Friends familiar with history may know that Beijing is a gathering place for ancient buildings, such as the Forbidden City, the Yuanmingyuan, the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven, the Qing Dynasty, etc., which are now listed as World Cultural Heritage; who can think that 1/5 of China's "World Heritage" is actually built by the same family, and the "Style Lei" family is still circulating in old Beijing.
Here to explain, "Style Lei" is not a personal name, but a "craftsman family" who has been in charge of Qing architecture for more than 200 years; there is a legend in old Beijing that Kangxi wanted to rebuild the Taihe Hall, and a craftsman from Nanjing came, called "Lei Developed". This person is not amazing in appearance, but he has a craft that is difficult for ordinary people to compare; but how skilled craftsmen build temples for the Qing imperial family, their status is very humble after all. Near the end of the project, the Kangxi Emperor personally presided over the "shangliang" ceremony, which was very important, but there was still an accident, and when the ridge was installed, the mortise and mortise could not be closed.
According to "superstition", the Taihe Hall represents the foundation of the Great Qing, the "Great Liang" is the emperor, and if the Great Liang does not go up, it means that "the Kangxi Emperor cannot support the Great Qing"; the anxious craftsmen are full of sweat, which makes the Emperor know that all the craftsmen involved in the construction of the Taihe Hall are the sin of turning around. Although the craftsmen do not say, but the time is not waiting for people, after the auspicious time is still the crime of U-turn, at this time someone thought of "Lei Developed"; here is another detail, the "upper beam" of the Taihe Hall is not something that anyone can do, and the best of the craftsmen are needed, at least seven pin officials; the matter is urgent, the crowd can not take much care of it, and force the "Lei Developed" to put on the seven official uniforms, which is the ascent of the beam.
Seeing "Lei Developed" holding an axe, ascending to a high place, in front of the Kangxi Emperor," "Kaka" several axes, the Taihe Hall beams settled in response; coincidentally, the Taihe Hall beams settled, just to meet the "auspicious time", the Kangxi Emperor was very happy, and appointed Lei Develop as the "style room in charge" on the spot. At this point, Lei Develop has become the first generation of the head of the "Style Lei"; here it is explained that the appeal is only the old Beijing folklore, according to research, the Qing Taihe Hall "Shangliang Incident" does exist, but the protagonist is not Lei Development, but his son, the second style house in charge of the case "Lei Jinyu"; it should also be noted that although "Lei Developed" did not experience the reconstruction of the Taihe Hall, it was indeed the ancestor of the "Style Lei", who participated in the construction of the three major halls of the Forbidden City (Taihe, Zhonghe, and Baohe Hall).
The Kangxi Emperor personally sealed "Lei Developed" as the head of the royal style room, and its bold innovation retained the strict symmetry of the central axis hall architecture, but the architectural arrangement on both sides of the axis only sought rough symmetry, and sought changes and differences in details; this not only reflected the "center as respect", but also formed a unified and primary and secondary architectural style. In his later years, Lei Develop wrote the "Rules of Engineering Practices of the Ministry of Works" and the "Engineering Construction Record", which is still the "textbook" of ancient architecture (antique architecture); at first glance, Lei Develop laid a solid foundation for the inheritance of "Style Lei" for eight generations, and should be the most outstanding one, in fact, it is not, what really makes "Style Lei" shine is the second generation, Lei Jinyu.
Lei Jinyu went to Beijing with his father, and was also blessed to study in Guozi, and then abandoned Wen to inherit his father's business, and "blue is better than blue", more exquisite than his father's skills; the aforementioned Taihe Hall "Shangliang Incident" occurred on Lei Jinyu, according to historical records, when Kangxi found him, the two were similar in age and admired each other, so "style Lei" ascended to heaven one step at a time. Of course, "Style Lei" not only relies on the "friendship" between Lei Jinyu and Kangxi; Lei Jinyu boldly reformed the wooden "Dou Arch" technique that has been inherited for thousands of years, taking the mouth as the size to form a new model of changing from "Dou Arch" to "Dou Kou", and to this day, this woodworking skill is still used as the industry standard for ancient architecture (antique architecture).
In this way, Lei Jinyu was in charge of the royal style room, and when the Yongzheng Emperor expanded the Yuanmingyuan, "Style Lei" was still the "chief designer" of the building construction; it is worth mentioning that on the seventieth birthday of Lei Jinyu, the Yongzheng Emperor specially arranged for "Qianlong" (who was not yet the emperor at that time) to write an inscription for the Lei family "Gu Rare". Just imagine, in the hierarchical Qing Dynasty, the emperor gave a "craftsman" inscription, which should be a great honor; and more than that, Lei Jinyu passed away, and the Yongzheng Emperor specially rewarded the gold hundred and two, and buried the original place as a marquis, "style Lei" can be described as reaching its peak moment.
The good times did not last long, the second head of the style room "Lei Jinyu" shined, but also let the Lei family temporarily go downhill; Lei Jinyu died, and his son "Lei Sheng" was only born a few months ago, it was difficult to undertake the heavy responsibility of "holding the case", fortunately, his mother and the Ministry of Works fought according to reason, and finally asked for the gift of the style house for the young son to regain his adulthood. That being said, after all, "Thunder Thunder" did not have the guidance of his father and brother, and although he regained control of the style house in adulthood, he had almost achieved little in his life; at first glance, "Style Thunder" began to decline from the third generation, but as already said, this situation is only temporary, because Thunder has given birth to three sons with a career.
