Fuyu Lou
It stands in the northern part of Hongkeng Village, neighboring the Hongchuan stream on the
east. Facing the east and covering an area of 4000 square meters, this Tulou was built in 1880,
the 6th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty. It is a five-phoenix Tulou
with three halls and four annexes. From east to west along its central axis line are respectively
the gateway, inner gate, entrance hall, front patio, central hall (ancestral hall), rear patio and back
hall. Its frontal facade is 45 meters wide, 37 meters in depth, while the back facade is 41.4 meters
wide. The two corners of the back wall are recessed by 1.8 meters respectively and the recessed
part has a depth of 9 meters. There are altogether 166 rooms, 22 halls, 28 staircases, six patios,
two side gates, two water wells and six bathrooms in this Tulou building .
The main body of the Tulou consists of the front building, rear building and two podium
buildings. All these buildings are one storey higher than those of ordinary five-phoenix Tulou
buildings, which provides better defense functions. The rear building is one step higher than the
central hall and the latter is two steps higher than the front building. Joining the two podium
buildings on both sides, both the front and the rear building are of wood-and-earth structure,
whose exterior wall is plastered with lime. The front building is of two storeys, the rear building
is of five and a half storeys and the podium buildings are of five storeys. With inner corridors, it
is of a composite structure combining gable and hip roof, column and tie construction and post
and lintel construction. The 1st floor of the rear building is used for a kitchen, a dining room and
a sitting room, the 2nd floor for a grain-storage room, the 3rd floor and above for bedrooms. The
1st floor of the front building is used for an entrance hall and wing-rooms, the 2nd floor used as
bedrooms. The 1st floor of the central building is used for the ancestral hall, wing-rooms and a
passage, and the 2nd and 3rd floors for the Kwan-yin Hall and bedrooms.
Longitudinally, that is, from west to east, the main body is divided into three parts: the middle
part, the south part and the north part. Each part of the front building has a gate, the one in the
middle being the main gate while the ones on the two sides being side gates which are slightly
smaller than the main one. Made of granite, the frame of the main gate of the front building is
inscribed with couplets
On both sides of the entrance hall are podium buildings. Behind the entrance hall, there is a
six-leaf partition board of the same height as the 1st floor, used as both a center door and a screen
wall. The upper parts of the six hinged leaves are carved with gold-plated patterns. Behind the
partition board is a rectangular patio paved with tabia. On each side of the partition board is a
small door open to the corridor on each side of the patio in front of the central hall (ancestral
hall). The corridors are wider than other corridors of the same kind, where dinner tables can be
set. In front of each widened part there is a small door leading to the podium building. Two steps
up the stairs behind the corridor is the hallway of the central hall, on each side of which there is a
door leading to the podium building.
Used as the ancestral hall which is one meter higher than all the other rooms in the Tulou,
the exquisitely decorated brick-wood structured central hall is spacious and full of paintings
and carvings, with its entrance directly facing the patio in the front. On its back wall hangs a
horizontal glass tablet. The two wooden pillars in the back of the hall are inscribed with the
words: “No one is not benevolent in this hundreds-of-years-old family” and “The most important
thing is education”. On the two pillars of the podium buildings in the front hangs a woodcarving
couplet presented by Lin Zhen, an important official from the imperial capital, when the owner of
the Tulou moved to this new place .
In the front of the ancestral hall stand two columns on each side. The lower part between each
two columns is clay sculpture with flower patterns on the front and the words “good fortune” on
the back, while the upper part is set with a green glazed folding screen with grids. The two sides
in the back of the hall are recessed backwards. A door is set respectively for the frontal and lateral
part, which is open to the back hall. The front door is an engraved wooden screen door while the
lateral one is a brick-laid archway door. Behind the screen door is the patio, on both sides of
which are two-storey three-bay wing rooms. A small door is set behind the brick-laid archway.
The back parts on both sides of the hall are corridors for the wing rooms behind the hall. Behind
the back wall of the hall is a staircase leading to the 2nd floor, which is also connected with the
corridors for the wing rooms on both sides behind the hall.
