Ancient and Modern Towns, Cultural Sacred Sites (Part 3)
Section 3: Charming Hometowns, Folk Villages — China's No. 1 Fan-Making Town: Zhangguying Town, Yueyang. Zhangguying Town enjoys the reputation of "China's No. 1 Fan-Making Town." Its ingenious people have mastered techniques across four major product lines — fans, tourism products, mosaic home products, and industrial materials — with over 1,000 skilled painters, machine operators, and computer designers.
This article has been compiled from historical materials in the "Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network" (33519.com · City Overview section). Some administrative divisions, population, socioeconomic data, and policy information may be outdated and are for reference only; for the latest situation, please refer to official releases by the local government and scenic areas.
Section Three
A Hometown of Charm, a Folk-Custom Village
China's No. 1 Fan Industry Town—Zhangguying Town, Yueyang
Zhangguying Town enjoys the reputation of being 'China's No. 1 Fan Industry Town.' The people of the town are clever and skillful, having mastered technologies in four major series including fans, tourism products, mosaic home products, and industrial materials, with more than 1,000 senior painters, machine operators, computer designers, and other personnel. The town's Yueyang County Bajiao Fan Industry Co., Ltd. produces 11 million bamboo fans and wooden fans annually, which are exported to Asia and Europe, accounting for more than a quarter of global sales. The enterprise employs nearly 2,000 people, with an average monthly wage income of more than 1,200 yuan per person, and completes nearly 4 million yuan in annual tax revenue.
Hunan's Largest Bamboo Ware Distribution Center—Yanglousi Town, Linxiang
The 10-li-long Yanglousi 'Ten-Li Bamboo Ware Corridor,' with 218 shopfronts, can be called the nation's largest and is renowned at home and abroad. There is a 100,000-mu high-yield moso bamboo demonstration base centered on Yanglousi. There is the Northern Hunan Bamboo Ware Boutique Market: covering 150 mu, with 750 storefronts and an investment of 30 million yuan, mainly selling five major series of fine bamboo wares—bamboo carvings, bamboo engravings, bamboo weaving and bamboo mats, and bamboo slips—with annual sales of 300 million yuan. There are also other deep-processing projects such as bamboo vinegar, bamboo charcoal, bamboo flooring, bamboo mats, and bamboo furniture. The State Council named Yanglousi 'China's Hometown of Bamboo Ware.'
The First Capital of Hunan's Tusi Dynasty—Furong Town, Yongshun
Furong Town was originally named Wangcun and was renamed because the film 'Furong Town' was shot here. Furong Town has a history of more than 3,000 years and has been the political, economic, and cultural center of China's Tujia region since ancient times. The Tujia people originated here, were unified here, established their capital here, and reached their peak of development here. Experts praise it as 'the source of the Tujia and a thousand-year-old ancient Tusi town.' In the fifth year of Emperor Gaozu of Han, Furong Town was established as the seat of Youyang County and was historically called 'the mighty town of Youyang.' In 940 AD, the two sides made peace and erected a bronze pillar at Huixiping in the jurisdiction. From then on, an 800-year, 28-generation Tusi dynasty was established, and the Tusi King Peng Shichou became the first emperor of the Tujia people. Furong Town thus became the first capital of the Tusi dynasty.
The Most Intact Stone-Slab Street Ancient Town in Central Hunan—Hutian Town, Xiangxiang
Hutian Town is located in the northwest of Xiangxiang. The Provincial Department of Construction and the Cultural Relics Bureau marveled at the local natural environment and cultural heritage, and even more at the completeness of the old bluestone slab street, evaluating it as 'No. 1 in Central Hunan.' The bluestone-paved slab street is well preserved. The middle of the street surface consists of horizontal stone slabs 0.8 meters wide, with 0.3-meter-wide vertical stone slabs inlaid on both sides. Drainage ditches are also built on both sides, edged with strip stone, lined with blue bricks, and inlaid with bluestone floor drains. The entire street is 1.4 meters wide and 414 meters long, equivalent to 0.828 li, which corresponds to the local folk tradition of auspicious numbers. The old Hutian street of earthen bricks and blue tiles has remained intact through hundreds of years of wind and rain, which is rare in the central Hunan region.
