Preface
"The royal palace has the Forbidden City, and the private house looks at the Qiao family", this sentence is widely circulated in the market reflects the status of the Qiao family compound in the history of mainland architecture, although the Qiao family compound is only a private house, but many people will be shocked by the architectural art and charm it shows after visiting the Qiao family compound.
Qiao's compound was built in the 20th year of Qianlong, that is, in 1756, by the Qiao family, and has been continuously repaired and expanded for hundreds of years, and finally formed its current appearance.
The Qiao family compound is so rich, but why it was not looted by the Japanese during the Anti-Japanese War is because there is something hanging at its door.
First, the Jin merchant Qiao family
Qiao's compound was originally built by Qiao Quanmei, a well-known businessman in Shanxi during the Qianlong period, and he had many shops under his name, among which money shops and pawnshops made the most money.
Relying on these shops, Qiao Quanmei accumulated a lot of wealth and decided to build a mansion, which is the source of Qiao's compound.
Later, Qiao Quanmei's sons Qiao Zhimiao and Qiao Zhiyong took over those shops from their father, their business acumen was even better than their father's, and the two brothers joined forces to make the Qiao family's business more and more prosperous, and the Qiao family became a famous Jin merchant family during the Qing Dynasty.
The hierarchical system in ancient China was relatively strict, the status of the merchants, and although the Qiao family was very wealthy, their social status was very low, and the descendants of the merchants were not even allowed to participate in the imperial examinations.
Therefore, the Qiao family had to focus on business, but fortunately, their children and grandchildren were very talented in business, and the Qiao family's assets continued to expand and accumulate more and more wealth.
Chinese people have a characteristic, the first thing to do after having money is to buy a house and buy land, because housing and land represent home and stable life, and the pursuit of a stable life is engraved in the bones of Chinese, and the Qiao family is naturally not exempt from vulgarity.
As a result, each generation of the Qiao family will continue to renovate and expand the Qiao family compound on the basis of the old mansion originally built by Qiao Quanmei, and it has become as spectacular as it is today.
Although the Qiaojia compound has been continuously renovated and expanded over the centuries, its architectural style is very unified, with obvious northern architectural characteristics.
The layout of the building is very rigorous and elegant, and the overall gray tone gives people a solemn feeling. The architecture of Qiao's courtyard reflects delicacy everywhere, wood carving, stone carving and brick carving styles are diverse, and the patterns on it are quite exquisite, such as piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, Meilan bamboo chrysanthemum, flowers, insects, birds and beasts, fairy children.
In the last expansion of the building, we can see obvious Western-style architectural characteristics, from the Qiao family compound we can appreciate the characteristics of different eras of the building technology, but also intuitively feel the monstrous wealth of the Qiao family.
However, the tree is very popular, and the Qiao family is so rich, which will naturally cause people to be jealous, especially in feudal society, where the social status of merchants is low, and it is easy to become a thorn in the side and flesh of others, causing trouble.
Second, the crisis is emerging
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, due to the corruption and incompetence of the Qing government, the imperial court was forced to sign numerous agreements with the Western powers that humiliated the country, and was burdened with huge indemnities.
Naturally, the feudal rulers would not take money from their own hands, so that the huge amount of compensation was naturally pressed on the peasants and wealthy merchants, and some data show that the tax pressure of the peasants at the end of the Qing Dynasty was three times that of the past, and the merchants could not escape the fate of being squeezed if they had money.
In order to avoid trouble, the Qiao family once urgently sold the family shop and transferred their wealth, although the family business was indeed hit hard, but the foundation was not shaken, so although the situation continued to change later, the Qiao family has always been standing.
It's a pity that the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression still made the Qiao family, who had gone through ups and downs, feel the urgency of the situation, the Japanese did all kinds of evil on the land of China, and the Qiao family was undoubtedly a huge piece of fat.
In the face of the wicked man with guns in his hand, even the Qiao family was powerless to fight, but the strange thing is that during the Anti-Japanese War, the Qiao family was not looted by the Japanese, what is the reason for this?
The Qiao family is just a businessman, no matter how rich they are, they can't resist the barbaric Japanese army without armed forces, but just when the Qiao family was worried, a turning point appeared.
Qiao's family inadvertently rescued a group of nuns from Italy, who had come to China with Christian missionaries, but the Chinese people were suffering from the harassment of foreign powers, so it was inevitable to develop hatred when they saw foreign faces, and occasionally there would be one or two incidents of attacking foreigners.
But as a wealthy businessman, the Qiao family naturally knew more than ordinary people, and they saw that these nuns had no malicious intentions, so they rescued them from the encirclement of the common people.
In order to express their gratitude to the Qiao family, the nuns specially gave them a flag, and it was this flag that allowed the Qiao family to avoid the harassment of the Japanese.
3. The smart Joe family
During the Anti-Japanese War, although the Japanese were extremely arrogant in China, they were very cautious in front of Western countries, and their strategic focus was in China, so they did not want to annoy Western countries.
Therefore, the Japanese army would not easily attack the foreigners who remained in China at that time, and even some buildings built by foreigners would not be easily destroyed.
At that time, many kind missionaries took advantage of this to protect the Chinese people who sought refuge from them, and we can see many stories of foreigners who stayed in China at that time to protect the Chinese people from some historical documents.
The Qiao family was well-informed and naturally knew the value of this flag, so they hung this Italian flag at the gate, and then in this way, those Japanese who were originally eyeing the wealth of the Qiao family also began to hesitate when they saw this flag representing Italy.
Although the Qiao family is indeed very rich, the Japanese are more afraid of causing trouble to their country because of their greed at this time, so they dare not rashly break into the Qiao family.
Although the Qiao family escaped a catastrophe by relying on this flag, if it were not for the original good deeds, it would not have been possible to have this opportunity to obtain this flag, if it were not for their well-informed, they would not have thought that they could borrow a flag to protect the family, and we would not be able to see such a complete Qiao family compound complex today.
Nowadays, Qiaojia Courtyard, as a national key protected building, has made an important contribution to our understanding of the architectural characteristics of Qing Dynasty residential buildings, the culture of Jin merchants and the customs of Jinzhong.
epilogue
The Qiao family's compound was able to avoid destruction in the war not only because the Qiao family was smart and witty and quick to react, but also because they had a kind character and virtue, and it was precisely because of this character that the Qiao family could maintain a hundred years of glory and glory.