and rear separation, and the mirror surface at the east end hangs a plaque of "Canglang Painting Boat" inscribed by Changzhou calligrapher Wang Xun (now Sichuan Li Banli supplement).
The "rear cabin" and the "front cabin" of the ship hall are connected in an "L" shape, which may be due to the need to make full use of the gap when building the garden, and there are circular floor coverings in the three rooms in the north and south, and the two rooms in the south and the north room are separated by a circular floor covering, and the flower cover is embedded with a plaque of "Forgiveness".
Foreign tourists visit here, often sit for a moment, taste a cup of tea, appreciate the elegant and melodious "Banqiao Road", in the ancient tune of "old fisherman, a fishing rod, backing the cliff, the bay", feel Mr. Itabashi's free feelings, taste the true meaning of life in a word.
Lee Garden Hall
Li Yuanfang Hall is in the southwest direction of the boat hall, sitting south and facing north, facing three rooms wide, the square is high and open, and the inner hanging is less than the plaque of "Songyun Mountain Pavilion" inscribed on it.
The north of the square hall is a rectangular patio, and under the north wall is a brick wavy flower platform, which is planted with ancient trees such as wax plums and white magnolias. In particular, a tall magnolia tree, which has a history of more than 150 years, is full of white branches when the flowers bloom, which is pleasing to the eye.
Ruan Yuan's inscription "Yin Xiang"
In the northwest corner of the square hall, there is a small gate through the west courtyard, and there is a "Yinxiang" stone forehead engraved to the east, the famous scholar Ruan Yuanshu of the Qing Dynasty; and the stone forehead of the "Xuanyun" engraved to the west, the Qing Dynasty calligrapher Yang Fashu.
In the west courtyard, there were original earthen mountains and pavilions, the name of the pavilion was "and meditation", which was written by Xu Hui, a calligrapher who was xinghua in the late Qing Dynasty, and there was a joint sentence of Mr. Zheng Banqiao hanging on the pavilion: "How to plant ten famous flowers is like planting morality, and it is not as good as cultivating the body to repair ten thousand Guangsha." "The earthen mountains and pavilions no longer exist.
The south of the West Courtyard is the South Courtyard. The courtyard has "Guihua (Flower) Building", the small building sits south and faces north, faces three rooms, two floors above the stair door, and has a stone forehead engraved above the staircase door, and the text content is: "Tai Xie is as rich as rich, and when the time comes, there is; the grass and trees are like famous festivals, and the accumulation of long is cheng", which is written by Liu Yong ("Zai Xiang Liu LuoGuo"), a scholar of the Qing Dynasty University.
There are also flower beds under the north flower wall of the courtyard, and there are ancient trees such as osmanthus flowers, pomegranates, and boxwoods.
Bird's eye view of Lee Garden
Li Yuan's unique design style and exquisite architectural skills are the historical witnesses of the commercial prosperity of the Baziqiao Cultural Tourism Leisure Block and even the Xinghua "Jindongmen" Historical and Cultural Block, which has high historical, cultural and artistic value.
Although Li Garden is small, it can be described as endless fun and unlimited scenery.
(Text / Chen Bin)