The Starting Point of China's 'Tea Road'—Nieshi Town, Linxiang
Nieshi Town in Linxiang City is a cultural ancient town with a thousand-year history. The town has been rich in tea for successive years, with a history of more than 800 years. From the early to the mid-Qing Dynasty, the 'Tea Road' rose. It started in the south of the Yangtze, crossed the Great Wall to the north, ran through Mongolia, passed through Kyakhta on the then China-Russia border, and turned toward Russia and the European hinterland, with a total length of tens of thousands of kilometers. Most Chinese merchants were 'Shanxi merchants.' The tea that Shanxi merchants transported to Russia initially came from Wuyi Mountain, and later switched to Linxiang's dark tea. From then on, Nieshi became one of the starting points of the 'Tea Road.' Tea songs, tea lyrics, and tea couplets truly record the history of Nieshi's tea industry development, vividly reflect the sentiments of Nieshi's tea people, and leave people a valuable cultural heritage.
China's Earliest Academy Village and Town—Nanyue Town, Hengshan
Nanyue Town is located within the Nanyue Hengshan Scenic Area, at the southern foot of Zhurong Peak, the highest peak of Nanyue Hengshan. The town governs 20 villages and 269 villager groups, with a total population of 28,900 and a total area of 84 square kilometers. It is a famous historical and cultural town of Hunan Province. Nanyue has a profound cultural heritage and has long enjoyed the reputation of a 'civilized and profound area.' Nanyue Town successively had 17 academies, including Yihou, Hupan, Weizhou, Wending, Jingxing, Nanxuan, Jixian, Ganquan, Baisha, and Donglang. Among them, Nanyue Academy was built from the 11th year of the Yuanhe reign of Emperor Xianzong of Tang to the 4th year of the Changqing reign of Emperor Muzong of Tang, making it the earliest academy to appear in Chinese history. Now, among the 17 academies, only Yihou Academy is completely preserved and is now a key cultural relic protection unit of Hunan Province.
Hunan's No. 1 Town for Rural Tourism—Lingquan Town, Jinshi
Lingquan Town is located in the southwestern corner of Jinshi, Changde City, Hunan Province, a hilly area of 55 square kilometers with a population of 12,000. A 200-mu sightseeing vegetable base, along with leisure agriculture projects built around Qingquan Reservoir such as Lanniwan Leisure Farm, Baiguoyuan, and Shenjiuyan Tujia Folk Custom Park, have made leisure agriculture a supporting industry for Lingquan's new socialist countryside construction. The construction path of 'industry first, contiguous demonstration, joint governance of town and village, overall advancement, and inclusive expansion' has made Lingquan Town the first township to build rural tourism on the scale of the entire town, and it has been called 'Hunan's No. 1 Town for Rural Tourism' by Hunan's tourism authorities.
Hunan's Largest Ramie Processing Town—Huangmaozhou Town, Yuanjiang
Huangmaozhou Town is located in the Datonghu Polder in the north of Yuanjiang City. It governs 50 villages, 1 community, 6 fishing grounds, and 619 villager groups, with a total area of 126.87 square kilometers and 77,371 people. The town's high-quality ramie planting area reaches 60,000 mu, with an annual output of 15,000 tons of high-quality ramie. At the same time, Huangmaozhou Town in Yuanjiang City is also the largest ramie processing town in Hunan Province. There are 4 relatively large-scale hemp textile enterprises in the base, with an annual output of 10,000 tons of refined dried ramie, 5,000 tons of hemp yarn, and 20 million meters of 850-type gray cloth. It has become the largest and strongest township hemp textile industrialization construction base in Hunan Province, integrating ramie breeding, planting, and processing. The China National Conditions Investigation and Research Center awarded Huangmaozhou Town in Yuanjiang City the title of 'China's Hometown of Ramie.'
Hunan's No. 1 Plastic Weaving Town—Cangshuipu Town, Yiyang
Cangshuipu Town is a nationally famous 'hometown of packaging bags.' It has a history of more than 30 years in developing woven bags, plastic bags, and paper bag processing. It now has more than 1,000 'three-bag' processing enterprises and 22,000 employees, forming a complete industrial chain integrating waste recycling, pelletizing and processing, blow molding and wire drawing, weaving into bags, and packaging and printing. The town's annual total processing output value of the 'three bags' exceeds 500 million yuan, generating more than 10 million yuan in taxes. The Cangshuipu Packaging Industrial City under construction has a planned area of 2,600 mu and has invested 3.8 million yuan, completing infrastructure construction such as water, electricity, and roads. Currently, several enterprises with investments of nearly 10 million yuan have settled in, including Yiyang Huanyu Plastic Industry Co., Ltd. and Cangshuipu United Factory. With this as the center and radiating east and west along National Highway 319, enterprises such as Xiangzhe Woven Bag Factory, Wanlin Woven Bag Factory, and Huarong Woven Bag Factory in Henglongqiao Town, as well as Kanghua Plastic Weaving Co., Ltd. in Longguangqiao Town, have successively joined in, merging into the surging tide of 'three-bag' processing.
