"Kaiping Watchtower" behind a "Jinshan guest" of the historical story, bitter and beautiful!

In the history of Jiangmen, there are so many generations, they have a better future, they embarked on the road of the end of the world, composed of tears and sweat, leaving their homes, become an overseas Chinese. Overseas Chinese in foreign lands, experienced despair, but also realized the dream and glory, but also brought back some advanced foreign culture, making Jiangmen became a famous "overseas Chinese township".

I live in Jiangmen nearly four years of time, occasionally go to visit some attractions, had the honor to witness the influence of overseas Chinese culture, "Kaiping Watchtower". Kaiping Watchtower, located in the jurisdiction of Jiangmen under the Kaiping, is the traditional Chinese culture to take the initiative to absorb foreign cultures produced by the building, set defense, residential and Chinese and Western architectural art in one of the multi-storey tower building, is a combination of Chinese and Western residential, ancient Greek, Roman and Islamic styles such as a variety of.

Below, we talk about "Kaiping Watchtower"!

Kaiping Watchtower as a famous attraction in Jiangmen, the most suitable tourist season for April-June, or September-October. In this time of year, you come to Kaiping Watchtower neighborhood tourism, will see a peaceful and idyllic scenery, bright spring, the breeze at first, blowing up a layer of "bamboo sea". The bamboo forest next to the pond, is a burst of tiny ripples, fish play in the water, which is a unique Jiangnan water town scene, but there is nothing special.

However, when you look up and see in the distance, you will see a block of towers standing in the middle of the field, in the midst of flowers, with ancient Greek, Roman and Islamic styles, and this is what makes people surprised.

June 28, 2007, "Kaiping Watchtower and Ancient Villages" applied for the World Heritage project, and the 31st World Heritage Conference in New Zealand was adopted, formally included in the "World Heritage List", becoming China's 35th World Heritage Site, China thus gave birth to the first overseas Chinese culture of the World Heritage project. The first World Heritage project of overseas Chinese culture was born in China.

Kaiping Watchtower in its heyday, nearly 3,000, the existing 1,833. These towers according to the function to points, can be divided into residence (local rich people sole proprietor of the building, for daily living), more floor (at the entrance to the village, the riverbank and other places to build, for early warning) and the House (is a joint venture of the village people) (is a joint venture of the village people to build, for temporary shelter from bandits or flood use); towers according to building materials to points, divided into reinforced concrete floor, brick floor, mud floor, stone floor and so on, of which reinforced concrete floor is the most hard, while the brick floor is a set of hard and beautiful all in one.

Kaiping Watchtower can be described as a miracle of Chinese vernacular architecture, is a combination of Chinese and Western excellent architecture, and behind it is hidden a bitter and beautiful historical story.

The so-called "towers", is the defensive use of the bunker and the building shape of the combination of buildings, in the Han Dynasty appeared, and widely used in rural areas. However, the story of Kaiping Watchtower, but also from the Ming Dynasty.

Now, let's look at the map of Jiangmen Wuyi area, you can see that Kaiping a special geographic location, Kaiping is located in the junction of Xinhui, Taishan, Enping, Xinxing four counties. In history, any junction is bound to be chaotic, with "mountains high and emperors far away", where imperial policies and officials cannot even reach, and naturally cannot control. Therefore, since the Ming Dynasty, Kaiping has become a "four no matter" place, rampant banditry, social security chaos; and because of the low-lying terrain, many rivers, every encounter typhoon rainstorms, flooding is frequent.

For various reasons, the local people were forced to build towers in the village from the protection. Jiajing years, Kaiping Sanmenli village of Guan in order to protect their families and safeguard the lives and property of the village, built a large-scale shelter - Welcome to the Dragon Tower , which is the oldest surviving towers in Kaiping.

Welcome to the Dragon Tower simple and simple, not beautiful, but exceptionally strong. Welcome to the Dragon Tower sitting north to south, covers an area of 152 square meters, the corners of the building each has a floor-to-ceiling towers, four sides of a small window. In the local, listen to the old generation said, welcome to the Dragon House to protect their generations, avoided several floods and bandits, people call it "life-saving building.

And in the late Ming Dynasty, the government forced the people to rebel more and more serious, local officials in order to strengthen the local security, to encourage landlords to organize the local armed forces, fortresses to protect themselves. So, Chongzhen years, the Guan family built "Ruiyun building".

In 1848, a large number of gold mines were discovered in Northern California. Then, in 1849, the "gold rush" began to appear, coupled with the construction of the Pacific Railroad, the news of the recruitment of Chinese workers also spread to China, people scrambled to go to the gold rush. In Kaiping local, some young people in order to a better future, embarked on a "gold rush" trip, these people have a **** the same name - "Jinshan guest".

However, after nearly three or four months of wandering, arrived in the United States of the gold mountain guests only to find that the reality is not as they imagined. In order to find gold and build railroads, they have long been in the remote mountainous areas, doing the most bitter and tired work, life is very difficult.

However, the sky is the limit, in the Gold Mountaineer's long-term efforts, they gradually in the United States, Canada and other places to establish a foothold.

