The origin of tulou .....

Earth building is a building with walls (a few of which are made of adobe bricks), columns and beams all made of wood, which is made of clay mixed with a certain proportion of unfired sandy clay and clayey sandy soil. In short, it is a two-story building built with adobe slabs as the load-bearing system. According to the Modern Chinese Dictionary, the so-called "building" means "a house with two or more floors". Accordingly, a one-story house, even if it is supported by adobe walls and has timber as columns and beams, can not be called adobe, but adobe. Tulou is a unique large-scale residential form in the world, and it is called the treasure of traditional houses in China.

Tulou is a large-scale residential building distributed in Hakka areas such as Fujian, Jiangxi and Guangdong in the southeast of China, which uses raw soil as the main building material, combines raw soil with wood structure, and uses stone to varying degrees. They are the products of several historical upheavals and mass migration in China and even East Asia. Among them, Fujian Tulou has the widest distribution, the largest number, the richest types and the best preservation.

There are more than 3,000 earth buildings strictly confirmed in Fujian, mainly distributed in Yongding County, Longyan, Fujian, Nanjing County and Hua 'an County, Zhangzhou, Fujian, among which Hakka earth buildings are the representatives. The climax of tulou construction coincides with the turmoil in China and the southward migration of Hakka ethnic groups from the Central Plains. These periods include the Huang Chao Rebellion in the late Tang Dynasty, the southward migration in the Southern Song Dynasty and the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. /kloc-After the 7th century, not only the Hakkas finally settled in the southeast coast of China, but also the earth buildings were mainly distributed in Fujian and Guangdong in China. This special building was built to resist wild animals and robbers in the mountains and to embody the ideal of a big family living together under Confucianism.

The appearance of tulou is closely related to the southward migration of residents in the Central Plains. During the Yongjia period of the Western Jin Dynasty (307-3 12), due to years of war in the north, rare droughts and locusts occurred, and a large number of residents of the Central Plains moved south, most of whom came to Fujian, bringing the advanced culture of the Central Plains, and Fujian began to show new vitality. In the second year of the Tang Dynasty (669), in order to consolidate the rule of Fujian, Pai and his son led troops into Fujian from the Central Plains and stationed in Zhangzhou and other places in southern Fujian. At the end of the Tang Dynasty (7th-8th century), the people of the Central Plains moved south again in large scale to escape the war, and a large part of them went to Quanzhou, Fuzhou along the coast of Fujian and Jianzhou in the north. In the process of mutual integration and development with the aborigines, the Han people from the Central Plains who entered Zhangzhou and Quanzhou in southeastern Fujian formed the Fulao people represented by Minnan dialect, and then migrated overseas, forming tens of millions of overseas Chinese groups mainly distributed in Southeast Asian countries.

At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, especially in the Southern Song Dynasty (1 127- 1279), many people in the Central Plains moved south due to the attack and rule of the northern Jin people. Most of these people went south to Tingzhou in southwest Fujian via Ganzhou, Jiangxi, and brought their language and culture to the Central Plains. After long-term integration with local culture, Hakka people, represented by Hakka dialect, have formed.

Archaeological results show that since the Neolithic Age more than 6,000 years ago, the history of rammed houses and settlement buildings began in China and even in the vast areas of Central Asia and East Asia. From11-13rd century, the traditional adobe architectural art has developed and prospered the unique architectural category of "earth building" under the specific historical migration background and unique natural environment conditions. Fujian Tulou recorded the whole process of this historical development.

From the end of the Warring States Period to the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, the rammed earth construction technology in Fujian was quite mature. The city walls left by Xindian in Fuzhou from the late Warring States to the ruins of the ancient city of Han Dynasty (2nd century BC-BC 1 century) and the ruins of Wangcheng in Fujian and Guangdong in Chengcun, Wuyishan (BC 1 century) are rammed earth. After the Tang and Five Dynasties (7th-8th century), forts with strong military defensive nature appeared in Fujian, and most of the walls of these forts were built by rammed earth.

Most of these rammed earth castles (stockades) have been called stockades by local people since ancient times, and they have been basically destroyed, or only broken walls is left, or they have been demolished and rebuilt, or they have only been used as place names to this day. The Records of Yongding County published before the 1940s recorded the names of many villages, but most of them were gone, replaced by earth buildings or brick-concrete buildings built later. Few of them left only some recognizable remains, and only broken walls was left at most. Up to now, before the Southern Song Dynasty, Yongding and Toyota had Xinzhai, Chizhai, Xihu, Jinzhai, Renzi, Long 'an, Shuizhai, Gaozhai, Li Tou, Luozhai, Yongan, Shangzhai, Xinzhai, Xiazhai, Zhongzhai, Wang Long, Wang Gang, Hejiazhai, Heiyun and Huyang. These villages are rammed with raw soil, which are not only residential houses, but also buildings with outstanding defense functions.