China's First Tourism Village Mainly Themed on Contemporary Literature—Qingxi Village, Yiyang
The No. 1 Village of Great Changes in the Mountain Countryside, also known as Qingxi Village, is a new scenic spot created by Yiyang City based on the main scenes depicted in writer Zhou Libo's novel 'Great Changes in the Mountain Countryside,' combined with new socialist countryside construction. It is China's first tourist attraction mainly themed on contemporary literature and has attracted tourists from all over the country. Whether it is the culturally rich Libo Square, Libo Former Residence, Libo Small Street, and Peasant Stage, or the pastoral and rustic country paths, rice threshing grounds, hundred-mu lotus pond, and pear orchard, all stir people's hearts.
Hunan's First 'Patriotic Health Model Village'—Huangmaoping Village, Fenghuang
Huangmaoping Village is a Miao settlement in Fenghuang County. In 1952, the whole village carried out patriotic health campaigns such as improving environmental sanitation, protecting water source sanitation, implementing drinking water disinfection, and eliminating mosquitoes and rats. Every household in the village used serving chopsticks for meals, did not drink unboiled water, did not share towels when washing faces, and frequently swept the floor, wiped dust, removed garbage, spread medicine, bathed, changed clothes, had haircuts, and cut nails. They had hygiene conventions, hygiene tools, food covers, toilet covers, pig and cattle pens, chicken and duck cages, garbage bins, and boiled water to drink. It was Hunan's first demonstration village to achieve control of epidemic diseases. In 1952, the State Council awarded the village the title of 'Patriotic Health Model Village,' and in 1958, the National Patriotic Health Campaign Committee awarded it the title of 'National Patriotic Health Demonstration Village.'
Hometown of Chinese Folk Culture and Art—Qiaotouhe Town, Lianyuan City
On March 19, 2009, Qiaotouhe Town in Lianyuan City was officially named 'Hometown of Chinese Folk Culture and Art' by the Ministry of Culture. Qiaotouhe Town has achieved abundant results in cultural industry construction: 4 rural libraries, 4 newly built theater buildings, cinemas, and auditoriums totaling 3,000 square meters, and three leisure squares. The complete venue construction provides a convenient stage for public cultural activities. Every village has a band, greatly raising villagers' enthusiasm for participation. The profound cultural heritage and atmosphere have inspired people to create rich and colorful cultural life. There are currently 12 Huaguxi troupes, with more than 300 amateur performers, more than 100 performed plays, and more than 100 out-of-town performances each year. In 1996, Qiaotouhe Town was rated 'Hometown of Mass Culture and Art' by the Department of Culture, and in 2007 it was named 'National Hometown of Huaguxi Art' by the Ministry of Culture. To inherit and popularize cultural undertakings, the town established the Qiaotouhe Town Huaguxi Art Development Steering Committee, regularly offering training classes in various professional arts such as instrumental music, dance, and drama, allowing culture and art to continue to develop and flourish.
Hunan's First Hometown of Folk Painting Art—Chaoshui Township, Lengshuitan City
Chaoshui folk painting art is famous for the rural sentiment and unique style of the farmers' lacquer paintings of Chaoshui Township. Lacquer painting is an ancient painting type that evolved from folk murals more than 300 years ago. It stands alongside traditional Chinese painting, gouache painting, and Western painting, and is quite distinctive in conception, composition, and expression techniques. In 1983, 'Rural Market,' created by 18-year-old Chaoshui girl Zhang Yuhua, was selected for the 'National Young Farmers' Painting Exhibition,' sent to Beijing for exhibition the same year, and won a commemorative award. From 1980 to 1989, Chaoshui Township trained more than 300 students, laying a solid foundation for the development of 'Chaoshui farmers' paintings.' In December 1993, the Ministry of Culture awarded the township the title of 'Hometown of Chaoshui Folk Painting Art.'
Jiangnan's No. 1 Ancient Village—Gaoyi Ancient Village, Huitong County
Gaoyi Ancient Village is located by the Wushui River in Huitong County, Hunan Province. The village preserves 104 ancient dwellings built between the 13th year of Hongwu of Ming and the 7th year of Guangxu of Qing (1638-1881), with a total area of 19,416 square meters. It is a relatively large-scale and relatively well-preserved residential building complex of the Ming and Qing periods discovered so far in our province, praised by experts as 'Jiangnan's No. 1 Ancient Village' and a 'Folk Custom Museum.' In the '2007 Top Ten Ancient Cities, Towns, and Villages in China' selection activity, it was rated as one of 'China's Top Ten Ancient Villages.'
