Ye Kefei
Chaolian is a small island located in the downtown area of Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province, located on a traffic artery, and several bridges pass through the island. In the old days, if Zhongshan and Jiangmen wanted to cross the Xijiang River, the only way was to take a boat, but now Chaolian Island is like a transit station, connecting the two banks of the Xijiang River in the road era.
The area of the island is only 12 square kilometers. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the five surnames of Lu, Chen, Li, Oushi and Pan migrated from Zhujie Lane in Nanxiong, Shaoguan, Guangdong. Because they live on an isolated island, the Chaolian people pay more attention to the power of the clan group. The ancestral hall is a place where the clan members deliberate and worship their ancestors, and are also a symbol of the clan strength. According to the data, the ancestral halls of Chaolian Island reached as many as 144 at the most, and there are still 68 ancestral halls and 4 family temples that are well preserved, which can be called the living fossils of the Lingnan ancestral hall culture.
An ancestral hall street, the first generation of gambling kings was born here
There are six villages on Xiaochaolian Island, each with an ancestral hall street.
The most spectacular is the Miaoqian Street in Lubian Village, with the Lu Ancestral Hall as the core, and more than ten ancestral halls and family temples are scattered throughout the street.
Lubian Village Lu Clan Ancestral Hall
Lu's Ancestral Hall is the starting point of Miaoqian Street, the three entrance ancestral halls are neat and deep, two huge lanterns on both sides of the gate, written "Dun Ben Tang" three big characters, flat font is good and thick. There is also a plaque of "Dun Ben Tang" hanging in the back of the ancestral hall, and the two sides of the ancestral hall are filled with tables and chairs for the villagers to sit idly or discuss.
The name of Dun Hondo predates the inauguration of the Lu Clan Ancestral Hall. In 1487, the twenty-third year of Ming Chenghua, the Lu clan began to build a ancestral hall, which was built in 1508 and is now on this scale. Prior to this, the great Confucian Chen Baisha had inscribed the name of "Dun Ben Tang" for the ancestral hall, taking the meaning of Dun Du Chongben. The year of inscription is no longer available, but Chen Baisha died in 1500, which can be seen that the inscription must have been written before this.
Chen Baisha, also known as Chen Xianzhang, was the only Ming Dynasty Confucian in Guangdong who had been from the Temple of Confucius, with disciples all over the Jiangmen area. Lu's ancestors were also his disciples, so he asked his teacher to write a plaque for the ancestral hall.
In the 27th year of the Qing Dynasty, that is, in 1901, the Lu clan founded the Dunben Academy for the sons of the clan, which was located in the ancestral hall and continued until the Republic of China period.
Nowadays, both sides of the Lu Ancestral Hall are set aside as exhibition halls, full of township covenants and ancestral precepts. On the display boards on both sides of the patio are lu celebrity introductions, the most legendary of which is a generation of gambling king Lu Jiu.
Born in Lubian Village in 1848, Lu Jiu moved to Macau in 1857 and later engaged in gambling, becoming the famous first generation of Macau's gambling king. In the martial arts novel "Jade Knife", Gu Long once wrote about a gambler who was as big as lu jiu, and it is said that he was based on this gambling king.
Although Lu Jiu is legendary, he is not the only person who is revered in the Chaolian Lu clan. Just next to the Lu Ancestral Hall, there is a Fengxi Family Temple, which is a quite magnificent one in the ancestral hall and family temple of Lubian Village, and there are royal gifts in the family temple. Built in 1873, this family temple was built by Lu Chao'an, who served as an envoy to Erpin during the Reign of the Qing Dynasty.
Similarly, there is the Temple of the Famous Eunuchs, which was built during the Ming Dynasty. Its boldness is the largest among the ancestral halls and family temples, the threshold of the gate is extremely high, and there are drum stones on both sides. In the three-entry building, the first two entrances are temple-style buildings, and the back seat is a courtyard-style two-story building. The wood carvings on the douliang are as many as four floors, which is extremely rare in the Nanyue Ancestral Hall.
The difference between a family temple and an ancestral hall is the identity of the worshipper. Under the ancestral hall, each house and branch within the clan will build each ancestral shrine. If the descendants of each house become officials, then the branch ancestral hall will be changed into a family temple.