Or the Lei family genes are too good, as the third generation of Lei Shengliang, although there is almost no achievement, but his three sons once again carried the banner of "style lei"; these three people are: Lei Jiawei, Lei Jiaxi and Lei Jiarui, of which "Lei Jiaxi" is the most outstanding, representative works include Wanshou Mountain, Xiangshan, Chengde Summer Resort, Ningshou Palace Garden and Jiaqing Emperor's "Changling" and The QiChun Garden in the Yuanmingyuan, the Tongyuan Theater Building and the Construction Project of the Hanjingtang Theater Building. Just in response to the phrase "prosperity must decline", Lei Jiaxi suddenly died suddenly in his heyday, and his son "Lei Jingxiu" was still studying; in this way, the style room "palm case" was also taken away by others, but this did not affect the continued inheritance of "style Lei".
It is said that Lei Jingxiu, the fifth generation of "Style Lei", had no father before he learned the art, but this person had the tenacity to not accept defeat and painstakingly studied for more than twenty years; Lei Jingxiu was in Daoguang for twenty-nine years, relying on his own knowledge and skills, and he had to regain the position of "mastering the case" of the style room. However, it is fair to say that the Qing Dynasty at that time was already in turmoil, and the Qing court was no longer able to build a large number of civil engineering; therefore, Lei Jingxiu, the fifth generation of "style Lei", could not do much, but only presided over the construction of the Qing Western Tombs and the Eastern Tombs.
At this time, Lei Jingxiu also felt the danger, so he consciously preserved and rebuilt the architectural drawings left by the ancestors of the family, and made detailed notes and classification archives; according to historical records, only the architectural drawings left by the five generations of "Style Lei" filled three houses, which also left valuable materials for the study of ancient buildings for future generations, and can also be regarded as the greatest contribution of "Lei Jingxiu". Soon after, the British and French troops invaded the city of Beijing, and Lei Jingxiu, the fifth generation of the "Style Lei", died to protect the Yuanmingyuan; in addition, Lei Jingxiu's son-in-law was also killed on the spot to protect the garden, and his daughter and a family of 14 self-immolated the garden.
Or a friend lamented that "after a hundred years of inheritance, five generations of 'style ray' have come to an end, and the story should be over, right?" In fact, the "Style Lei" family did not fall at this point, there is still a sixth generation of "Lei Siqi" to shoulder the heavy responsibility of the royal style house; "Lei Siqi" is Lei Jingxiu's third son, after escaping the Yuanmingyuan rebellion, and then through the Four Qing Emperors of Daoguang, Xianfeng, Tongzhi and Guangxu, whose representative works are Dingling, Dingdongling, Huiling and Xiyuan (present-day Zhongnanhai), as well as many noble residences, gardens and mausoleums.
Under the auspices of Lei Siqi, "Style Lei" was once again famous and began to build mausoleums for the empress dowagers of the Eastern and Western Palaces during the Xianfeng period; friends who have studied history may know that the Great Qing in the Xianfeng Period can be described as internal and external troubles, and "internal worries" refers to the struggle between the eastern and western palace empresses, Ci'an and Cixi. To put it simply, the two empresses looked for each other for a fight, but under the superb skills of "Lei Siqi", they finally appeased the two; but this did not end, Empress Dowager Ci'an died first, Cixi began to monopolize power, in order to be different from the dead "Ci'an", Cixi actually ordered all the tombs built to be renovated.
Not to mention the problem of laboring the people and hurting the money, the change in architectural style alone stumped the sixth head of the "style Lei"; "Lei Siqi" changed the design several times in order to satisfy Cixi, and finally worked hard and died of illness; at this time, the heavy responsibility of building cixi's mausoleum fell on the shoulders of the seventh head of the "style Lei", Lei Siqi's eldest son, "Lei Tingchang". At that time, although it was the late Qing Dynasty when the country was infuriated and indignant, it was still a great construction project at the instigation of Cixi; it was precisely for this reason that "Style Lei" was able to shine again, and even later generations evaluated "Lei Tingchang" as: a giant of the late Qing Dynasty, whose representative works include the Temple of Heaven Prayer Hall, the Forbidden City Taihe Gate and a series of royal cemetery projects.
According to history, "Lei Tingchang" in the late Qing Dynasty still rose step by step with superb skills, and the official was promoted to the rank of Erpin, making the "Style Lei" family enter its heyday again; even when "Style Lei" came to the eighth generation, the Lei family in the capital was still the architectural designer of the Qing Imperial Family, and the case at this time was Lei Tingchang's eldest son "Lei Xiancai". To put it simply, Lei Xiancai continued to promote the development of the "Style Lei" family, and its representative works mainly include the Regency Palace, the Summer Palace, the Xiyuan, the Chongling Tomb, the Beijing Zhengyang Gate, etc.; unfortunately, with the victory of the Xinhai Revolution, the Qing Dynasty withdrew from the historical stage, and the "Style House" also disappeared, and the "Style Lei" declined.
With the intrusion of Western-style architecture, "style lei" completely useless; forced by livelihood, the descendants of the Lei family began to sell the "ancient architectural design patterns" accumulated for eight generations, and the antique circles in old Beijing were snapped up, some even lost overseas, fortunately, people with lofty ideals bought a large number of acquisitions, which has today's "a style lei, half of the ancient construction history".