Related Records
China's Charming Cities with Distinctive Features
The 2006 ranking of the 'Top 200 Chinese Cities with Distinctive Charm' was announced at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. It was jointly selected by the organizer of the World Famous Brand Conference, the World Famous Enterprises Alliance, the US-China Economic and Trade Investment Chamber of Commerce, the World Brand Organization, and the Global Chinese Famous Brand Network.
There are 8 selected cities in Hunan. They are: Changsha, Hengyang, Zhuzhou, Xiangtan, Zhangjiajie, Shaoyang, Yiyang, and Huaihua.
The 'Top 200 Chinese Cities with Distinctive Charm in 2006' ranking was the second comprehensive assessment by the World Famous Brand Conference of more than 600 cities across mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. Through independent questionnaire surveys, voluntary applications, expert reviews, and other methods, it went through multiple rounds of screening and was finally comprehensively evaluated by the expert committee.
The survey indicators include eco-environmental friendliness indicators, urban management level, public awareness, economic development level, social development level, level of interaction, residents' living standards, cultural undertaking development level, livability, urban brand and the speed of comprehensive competitiveness improvement, and 'focusing on people's livelihood and building harmony' to realize social value, among others.
The selection index system for China's charming cities with distinctive features directly reflects the indicators of the attributes and characteristics of a city's cultural distinctive charm, and is an ordered set composed according to subordination relations and hierarchical principles.
Zhou Jiangshanjun, Executive Chairman of the World Famous Enterprises Alliance, President of the US-China Economic and Trade Investment Chamber of Commerce, and Chairman of the World Famous Brand Conference, said that the launch of the ranking aims to enhance the world's understanding of China's charming cities with distinctive features, expand multi-level and wide-ranging investment and cooperation, promote world brand investment in charming cities with distinctive features, and let more Chinese charming cities with distinctive features go global.
China's No. 1 Daylily Village
Luojang Village lies in the hilly hinterland of the western part of Qidong County, Hunan Province, with 14 villager groups and 1,812 people. On January 18, 2008, this small village was named by the state as "China's No. 1 Daylily Village." Prior to that, the State Administration of Quality Supervision named the village the "National Place of Origin for Daylilies." Although the headquarters of China's No. 1 Daylily Village is located in Luojang Village, it actually serves the 400,000 daylily farmers of western Qidong and even the entire Qidong County, Hengyang City, and Hunan Province, and will radiate across the country. In a sense, Luojang is not an administrative region; it is merely a symbol of the daylily industry.
Luojang Village in Shitingzi Town, Qidong County, is the main specialized village for daylily cultivation and processing in the area. Daylilies have been cultivated in Qidong for 500 years. On December 14, 2006, Luojang Village joined hands with Hunan Yingwu Daylily Group, a key national leading enterprise in agricultural industrialization, to build the largest specialized village for daylily cultivation and processing in China at present. Li Yingwu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Hunan Yingwu Daylily Group, was elected director of the village committee. While leading the villagers to vigorously develop the daylily industry, he also comprehensively advanced the building of a new socialist countryside. They managed to raise over 10 million yuan, completed the hardening of 31.2 kilometers of village roads, built a specialized daylily wholesale market covering more than 120 mu, invested 1.2 million yuan in water conservancy, invested over 300,000 yuan in developing biogas, and the village also built a new office building and Daylily Square. The village's experience was compiled into training materials by the National School of Administration.
Driven by Yingwu Daylily Group and Luojang Village, the daylily base area in Qidong County has now exceeded 150,000 mu. The daylilies purchased, processed, and sold by the company account for not only over 90% of Qidong County's total but also over 70% of the national total. The annual sales revenue of Daylily Group has exceeded 260 million yuan. Every household in the village cultivates standardized daylilies averaging over 3 mu, and the income of daylily farmers has reached a new high, enabling 400,000 daylily farmers across the county to become prosperous. Luojang Village has become the main distribution center for daylilies in China. According to the plan, Luojang Village will invest over 12 million yuan to build a specialized daylily wholesale market covering 120 mu, connecting with major wholesale markets in Guangzhou, Shanghai, and other cities, effectively solving the sales channels for organic vegetables in the Qidong daylily production area. It will consolidate 3,000 mu of organic daylily base and, by building a leisure resort, welcome guests from all over the world, making the organic daylilies and various other green vegetables of the daylily production area renowned globally. Three years later, the per capita net income of villagers will increase from 4,100 yuan in 2006 to 10,000 yuan.
Experiencing the Story of Fortress Besieged
Fortress Besieged is a famous novel by Mr. Qian Zhongshu, a renowned modern Chinese scholar hailed as the "Cultural Kunlun." The most important setting of the story in Fortress Besieged is Lantian Town in Lianyuan City, located in central Hunan.