The Lu clan is quite powerful, and has built more than 20 ancestral halls, and 11 are still preserved. Along the Lu Ancestral Hall, you can see the Lu Gong Ancestral Hall (Shichang Hall), the Nianchuan Lu Gong Ancestral Hall (Congde Hall), the Eastern Tang Lu Gong Ancestral Hall (Wu Ben Tang), the Yi Zhai Lu Gong Ancestral Hall (Si De Tang) and the Yang Zhai Lu Gong Ancestral Hall (Shu De Tang), all of which are quite gorgeous, and the interior has been renovated.
Lubian Village sealed the Family Temple
In contrast, the Huafeng Lu Gong Ancestral Hall and the Yinyu Lu Gong Ancestral Hall are much smaller in scale. No wonder some people say that the construction of ancestral halls in the old days was also a dark war of discourse within the clan.
The ancestral halls on Chaolian Island are very distinctive, such as the fish in the terracotta sculpture on the roof ridge. The fish is the legendary turtle of the sea god, with the magic power to control water and fire, placed on the roof ridge to guard the house, fire prevention and disaster avoidance, is a typical island people will choose the element.
Details of the sculpture of the Lu Clan Ancestral Hall
I prefer Tomioka Village to the mighty Lubian. This place is very interesting, the old village is oval in shape, ancestral halls and mansions are arranged in a circle, and if you go around a circle, you will walk to the original point.
Graffiti on the streets of Fugang
Tomioka is dominated by the Ward clan, and many Ward Clan Ancestral Halls are erected around the road, of which Shuei Hall and Ōjō Hall are the best maintained. There is also a Taibao temple in the village that is only one person high at the entrance, and people who are slightly taller must bow their heads to enter, but the small temple is full of incense.
Small Taibao Temple
"Study hard and improve every day"
The most famous place in Chaolian is the Hongsheng Temple, which has now been expanded into Hongsheng Park, just at the mouth of the village of Fugang.
The Hongsheng Temple was built in 1600, that is, during the Ming Dynasty's Wanli Dynasty, with a history of more than 400 years. At that time, this place was not only the faith of the Chaolian people, but also the location of the Chaomen Ancient Ferry.
With the passage of time, the vicissitudes of the sea and the mulberry fields, the old river channels have been filled, and there are only a few stone steps left in the ancient port, which are lonely across Hongsheng Park.
At that time, Chaomen Gudu was a well-known transportation point and was once the second largest port in Guangdong. In the early years of the Republic of China, the Chaolian people were keen to go abroad to make a living, so they set sail from Chaomen Gudu, which also made Chaolian a famous hometown of overseas Chinese.
The Hongsheng Temple is dedicated to the Hongsheng Dragon King, that is, the South China Sea Hongsheng Guangli Zhaoming Dragon King. This two-in-three-tree building is a collection of brick carving, gray carving, wood carving, stone carving and ancient carving, and the overall is quite exquisite.
The temple also enshrines a real figure, Wang Inspector Fu, who was once the Inspector of Guangdong.
In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, the imperial court adopted a strategy of isolation in an attempt to trap the Zheng clan, who was defending Taiwan. In the first year of the Kangxi Dynasty, that is, in 1662, the Qing court ordered all the coastal border people in the five provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong and Lu to move inland for 50 miles, which is known in history as "Kangxi Moving to the Sea".
In the eight-year migration of the sea and the boundary, all the coastal villages and towns in the Chaolian and even Jiangmen areas were affected, hundreds of thousands of acres of good land were forced to abandon farming, houses were forcibly demolished, and countless people fell into extreme poverty and even died on the road.
In the fourth year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1665), the Governor of Guangdong, Wang Lai, saw that the countryside was in ruins, and the ten rooms and nine empty spaces were repeatedly written to the imperial court, stating the harm of the policy of "moving the sea and moving the boundary", so he was deposed and returned to Beijing. But even so, he still risked his life to write "Expanding boundaries and restoring hometowns", and finally impressed the Qing court to terminate the policy of "moving the sea and moving the border". Unfortunately, Wang Lairen did not see the day when the people moved back, because he died of illness shortly after shangshu.
The news of Wang Lairen's death spread to southern Guangdong, which made the people feel overwhelmed, and the construction of Wang Lairen's ancestral temple rose up throughout Xinhui County. Hundreds of years have passed, and most of the ancestral temples in the old days have disappeared, and the statue of Wang Lairen enshrined in the Chaolianhong Temple is the only one left.
