The Wang Family Courtyard, the "Forbidden City" of Shanxi 171

The Jin merchants have left many typical traditional Chinese houses in Shanxi for hundreds of years, collectively known as the Jin merchants' compound or Shanxi courtyard, which are representative buildings of Shanxi culture and nowadays are hot spots for tourism in Shanxi.
The Wang Family Courtyard is a masterpiece of Qing Dynasty residential architecture, built by the Jing Sheng Wang family, descendants of the Taiyuan Wang clan, one of the four largest families in Lingshi County, during the Ming Wanli period to the Qing Jiaqing period, over 200 years, as the Wang family's business continued to flourish, in the village, from west to east, from low to high, extending, gradually repairing and building a total of The Wang family built a group of buildings covering an area of 250,000 square metres. When the Wang family built the five fortress groups of Hongmen Fort, Gaojiaya Fort, Xibaozi Fort, Southeast Fort and Xiaonan Fort, they used the five spiritual symbols of "dragon, phoenix, tiger, tortoise and lion" to build them respectively, in order to cater for the heavenly opportunity. The three major complexes of Hongmen Fort (Dragon), Gaojiayia (Phoenix) and Chongning Fort (Tiger), which are now open as the Chinese Folk House Art Museum, the Chinese Wang Museum and the Liqun Art Museum, and the There are 231 large and small courtyards, 2,078 houses and an area of 80,000 square metres. The Wang Family Courtyard is known as "The First Chinese Residence", "The Forbidden City of Shanxi" and "The Forbidden City of China". --It is also known as the "Forbidden City of Shanxi" and has a popular reputation - "The Wang family does not look at the courtyard when they return".
The Wang Family Courtyard is located in Jing Sheng Town, 12 kilometres east of Lingshi County, Shanxi Province, and the most convenient way to get to it is from Jiexiu City. The Wang Family Courtyard is now open to the public mainly in two parts, the Red Gate Fort and Gaojiaya, about 45,000 square metres, with many courtyards and a large area, and it takes two to three hours to walk around.

The Wang Family Courtyard in Jing Sheng Town, Lingshi County, Shanxi, one of the first historical and cultural towns in China, is a representative of the courtyards in Shanxi. Although the restoration is now less than a quarter of the original area, the northern-style houses, built on the hills in layers, are still endlessly visible.

The Wang Family Courtyard is not as famous as the Qiao Family Courtyard, but it is far more interesting and larger in scale than the Qiao Family Courtyard.

In addition to the Wang Family Courtyard, there are many other historical relics in Jing Sheng Town, such as the Zishou Temple, the Red Temple, the Temple of Literature and the Wenpen Pagoda.

The Wang Family Courtyard, a national key cultural relic protection unit.

The entrance to the Wang Family Compound at Gaojiaya, which is now open to the public, is less than a quarter of its original size, consisting mainly of two parts, Gaojiaya and Hongmen Fort, which is larger than Gaojiaya, and Gaojiaya, which has the sign "Chinese Folk House Art Museum".

Most of the courtyard gates face the shading wall, which has different brick carvings, all of which are wonderful.

Most of the courtyards in Shanxi are square and absolutely symmetrical, in line with Chinese architectural tradition, but with the same grey tiles and green walls, high walls and small alleys, it is easy to get lost when entering them.

There is also a small temple inside the compound.

A Shanxi-style kiln house, warm in winter and cool in summer.

The stone gate piers are of various shapes and patterns, all with elaborate motifs and sayings, most of which have been touched to the bone.

With its rounded arches, green brick walls and green brick floors, dotted with greenery, this deep house may seem a little depressing nowadays, but it is very much in keeping with Chinese tradition.

The door piers of the Wang family compound are very impressive, lively and alive, this is a lion rolling an embroidered ball.

Apart from the brick and stone carvings, the wood carvings are also one of the main attractions of the Wang Family Courtyard. The windows, doors, railings and handrails are carved wherever there is wood, all with traditional Chinese patterns and motifs.

Gaojiaya was built by the 17th Wang Rucong and Wang Rucheng brothers from the first year of Jiaqing (1796) to the 16th year of Jiaqing (1811), with a total area of 19,572 square metres, 35 large and small courtyards and 342 houses, which can be seen in about an hour, and the even larger compound next door called Red Gate Fort.