After the "Lugou Bridge Incident" in 1937, the Japanese invaders advanced southward on a large scale, and vast territories fell. In 1938, in order to accommodate exiled professors and students, the Nationalist Government selected Anhua Lantian as the site to establish the National Normal College and its affiliated middle school, pioneering the independent operation of a national normal college. Qian Jibo was appointed as head of the Chinese Department. Qian Zhongshu came to teach at the National Normal College mainly due to the strong efforts of two people: his aged father Qian Jibo and the college's president Liao Shicheng. In August 1939, Qian Zhongshu received both the college's appointment letter and his father's letter in Shanghai. His father said he was old and ill and needed his son by his side. Unable to disobey his father's command, he balanced public and private duties, and together with Xu Yanmou, Zhang Zhenyong, Zou Wenhai, and two others, traveled day and night, taking 54 days on the road and enduring great hardships to reach Lantian, where he took up the post of head of the English Department and was appointed as a tutor in the English Department.
The National Normal College borrowed the local Li Garden residence and also built classrooms, dormitories, office buildings, and a library on the adjacent Guangming Mountain. The college offered seven departments including Chinese, English, and Education, and later added programs in Physical Education and Boy Scouts, Mathematics, and Music. By 1943, the total number of students reached over 2,000. Famous professors at the college included Qian Jibo, Qian Zhongshu, Liao Shicheng, and others. At the National Normal College, in addition to serving as head of the Foreign Languages Department, Qian Zhongshu taught several courses. He was erudite and his lectures were vivid, making him an idol among students. After teaching, Qian Zhongshu did not forget to study, often reading by an oil lamp at night. When he read until midnight, he would wrap an egg in old newspaper, soak it in water, and roast it in hot ashes as a midnight snack. In the summer vacation of 1941, Qian Zhongshu traveled via Guangxi and returned to Shanghai by sea.
Although Qian Zhongshu worked at Lantian National Normal College for less than two years, this life experience had a tremendous impact on him. In 1944, Qian Zhongshu used his teaching experience at Lantian National Normal College as material to create the novel Fortress Besieged. The prototype of Sanlü University described in Fortress Besieged is Lantian National Normal College. According to Qian Zhongshu's wife Yang Jiang in her book Recording Qian Zhongshu and Fortress Besieged, characters such as Fang Hongjian, Zhao Xinmei, Li Meiting, and Gu Erqian can all find some shadows among the people who traveled with Qian Zhongshu to teach in Lantian, Hunan. Moreover, Qian Zhongshu's note-style poetry criticism Tan Yi Lu was also drafted here. It can be said that Lantian nurtured Tan Yi Lu and became the glorious starting point of Qian Zhongshu, this "Cultural Kunlun."
Qian Zhongshu was deeply impressed by Lantian. In Fortress Besieged, he described the small town where Sanlü University was located as follows: "This town was by no means a strategic point that must be contested. The only thing the Japanese were generous and unsparing with—bombs—would not be wasted on this place. So the town, less than half a li from the school, grew more prosperous by the day, with photo studios, restaurants, bathhouses, local theaters, a police station, and primary and secondary schools all available."
Qin City of the World, China's Liye
Liye is located in the hinterland of the Wuling Mountains in Hunan Province, at the junction of the four provinces and municipalities of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, and Guizhou. It is under the jurisdiction of Longshan County in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, and is known along with Wangcun, Pushi, and Chadong as one of the four great ancient towns of Xiangxi.
On September 16, 2005, the Ministry of Construction and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage evaluated and named Liye as a "China Historical and Cultural Town." This was the second batch of designations since the first batch of "China Historical and Cultural Towns" in 2003. The first batch consisted of 10 towns, and this batch consisted of 34 towns. Liye is the only "China Historical and Cultural Town" in Hunan Province to date.
Liye has a long history. As early as more than 6,000 years ago, ancient humans were active here. Within an area of less than 2 square kilometers in the town, cultural tourism resources are extremely rich, including ancient cities from the Warring States period, Western Han, and Eastern Han; thousands of ancient tombs from the Warring States and Qin-Han periods; Neolithic and Shang-Zhou cultural sites; ancient buildings from the Ming and Qing dynasties; ancient and rustic Tujia folk customs such as Maogusi, Hand-waving Dance, Daliuzi, Tima, and Crying Marriage; majestic and beautiful southern mountain grasslands; the refreshing and pleasant Youshui River; peculiar and bizarre stone forest clusters; the "World's No. 1 Fir" with a thousand-year age and the tallest tree in the world; as well as the Wulong Mountain Grand Canyon and cave clusters that embody the spirit of heaven and earth and the beauty of mountains and rivers, worthy of being called a world cave museum. Particularly noteworthy are the astonishing discoveries of the ancient cities of the Warring States, Western Han, and Eastern Han, and the massive excavation of Qin bamboo slips. In particular, the 36,000 Qin bamboo slips unearthed from Well No. 1 of the Warring States ancient city are considered by experts to be "the most important discovery in Chinese archaeology since the beginning of the 21st century."