At this point, the Kingsmen began to remit their hard-earned money back to their hometowns in order to take care of their families. By the early twentieth century, Jiangmen Wuyi area has become the hometown of overseas Chinese, overseas Chinese families have improved their lives, which also laid a solid economic foundation for the rise of Kaiping Watchtower.

By the Republic of China, social unrest, "four regardless of" Kaiping more chaotic security, rampant banditry, and the rich life of the overseas Chinese is so that they have attracted the scourge of death.

Between 1912 and 1926, in just 14 years, Kaiping has 8 times the bandits hijacked the school, capturing teachers, students more than a hundred people.

But one night in 1922, things took a turn for the worse.

In December of that year, many bandits wanted to hijack the Chikan area of Kaiping Middle School, was the Eagle Village towers searchlight irradiation found that the four townships around the Mission personnel in a timely manner intercepted, and succeeded in rescuing the principal and students 17 people.

This incident stirred the county, far overseas Chinese also heard the news, very happy, that the construction of the towers are able to prevent the bandits. So, do not want to be bandits in the eyes of the "fat meat" of the overseas Chinese, began to "savage" to fight back.

Overseas Chinese began to work hard outside, scrimping and saving, pooling funds to remit home, so that the village people to build towers, used to protect themselves. Moreover, because of the shortage of domestic design talent, so many overseas Chinese in the overseas countries to ask people to design a good towers blueprints, sent back to their hometowns, which also creates a variety of styles of Kaiping Watchtower, very artistic features.

So, from the twentieth century, in Kaiping 1659 square kilometers of land has been built one after another a number of towers.

Later, some overseas Chinese in order to protect the safety of their families, and their own property is not lost, overseas Chinese returned to their hometowns to build new houses, but also have to build new houses into a variety of towers type of building, which also created the Republic of China Kaiping Watchtower spurt of development.

And in which some of the overseas Chinese show off mentality, but also for the defense of the towers have become exceptionally beautiful, but also a collection of different styles of foreign architectural art in different periods, such as the ancient Greek colonnade, ancient Roman columns, arches and vaults, the European medieval Gothic pointed arches and Islamic style arches, the European Castle components, Riding floors in Portuguese architecture, Renaissance and 17th-century European Baroque style buildings, etc., which are highly artistic.

In the "Kaiping Ming Pao" has this record: I (visitor) while Longtang City, met a red invitation labeled post at the head of the He's ancestral ancestral shrine, the line before the view, the text of the cloud: the posters Longtang Lianbao Hall, now because of the bandit atmosphere is fierce, everywhere to beat the crowd to loot for the worry of Qiqi, the Hall has a supervisor in this, then opened a meeting, the discussion of the **** Figure of law and order plan, it is proposed that will be bottom of the Church industry sold, to take the doubts Building towers to maintain the place ..." From this, we can see that the towers are intended for defense, resistance to bandits.

So, in Kaiping, as a defensive "sheltered harbor", towers are generally four or five layers high, the highest up to nine layers. Some towers usually do not live, only bandits come, will go in to hide, so most of the indoor space is narrow, and in order to save money, the floor between the more wooden planks paved.

Around the perimeter, the walls are equipped with windows with openings down, fitted with iron plate windows; on the roof, in order to be able to accurately early warning, built protruding square or round corner fortresses, equipped with shooting holes.

And in the towers, the door is the only way in and out of the door, the door plate made of heavy steel plate, the door is usually three or four locks, the door is equipped with iron gates. And above the door, there are small holes, very strong.

In that turbulent era, the lack of security Kaiping overseas Chinese with hard-working hands to build a towers, as a way to self-protection. However, towers can protect the family, but not with the family.

In those days, the status of overseas Chinese was very low, and the money earned could not support the cost of living in a foreign country, so the local Chinese in Kaiping and their families are often separated from each other, and can not see each other twice a year.

In the years of separation, the contact between the overseas Chinese and their families could only rely on a copy of the family letters, and in the local archives in Kaiping, there are hundreds of family letters about the overseas Chinese. Therefore, in order to be able to reunite with their families, the overseas Chinese usually returned to their home countries to develop after making money overseas.

So, many overseas Chinese began to examine the aesthetics of the towers, began to build a number of beautiful towers, according to the words of the present, is a villa.

By this time, towers have been used not only for defense, but also a symbol of the status and identity of the building owner, but also sends a strong sense of nostalgia of the overseas Chinese. There are funds to build a good building, it also means that the overseas Chinese do not have to drift again, you can get together with your family.

Overseas Chinese began to focus on the appearance of the towers, which makes the Republic of China period towers beautiful, more artistic. And because of this, today, we can have the honor of witnessing a Chinese vernacular architectural wonders.

Diaolou in Kaiping, overseas Chinese sent a letter home, "the little daughter learned to speak", "yesterday I sent a letter you received it", "parents are very nostalgic! ".

And this letter of home, but also tells the story of Kaiping locals away from the more get together, this is a bitter history, but also created the miracle of Chinese vernacular architecture.

In this impregnable towers, not only the love of the locals to their families, but also the strong nostalgia of the Jinshan guest.

Pi

References:

"Kaiping Watchtower and the village", "Kaiping County Records", "Kaiping Ming Pao"

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