When I first stood in front of this large-scale ruin and broken wall, what came to my mind was the sentence in kong Shangren's "Peach Blossom Fan" ending song "Lamenting Jiangnan" of the Qing Dynasty: "Watch him rise up the Zhu Lou, watch him feast on guests, and watch him collapse the building!" Such a grand ancient building from prosperity to decline, it seems that it only happened in a flash, once prosperous to today's loneliness or loneliness makes people feel overwhelmed.
Although I am a native of Fengshun County, it was only on my way back this summer that I first heard that there was such a place in Fengshun County called "Nine Halls and Eighteen Wells". The ancient mansion is hidden in a forest of fruit trees and bamboo, and the notice board in front of the ancient mansion still tells us: the nine halls refer to the nine positive halls such as the gate tower, the lower, the middle, the upper, the upper, the downstairs, the left flower, the right flower, and the heavenly hall, and the eighteen wells include the five wells of the five entrance halls, the five wells of the horizontal house and the three wells of the back hall.
Like the traditional Hakka walled house, in front of the ancient house is Heping (square), the view is wide in front of the heping, and the pond on the left side is not known whether it was left before or dug out later. The creek that had been meandering in front of the door had now been built with cement and sand, but the stream seemed to be slowly drying up.
The ancient mansion is located at the foot of Jiexi Mountain in Shuanglu XiaZeng Village, Tangxi Town. Friends told me that he also stumbled upon this ancient mansion on a ride, its scale, the layout of the wonderful surprised him, what he could not imagine is that the ancient mansion is hidden in such a secret and remote place, even today, the road to the old mansion is not only narrow, but also curved, thinking back then, the old mansion can be said to be isolated from the world.
There is no sign on the electronic map, friends have long forgotten how to find here, we are also walking and stopping, but also walked a lot of wronged roads, along the way asked a lot of people, it is not easy to find here.
The village of Shuanglu Xia Zeng is surprisingly quiet, and Tao Yuanming's rural scene of "strange traffic, chickens and dogs smelling each other" is completely missing here, only the clothes dried in front of the door tell me that there are still people living here.
It took a lot of trouble to find the ancient house, standing in front of the spacious Heping, saying that it was absolutely false not to be shocked, the stone plaque "General's First" on the lintel was clearly visible, and the stone drum in front of the door still remained, but from the two stone tablets of the "County Cultural Relics Protection Unit General's First" that were originally embedded in the wall and later set up, at this moment quietly reclining in front of the stone drum.
The pair of mottled and old stone lions are still quietly waiting here, looking through the doorway, the ancient mansion is overgrown with weeds, only the remnants of the wall are broken, who can think that this is the Guangxu Decade (1884), Ding Richang's brother, Zhaoqing camp staff general, deputy general Ding Shun's son Ding Pingdu built. Although Ding Richang, who was the governor of Qingjia in the Qing Dynasty and the governor of Jiangsu, had been for a hundred years, his prestige in the government and the opposition, especially in Fengshun, was still extremely high, so the number of people who came to visit was still endless.
The road from the main entrance is almost blocked by weeds and bamboo, and can only be viewed from the air by drone. Shogun's first is a fudi-style building, consisting of three large houses connected into one, and the overall format of three-entry and two horizontal houses is adopted. The middle road is larger, and the left and right buildings are slightly smaller. In the early years of the Republic of China, an additional three bungalows were built. The total area is 1134 square meters, with a total of 74 rooms.
When the people are gone, the houses collapse, the weeds and trees immediately occupy the place, the needles are inserted, and some of the canopy has even completely covered the entire hall, and after sighing, we can only recall its former glory from the broken structure.
The deep laneway has been shaded by trees, the roots of a large-leaf banyan tree must be firmly rooted in the wall, in the south, especially in the Pearl River Delta, the big-leaf banyan is not an auspicious tree species, its vitality is really exuberant, there is a proverb in the folk: Rong (banyan tree) tree is not tolerant, tolerant of people do not tolerate trees. As long as there is a banyan tree in the home, it must be removed immediately, otherwise the wall will be destroyed and the tiles will be uncovered, and the banyan tree will hint at the fall of the family road.
"A few months ago, I was able to walk into the back room, but I didn't expect it to be okay now, and the change is really fast." The friend could not help but let out a sigh. "What the hell is going on, how come such a huge family is missing?"
A farmer who lives in the local area came over and chatted with us: in the 1980s, it was demolished and transformed, and some of them were even sold to the outside world; at the same time, some local villagers were arranged to live in the ancient house, but after all, it was not their own house, some villagers used the way of "stealing beams for columns", demolished the beams of the ancient house for their own houses, furniture, the beams were thin, the tiles were rotten, plus the wind and rain, no one was willing to repair, the old house finally fell down, collapsed.
An older villager told us that due to a variety of reasons, the children and grandchildren of the old house have basically moved out, and they once thought of raising money for repairs, but the money raised by the tribesmen themselves was far from enough; they also thought of borrowing money from the outside, but unfortunately, the other party finally gave up because they were worried about the repayment ability of the tribesmen, of course, there were other reasons.
"Nine halls and eighteen wells" on the side of the "Yong'an Residence", although the wall skin is a little peeling, but the wall is still the wall, the tile is still tile, the house is still a house, although the door couplet is a little off-colored, but still "Guotai Min'an, wind and rain smooth"!
The once prominent family compound, today there are three garbage cans at the door, which has become a collection point for the villagers' domestic garbage, and the "nine halls and eighteen wells" that no one cares about and no one cares for may soon be annihilated. Looking at the depressed and dilapidated old mansions in front of you, the overgrown grassy plains, the countless trees in the house that come out through the walls and the trees are high but full of life; the glory of the pavilions and pavilions is now annihilated into moss and green tiles; people sigh and sigh but inevitably have some regrets...