Liye is located at the throat of the Youshui River. It was once a military stronghold where the Chu people resisted the Qin, and also a place the Qin had to pass through to attack Chu. During the Warring States period when Qin and Chu were in confrontation, it was a place constantly contested by military strategists. Countless wars, large and small, took place here in history, making it of great significance for the study of ancient military culture.
Liye, embodying the essence of thousands of years and gathering the spiritual wonders of hundreds of li of mountains and rivers, has always been an important ferry crossing between Chu and Shu and a key town on the border of Hunan and Chongqing. Merchants gathered here and the economy prospered. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, houses and shops were built, gradually forming streets and markets. The ancient town now preserves seven streets and six alleys: Sichuan Street, Pijiang Street, Jia Street, He Street, South Street, Middle Street, North Street, Su Family Alley, Jiang Family Alley, Zhu Family Alley, Yangwu Alley, Insurance Alley, and Li Tongfa Alley. There are 510 existing residential buildings with 1,310 rooms, a building area of 21,940 square meters, 801 resident households, and a total street and alley length of 2,491 meters. The residential buildings all preserve the architectural style of the Ming and Qing dynasties and the traditional architectural characteristics of the Tujia people.
Liye Town has a profound cultural heritage, and the Tujia ethnic folk culture has a long history. The preserved Tujia arts include Hand-waving Dance, Maogusi, Daliuzi, Dongdongkui, leaf flute, Youshui work songs, mountain songs, and labor chants. Folk operas include Liye Opera, Chu Opera, Chenhe Opera, Jinghe Opera, Nan Opera, Yang Opera, Tudi Opera, Nuo Opera, and Bench Opera. These are all "living fossils" for the study of Tujia folk culture.
Qiancheng in Xiangxi
Qiancheng Town has a history of over 2,000 years and is one of the best-preserved ancient towns of the Ming and Qing dynasties in China. The ancient town is surrounded by water on three sides and is a key border town between Hunan and the Miao territories, known as the "Gateway to Yunnan and Guizhou" and the "First Ancient Town of Xiangxi." It predates the Dayan Ancient Town in Lijiang, Yunnan by 1,400 years and Fenghuang Ancient Town in this province by 900 years. The historic urban area of the ancient town covers a total area of 0.8 square kilometers, with bluestone streets and alleys crisscrossing within the town and Ming-Qing buildings everywhere.
The architecture of Qiancheng Ancient Town is mainly in the Ming-Qing style, organically integrating the local architectural features of the Dong and Miao ethnic groups, such as yinzi buildings and drying buildings. The fishbone-shaped road system formed along the two main north-south streets is well preserved, historically known as Nine Streets and Eighteen Alleys. The ancient town has numerous cultural relics and historic sites, with a large number of commercial buildings, religious buildings, guild halls, ancestral halls, pavilions, and towers. For thousands of years, the Han, Dong, Miao, Yao, and other ethnic groups who have lived here have jointly created a unique folk culture. Among them, the local opera of Qiancheng—Mulian Opera—has been praised by UNESCO as a living fossil of Chinese drama.
Qiancheng Ancient Town has a long history and a superior geographical location. Successive dynasties established county seats here, dating back more than 2,200 years. Thousands of years of history have left a rich historical and cultural accumulation in Qiancheng Ancient Town. In January 2003, it became a provincial-level historical and cultural city. The expert panel believed that dozens of provincial and municipal protected cultural relics here, such as Furong Tower, Nanzheng Street, Chifeng Pagoda, Bell and Drum Tower, and Ming dynasty wooden houses, constitute the complete outline of the ancient town, with its historical appearance still intact, possessing rich local characteristics and unique historical and cultural value. Among the 101 national historical and cultural cities in China, it is rare to find one like Qiancheng Ancient Town that has survived thousands of years of vicissitudes and remains so well preserved.