The middle part of the 2nd floor of the central building is the Kwan-yin Hall, whose floor is
higher than the corridor on the 2nd floor of the wing room behind the hall. A short staircase is
set in the front part of the corridor on both the left and right sides. You can enter the hall through
the archway door. The hall is tall and spacious, where a statue of Kwan-yin is placed for worship
and on both sides of the shrine there is an engraved wooden partition screen. The ridgepole and
girder are painted red and the center part of the top is decorated with big-sized Eight Trigrams. A
platform which is 1.2 meters high and one meter wide is set at the entrance of the hall. The edges
of the platform are protected by a glazed rail with grids. A glazed screen with grids, which is as
high as the girder, is set on both sides of the hall entrance, along the inner edges of the platform
and between the columns that are butt-jointed with those in the front of the ancestral hall on the
1st floor.
There is respectively a front attic and a back attic on the two sides of the hall, which is
accessible through the short staircase of the archway on each side of the hall. The front attic
has a door leading to the platform in front of the hall, while the 2nd floor of the wing rooms
behind the hall is connected with the wall of the back building. The corridor in front of the back
building forms a section of enclosed corridor between the walls of the back building and the
wing rooms. Both ends of the corridor are provided with a door leading to the podium building
on each side.
The interior part of the whole Tulou is divided into six patios of different sizes by the central
building, the front and back corridors on both sides and the front and back wing rooms, thus
diversifying the interior space and making it more comfortable.
The nine-bay rear building is divided into three units, with each unit of three-bay and having
one staircase. The staircase is set in the middle room whose area is the largest of the three. On
each storey, toward the front end of the staircase is a hall, while toward the back end of it are
two small rooms. The 2nd floor above is the same as the 1st floor in terms of structure, with the
half-storey on the top being an attic. In front of the rear building, there is a water well on both
the left and right sides. In ancient times, the patriarch lived in the rear building, indicating that
he was the most important man.
Two storeys in height, the two brick-and-wood podium buildings standing in symmetry
are connected with the front and rear buildings. With inner corridors, they are of a composite
structure combining the column and tie construction and the post and lintel construction. Outside
each of the two podium buildings, there is an identical row of one-storey brick-and-wood houses
parallel to the podium building, respectively used as a toilet, piggery, utility room, milling room
and husking room.
The front hall (building) and the central hall (building) are featured by separated eaves and
overhanging gable roofs, while the rear building is featured by separated gable and hip roofs.
The roofs of the front, central and rear halls (buildings) overhang one another to form a “front41
low, back-high” pattern. Its rooftop gradient is much greater than that of other kinds of Tulou
buildings, fully showing its supreme dignity.
The wood floors from the 2nd floor above are all underlaid with thin grey bricks, which
provide both fire resistance and acoustic insulation in addition to preventing mud and sand from
falling from the upper floor to the lower floor. The ground floor of the hall, the floor of patio and
corridors are all paved with tabia, which wears well and is still in good condition today.
All the wooden structures of the 1st floor along the central axis line are oil painted and the
exterior walls are whitewashed. All double-leaf doors and staircases are covered with iron sheets
to serve the purpose of defense.
Before the front building is a rectangular doorway paved with pebbles. A 2.3-meter-high
brick-laid bounding wall stands adjacent to the stream in front of the doorway, while other
sections of the bounding wall are laid with pebbles. Standing next to the building are a husking
room, two milling rooms, four utility rooms and four toilets (See 7.a-2 photo 24).
The outer gate is on the northeast corner, connected with the bounding wall. The ridge of the
gate has three sections that overlap one another, the ends of which are raised high, pointing to the
sky. The eaves are decorated with delicate carvings. There are couplets respectively engraved on
the stone doorframe and the wooden door leaves. There’s a small gate in the southeast corner, a
small two-storey-high courtyard of brick-and-wood structure with three bays and one hall in the
south where a school is placed
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