The Red Gate Fortress, built between 1739 and 1793, has 88 courtyards with 776 houses and a total area of 25,000 square metres.

The high walls are more than 20 metres high and are worthy of a deep courtyard.

The small gate with the character "Che" on it is the gate through which Gaojiaya and Hongmen Fortress intersected.

The Red Gate Fort is built on a hill, and the road between the courtyards is three horizontal and one vertical, hiding the character "Wang" inside.

The stone gate piers are of a rather peculiar shape, with three lions, a snail and what appears to be a few earthworms, the meaning of which is unknown.

The courtyard after courtyard is a dazzling sight, seemingly identical, yet each with its own unique character.

Even the word 'toilet' has been carved out of the ground in such an artistic way.

There aren't many trees in the Wang Family Courtyard, but this courtyard has the most trees, and the flowers and willows are so beautiful.

This date tree is already covered with dates, which will be ready to eat in a few days' time.

The ancient buildings, regardless of their size and simplicity, were more or less decorated, and rich people, like the Wang Family Courtyard, dug in everywhere, carving fences and painting buildings, even a hole in the wall had to be made into various shapes.

Around the Red Gate Fort, there is also a high retaining wall, which is also the passage for the guards to patrol and keep watch, and it is not uncommon to find a compound in Shanxi where "home is a city".

Each of the grey tiles is decorated with floral patterns, so it is no wonder that the Jin merchants were so wealthy and tasteful in those days.

What is this on the wall? You can see a lot of these objects on the brick walls of the Wang family compound, but of course, most of them are rather plain, and there are relatively few as ornate as this one. In fact, they all serve one function, that of iron pillars for reinforcement, just as we need steel for concrete walls today.

In one of the crosses of the Chinese character for "king", you will see three straight passages like this as you walk down the parapet.

There are not many courtyards with trees, perhaps because of the inauspicious character "困", but with a large acacia tree like this one, you feel much more comfortable.

The high walls of the courtyard are a bit of a prison, in addition to a deep house.

The hill behind it was originally the ancestral graves of the Wang family, but during the Cultural Revolution they were divided up by the local people to reclaim the terraces, but now the terraces are gone and so are the ancestral graves.

The Wang family was a huge family in its heyday. Since the Wang family's ancestor Wang Shi moved to Jing Sheng during the Yuan Dynasty (1312-1313), the family has been passed down to 27 generations over 680 years and flourished during the Kang, Qian and Jia Dynasties of the Qing Dynasty.

Today, the splendour is long gone, and only the buildings are still frozen in history, telling of the glory of the past.

The local houses outside the castle were filled with people after 1949, until 1996, when Geng Yanbo, the former governor of Lingshi, presided over the restoration of the Wang Family Compound.

The Wang Family Compound in Lingshi County was the starting point for Geng Yanbo's style, which was later followed by Yuzi, Datong and Taiyuan, which are not to be judged as right or wrong.

The clasps on the gates of Hongmen Fort.

The monument of the National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit outside the gate of Hongmen Fort.

The unicorn on the wall.

Beyond Gaojiaya and Hongmen Fort, there is a small Wang ancestral hall, just off the Red Gate Fort exit to the car park, but it is rarely visited.

A stone tablet inside the Wang Ancestral Hall, which was built for Wang Mengpeng, the township's filial piety champion.

The ancestral hall has two floors, with an ancestor worshipping hall and a theatre upstairs, and a plaque hung on it reading 'Hereditary Hereditary En Riding Lieutenant'.
We can see that the Red Gate Fort and Gao Jia Ya Fort in the Wang Family Compound are already quite large in scale, and we can imagine that when the five forts of "Dragon, Phoenix, Tiger, Tortoise and Lin" were in place, the Wang Family was still only "five forts in five ditches and five lanes". In the village of Jing Sheng, there were "nine ditches, eight forts and eight lanes" on the "five-mile-long street", so you can imagine the prosperity and wealth of the village at that time. Today, the prosperity is long gone, the glory is gone, and only the houses from a hundred years ago are still being lamented by future generations.