Furong Tower is located on the hillside outside the west gate of Qiancheng Ancient Town. In 747 AD, Wang Changling, at the age of 53, was demoted to the post of commandant of Longbiao (present-day Qiancheng Town) for the crime of "relying on his talent to be arrogant and not minding his conduct." He wrote a poem: "The Longxi River is only above Longbiao, autumn mountains and the lone moon face each other. Being exiled, the sorrow of separation is what a true man bears; together we await the spring river's rise with imperial grace." When friends in Luoyang learned that he had been banished to the wild mountainous region of Xiangxi, they were deeply worried about his situation. Li Bai, far away in Chang'an, upon hearing of his good friend's misfortune, sent him a poem titled Hearing of Wang Changling's Demotion to Longbiao and Sending This from Afar: "The poplar flowers have fallen and the cuckoo cries; I hear you are crossing the Five Streams to Longbiao. I entrust my sorrowful heart to the bright moon, to follow the wind until the west of Yelang." The comfort of friends warmed his lonely and desolate heart. After arriving at his new post, he expressed his thanks with the seven-character quatrain Farewell to Xin Jian at Furong Tower: "Cold rain joins the river and enters Wu at night; at dawn I see off my guest, lonely is the Chu mountain. If relatives and friends in Luoyang ask of me, tell them my heart is as pure as ice in a jade vase."
Ancient residences, old alleys, pavilions, bell and drum towers, wooden houses, yinzi buildings, flower-paved paths, and bluestone walls constitute the unique landscape of Qiancheng Ancient Town. Undisturbed, Qiancheng Small Town sleeps amid surrounding mountains and waters, still preserving its simplicity and tranquility. The stone steps and the deep, quiet old alleys evoke many distant memories and witness the blending of a gradually fading antiquity with the sudden arrival of modernity.
The History and Civilization of Rucheng's Ancient Ancestral Halls
Rucheng is a remote mountainous county inhabited by multiple ethnic groups, with a population of over 360,000 and more than 280 surnames. It preserves over 710 ancient ancestral halls dating from the Song and Yuan dynasties and flourishing in the Ming and Qing, varying in size and style, scattered like stars, including ancient ancestral hall clusters such as Jinshan and Jinjiang. Each ancient ancestral hall is a scroll of history, closely tied to the fate of its clan and surname, epitomizing the vicissitudes and glory of people of various surnames from all over who came to Rucheng, and inscribing upon them the ancestral virtues and achievements of the clan, whether distant or near, great or small. Over time, each has been imbued with different traditional cultures, social cultures, local cultures, and clan cultures, permeated with different cultural deposits, and embodying their respective cultures. Rucheng's ancient ancestral halls are magnificent, dignified, and solemn, yet weathered, simple, and ancient. From site selection, modeling, layout, orientation, and feng shui environment to the overall harmony of mountains, waters, fields, forests, roads, gates, plazas, alleys, houses, and walls; from architectural style, structural form, materials, and workmanship of sculpture, painting, and decoration—all are dynamic and static in harmony, radiant with color, and in unity of heaven and humanity.
As historical heritage, Rucheng's ancient ancestral halls are witnesses to history and possess profound cultural relic value. They are indispensable resources for studying ancient culture, ancient architecture, ancient folk customs, ancient patriarchal systems, and ancient migrations. Rucheng's ancient ancestral halls are diverse in style and full of taste: Wujing Shidi, Nanchu Mingjia, Zhongcheng Gongci, Taibao Di, Zhaojing Di, Sanxing Tang, Kefu Tang, Dunben Tang, Baoshan Tang, Longxi Tang, Jiangxia Tang, Yanmen Tang, Yuque Tang—a vast array with profound meanings. Historically, Rucheng's ancient ancestral halls played a unique practical role. They were comprehensive venues for clan gatherings and discussions, dispute mediation, mass cultural activities, weddings and funerals, and festive celebrations, as well as activity centers for tracing roots and remembering ancestors, honoring the departed, commemorating sages, and carrying forward the past while opening up the future.
In recent years, the Rucheng ancient ancestral hall cluster has been listed as a key cultural relic protection unit. Governments at all levels and experts from cultural relic and construction departments have conducted multiple special research investigations on Rucheng's ancient ancestral halls and ancient residences, confirming that the age of construction, the exquisiteness of architecture, the completeness of preservation, the sheer number, and the profound cultural deposits of Rucheng's ancient ancestral halls are rare in the province, worthy of the title "Hunan's No. 1 County of Ancient Ancestral Halls." In August 2006, the Hunan Provincial People's Government issued a document listing the Rucheng ancestral hall cluster as the eighth batch of provincial-level cultural relic protection units.
