Jiqing Lou
It is located beside the creek in the north of Chuxi Village. About 500 meters above the sea
level, the Tulou is about 30 meters above the creek and difficult to access. In a double-ring shape,
the circular Tulou was built in 1419, the 17th year of the reign of Emperor Yongle in the Ming
Dynasty. It faces the north and covers an area of 2826 square meters. Arranged from north to
south along the central axis of the Tulou, are respectively the door way, the gate, entrance hall,
patio, inner ring and the passage between inner and outer rings, the courtyard, ancestral hall and
backyard .
The doorframe of the Tulou is made of stone, on which a couplet is engraved, reading:
“Modesty is a lovable quality; wealth is pursued in goodness.” The horizontal hanging scroll
reads: “Prosperous Material Life and Favorable Natural Condition”. The iron cover of the door
and anti-fire trough on the top can protect the house from fire.
The four-storey-high outer ring is of earth-and-wooden structure and 66 meters in diameter.
The first floor has 53 bays and each of the upper storeys has 56 bays. The wall around the first
floor is 1.6 meters thick without original stone-laid base. People of later generations built onemeter
high wainscots for the wall with pebble stones to protect it from eavesdropping. When
constructing this Tulou, only one staircase was set, which is wider than those of other Tulou
buildings. Located on the east side of the entrance hall, the staircase leads to the 4th storey.
Rooms on the first floor are used as kitchens, on the 2nd floor used as barns and above the 3rd
floor used as living rooms. Rooms on the first floor and the 2nd floor do not have any window.
The 1st to 4th storeys of the outer ring were originally inner-corridor planes. When the Tulou
was repaired in 1744, the 9th year of the reign of Emperor Qianlong, its structure was slightly
modified to solve the problem that there was only one staircase for hundreds of its dwellers,
which brought a lot of inconvenience for daily life and management. The first floor still kept
its inner-corridor type without any change while the upper floors were changed into the type of
separate units. Having 6 rooms, each unit was provided with a narrower staircase. For every unit
on the 3rd floor, a shrine was set on one side of the staircase. The passages between one unit and
another were separated by cedar planks. Each unit on the first floor had a stone passage which
was above the patio and led to the rooms under the name of the owner of the inner ring. From the
2nd storey of the outer ring above, a 50cm-wide hidden staircase is additionally set between the
staircases near the external wall for each unit. Usually covered with wooden boards, the hidden
staircase cannot be discovered by outsiders at all. It is only for use in emergency.
The external wall of the 4th storey of the outer ring was installed with nine woodenstructured
overhanging lookouts, which could be used either for watching out or for supporting
blunderbusses. From the lookout above the main gate, one could directly see what was going on
at the village entrance and blockade the front path to the village when it was urgent to protect the
Tulou from any attack by the advantage of the favorable position. As Chuxi Village lies deep in
the mountains and used to be frequented by bandits and wild animals. Thus the designer of the
Tulou took the defensive function into special consideration.
A hidden exit is also designed on the first floor at the back of the Tulou. Actually it is a hole
which is 1.6m in height and 0.7m in width, and reserved in the external wall of a room. The
hole is sealed by rammed earth which is precisely the same material as that of the external wall
and outsiders cannot tell the difference. Inside the room, it is recessed into the wall but usually
covered with wooden boards. When an outsider comes into the room, he will not be able to
find out this secret. In case of emergency, the hidden exit can be quickly broken open and the
dwellers can make their way to the mountain woods behind the Tulou.
The inner and outer rings are separated by the patio. A blue stone path is paved to link the
entrance hall to the inner ring which is of single-storey brick-and-wood structure. There is a
3m-wide stone path on each of the four sides of the inner ring to link the corridor of the outer
ring, and the stone path is higher than the patio. The 26-bay space is provided with a dining
room and a utility room. Rooms are separated by cedar boards. Within the height of 1 meter
above the ground, the front and rear walls of the room are made of grey bricks, above which are
cedar boards. There is a front door and a back door for every one or two rooms, with front one
facing the ancestral hall and the back one leading to the first floor of the outer ring.
A composite structure was designed for the inner and outer rings with a two-side sloping
roof of tiles, a combination of the overhanging gable roof, column and tie construction and post
and lintel construction.
The single-storey square ancestral hall is of earth-and-wood structure, and is in the center
of the Tulou building. It is enclosed by the main hall at the back, the cloisters on both sides of
the main hall and the front cloister. The patio is in the center, whose front door directly faces
the Tulou gate. Used for honoring ancestors, the spacious ancestral hall has a God Seat, on
both sides of which there is a small door for people to go through. It is of a composite structure
combining a gable and hip roof, column and tie construction and post and lintel construction .
The corridor on the first floor, the patio and the gateway outside are all paved with pebbles.
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