Several buildings next to the Hongsheng Temple have been rebuilt or renovated in recent years, including the Township Covenant, The Yixue, the Ancestral Hall of the District Yuebo, the Temple of Wealth and the Temple of Confucius.
In the Confucius Temple, I saw a pair of calligraphy, which read, "Study hard, improve every day, strive to be self-motivated, and strive to be strong", and I thought who wrote such a small pediatric thing. As a result, when I saw the payment, it was actually an ink treasure given by Liang Zongdai to the "Chaolian Hongsheng Park Teaching and Research Office".
Liang Zongdai Mobao
Liang Zongdai was born in Baise, Guangxi, why is he related to Chaolian? After asking the villagers, they knew that Liang Zongdai's ancestors were from Jiangmen Xinhui. The Xinhui Liang clan is a large local clan, and the most famous of the clans is Liang Qichao.
In addition to Liang Zongdai's ink treasure in the Confucius Temple, there are also various charms that Chao Lian people have sought, all related to education, praying for a smooth examination, and some people announcing good news, most of them are admitted to a certain university.
The hometown of lyricist Lu Guozhan
From the Southern Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, Chaolian produced more than 20 jinshi and more than 100 people.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, Chaolian opened a new style of school. In addition to the Dunben Academy of the Lu Ancestral Hall, between 1906 and 1947, the Chaolian people built more than 20 new-style schools, the largest number in Jiangmen. Most of the school's sources of funding are public land rent, the withdrawal of fees from the river crossing wharf and private sponsorship, and there are many volunteer schools, which are dedicated to the enrollment of poor children.
The corner that I like the most about Chaolian is a school, Dexin School.
Surrounded by cement walls, the former site of Dexin School is independent of a corner of Tomioka Village. The two-storey red brick school building with blue window ledges is full of Republican atmosphere. The main façade of the school is very exquisite, with Roman columns in front of the main corridor leading to the top of the second floor, and arched windows on both sides of the arched gate. The second floor has a protruding curved balcony topped by a triangular gable.
Jiangmen Wuyi area is a famous hometown of overseas Chinese, overseas Chinese returning to their hometowns to promote education is prevalent, there are many new-style schools in the countryside, not only new-style schools, architecture is also a combination of Chinese and Western, Dexin School is no exception.
In 1926, Shioren founded Tomioka Elementary School, which was later renamed Tokushin Elementary School. As the school is called, Dexin School has always been the best of the new schools in Chaolian, and even the best school in the Xinhui area.
The Ou Clan Ancestral Hall provided a large number of ancient books for the Dexin School Library, and the Ou Clan people donated a large number of experimental instruments to the school, which were well equipped and could not be compared with many urban schools.
In the 1990s, due to the shortage of school buildings, the Chaolian people mobilized overseas villagers to build a new school building next to the old school building, which is now the location of Fugang Kindergarten. This two-storey Western-style colonnade building is symmetrical to the left and right, and its appearance is exquisite, not inferior to the old schoolhouse.
Dexin School side cloister
Chaolian, who is keen on education, is known for his talents, such as Li Yannan, one of the Seventy-Two Martyrs of Huanghuagang.
In addition, Lu Jun, an academician of the American Academy of Sciences and the first Chinese U.S. president of the United States, Lu Jun, a pioneer in Chinese thoracic surgery, Lu Guangqi, who was the president of Sun Yat-sen Medical University, Chen Huanyong, the founder of modern Plant Taxonomy in China and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chen Xun, a lexicographer, and Chen Baoyi, an oil painter, are all Chaolian people.
However, the most familiar name of the Southern Cantonese is the Hong Kong lyricist Lu Guozhan, who is called huang xia.
There are more than a thousand poems written by Lu Guojian, "Little Li Fei Dao" "Rare a good skill, love pass can never be broken", "The Great Wall of Ten Thousand Miles Never Falls" of "The Great Hero Huo Yuanjia", as well as the theme songs of "Grace of the Earth", "Journey to the Tiger Mountain Again", "Heavenly Silkworm Change" and "Great Inner Heroes", etc., are all popular works.
It is worth mentioning that in the theme song of "Grace of the Earth", Lu Guozhan wrote that "the river bends and bends, coldly says that there is trouble, don't go to my hometown, tears are a string of wet clothes... The earth leans on the riverbank, and the sound of the water changes softly", describing the attachment to the small island of Chaolian.
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