The Harmony Between Ancient Villages and Nature
Yangshan Ancient Village is located in Guiyang, Chenzhou, an ancient county with a thousand-year history. Here lies a 600-year-old Ming-Qing ancient residential area, a classic and harmonious mysterious ancient village. With green mountains and clear waters, it is picturesque and breathtakingly beautiful. It enjoys the reputation of a "feng shui treasure land" of harmony between heaven, earth, and humanity, and a "Shangri-La" of unity between heaven and humanity. The ancient village emphasizes the unity of heaven and humanity in its layout and embodies the Confucian idea of "central harmony" in its structure. It is a perfect combination of folk residences and classical architecture, deeply attracting Chinese and foreign tourists with its well-preserved ancient residential building complex and the folk customs of "governing the village through six associations."
"Protect during development, develop during protection." Yangshan Ancient Village, located in Guiyang, Chenzhou—the "back garden of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao"—has from the very beginning adhered to guiding the development of ancient village tourism with a scientific outlook on development, striving to build "China's No. 1 Village of Humanistic Ecology." Chenzhou City, known as the "dark horse" of Hunan tourism, has seen its tourism industry rise rapidly in recent years, leaping to third place in Hunan's tourism rankings. Ecological rafting, self-driving tours, and hot spring leisure have become the city's main tourism products, and it has been awarded the titles of "China Excellent Tourism City" and "China's Hot Spring Town." In order to better explore cultural tourism resources and enrich the cultural connotation of Chenzhou tourism, the city has vigorously explored and developed ancient village tourism resources since 2006. Yangshan Ancient Village in Guiyang has become the support point for Chenzhou to build a high-standard ancient residence tourism brand and accelerate the development of ancient village tourism.
In future tourism development, Yangshan Ancient Village will adhere to the basic principles of "protection first, development second; restore the old as old, repair the new as old; revitalize historic sites, develop tourism," and consciously uphold the unity of historical authenticity, stylistic integrity, and continuity of life. First, protect the cultural ecology. This includes protecting the cultural heritage, historical landscapes, and stylistic features of the ancient village; protecting the original natural environmental characteristics and the primitiveness of natural landscapes around the ancient village; protecting the overall structural layout, architectural style, and ancient and famous trees of the ancient village; and protecting intangible cultural heritage while organizing and revitalizing it. Second, restore historical sites. This includes restoring ancient dwellings, ancient gate towers, ancient ancestral halls, ancient wells, ancient street lamps, and so on. Third, explore folk crafts. This includes handicraft processing, specialty snacks, and other folk crafts. Fourth, revitalize folk customs. This includes folk etiquette, folk costumes, folk stunts, folk games, folk performances, folk festivals, folk cuisine, and other distinctive folk custom activities. Fifth, recreate the actual state of life. This includes ancient workshops, ancient shops, ancient teahouses, ancient inns, ancient taverns, and ancient scenes (waterwheels, mills), etc. Sixth, create the atmosphere of an ancient village. This includes displaying farming culture, fishing and hunting culture, and herding culture, and recreating the real scenes of rural life. Seventh, build supporting facilities and improve tourism functions. By improving tourism functions, promote tourism development, and find new uses for historical buildings to revive them.
Zhuzhou City, Hunan, Pioneered the "Dual-Link" Work Mechanism
In 1999, as the planned economic system fully transitioned to a market economic system, some state-owned enterprises faced numerous difficulties, with some falling into predicament. That year, Zhuzhou City explored the "Dual-Link" activity in which government organs linked with struggling enterprises and government cadres linked with struggling employees. Led by the municipal Party committee and municipal government, organized by the municipal "Dual-Link" work leading group, and specifically coordinated by the municipal federation of trade unions, it pioneered the "Dual-Link" work mechanism in the province. It mobilized hundreds of organs and tens of thousands of government cadres at the city and county (city, district) levels to carry out paired assistance activities for struggling enterprises and employees. City and county leaders took the lead, and Party and government top leaders participated in "Dual-Link" and assistance and rights protection work for struggling employees. Adhering to a people-oriented approach and earnestly focusing on improving people's livelihoods, the focus of "Dual-Link" work was placed on solving the issues of greatest concern, most direct, and most practical to the worker masses, guiding and supporting employees to seek employment on their own and start their own businesses, promoting the healthy development of enterprises and overall social stability, and doing practical things and solving difficulties for enterprises and employees. The "Dual-Link" work was called the Zhuzhou experience, achieved relatively good results, was rapidly promoted throughout the province, and formed a long-term mechanism for "Dual-Link" work. As "Dual-Link" work developed in depth, the main approach of "Party and government leadership, trade union coordination, departmental participation, and social support" was established, focusing on integrating the resources of relevant departments and all sectors of society, forming a socialized rights protection and assistance work pattern integrating assistance, rights protection, and services, providing strong guarantees for Zhuzhou's economic construction and social stability.