▲The east and west buildings of the ancestral hall collapsed
Red Star News reporter | Cai Xiaoyi Editor in chief | Wang Jifei
Editor | Feng Lingling Editor | Zhang Xun
The east and west buildings of the Li family's ancestral hall collapsed on a rainy night.
html At 2:18 a.m. on June 17, the electric gate on the outer wall of the ancestral hall first began to collapse. The water flow in the upper reaches of the Huangtan River narrowed here, and the extremely high flow rate instantly tore open a small opening in the ancestral hall. Immediately afterwards, flash floods knocked down a large area of rammed earth walls and blue brick walls, and the east and west horizontal buildings gradually collapsed in the rain.At this time, the entire ancestral hall had been soaked in floods for more than 6 hours. Li Wenqiang, director of the ancestral hall management committee, and another staff member stayed on guard at a nearby high place all night. Seeing this scene with their own eyes, they were "horrified and powerless." That night, the water reached 1.5 meters of the outer wall, making it almost impossible for them to get close without a kayak. After the collapse of
, the ancestral hall received attention from the outside world. In the past 188 years, countless branch lines have emerged from the Li family ancestral hall. Every year, nearly 100,000 Li family descendants travel thousands of miles to come back to Shanghang Rentian to see it.
An insider in the cultural protection industry analyzed that the heavy rainfall is concentrated in the densely populated areas of Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian. In Meizhou, Guangdong, the old enclosed house of more than 300 years old and the square building of more than 500 years were also washed away in the heavy rain. The national protection of the Li family ancestral hall is still not intact. What is the current situation of other low-level cultural relics? There is an urgent need to raise awareness. All parties pay attention.
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“The ancestral hall collapsed”
Li Wenqiang did not expect that the Li family’s ancestral hall would collapse.
The 37-year-old is the director of the management committee of the Li Clan Ancestral Hall. Because he knows computers, he was called to help in the ancestral hall. He has been working there for 12 years and regularly manages the affairs of the ancestral hall together with the elders on the board of directors. As long as he can remember, the ancestral hall has always been there. No matter how hard it rains, the ancestral hall can survive.
The Li Family Ancestral Hall is a typical enclosed house located in Guantian Village, Rentian Town, Shanghang County, Fujian Province. It covers an area of 5,600 square meters and was built in 1839. It is the largest Hakka ancestral hall in Fujian. Since 6 o'clock on June 16, Shanghang County has experienced continuous heavy rainfall. The rainfall in 11 towns exceeded 250mm, and the 24-hour rainfall in 15 towns exceeded the historical extreme. Major rivers in the territory, such as the Tingjiang River and Huangtan River, were all in emergency, with the highest warning level. The water level is 3.78 meters.
The Ningtian section of Huangtan River passes through the town from the side of Li's Ancestral Hall, with a large piece of farmland separated in the middle. After the surrounding land was leveled off in the 1990s, the main road on the roadside has become nearly 20 centimeters higher than the ancestral hall.
▲The ancestral hall is two steps lower than the main road
At noon on the 16th, Li Wenqiang inspected the surrounding area and found that many mountains had collapsed. It started raining on the 9th and has been falling for several days. The amount of rainfall in the past few years has eluded him. Last year, it rained for more than 50 consecutive days.
After receiving the red rainstorm warning, the management committee asked the ancestral hall's night duty staff to evacuate in advance. At about 8 o'clock that night, Li Wenqiang discovered that the river water had risen to the warning level. At 0:25 a.m. the next day, the water reached the gate of the ancestral hall, and two staff members rushed to the scene to turn off the power gate. When the water level reaches the knees, it is difficult for people to stand due to the fast flow. At 0:50, the rain rose to a height of 50 to 60 centimeters.
There are no kayaks, so Li Wenqiang and the staff can only stay on higher ground nearby. When the flood peak came, the highest water level in the upstream villages and towns such as Xikou and Taiba reached 3 meters. The terrain of Rentian Town was higher, but the farmland, tobacco houses and Li family ancestral hall in the low-lying areas were also soaked in water.
17 At 2:18 in the morning, the electric gate on the outer wall of the ancestral hall first began to collapse. The upstream water flow narrowed here, and the extremely high flow rate instantly tore open a small opening in the ancestral hall. Immediately afterwards, flash floods knocked down a large area of rammed earth walls and blue brick walls, and the east and west horizontal buildings gradually collapsed in the rain.
▲Before and after the collapse of Li’s Ancestral Hall
After the flood receded, Li Wenqiang measured and found that the ancestral hall was soaked in water up to 1.5 meters. After more than 6 hours of soaking, the rammed earth walls of the past two hundred years turned into loose sand, and the damaged area was about 1,000 square meters. square meters.
"The Li family's ancestral hall collapsed!" The news quickly spread throughout Guantian Village. Many Li family members ran to the farmland and found that the main three entrance halls and the main entrance archway in the middle of the ancestral hall were still there, but the beams of the east and west cross-buildings had collapsed. Bricks and earth piled up.
In addition to feeling distressed, I still feel distressed.On the afternoon of the 17th, after receiving the report from Li Wenqiang, a professional cultural relics restoration team sent by the Shanghang County Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau came to the site and set up scaffolding on the outer wall of the enclosure to prevent secondary collapse. The centuries-old blue bricks and large wooden construction materials have been cleaned and sorted, and they may still be used for subsequent restoration.
▲The construction team entered the site for reinforcement
Chen Chunlian, deputy director of the Shanghang County Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, introduced that after on-site inspection, the main building walls of the cultural relics of the Li Clan Ancestral Hall in Guantian mainly include blue brick walls, rammed earth walls, and green bricks covered with adobe. Three types of walls. The main reason for the collapse of the horizontal house was a rare heavy rain that lasted for a day and night. The river had no time to drain, and the water level skyrocketed. After the flood soaked the earthen wall, the wall softened and lost its support, causing the earthen wall to collapse. The earthen wall pulled the blue brick wall and roof collapsed together.
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Renovated several times
Villager Old Man Li’s home is only 100 meters away from the Li Ancestral Hall. He grew up playing here. In the past 69 years, the ancestral hall has watched him be born, grow up, and grow old. He also Watching the ancestral hall be upgraded from a provincial protected cultural relic to a national protected cultural relic.
In his memory, there was always an endless flow of people in the ancestral hall. Every year from the Chinese New Year to the Tomb Sweeping Day, descendants of the Li family from all over the country will return to their hometowns to worship their ancestors. There are compatriots from Guangdong, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and overseas Chinese from Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines as far away as possible. According to statistics from the management committee, there are nearly 10,000 descendants of the Li family still living in Rentian Town. Wuhua Yifang, Meizhou, Guangdong, is the largest branch, with nearly 200,000 people. Every year, nearly 100,000 people worship their ancestors at the Li Family Ancestral Hall in Huiguantian. The largest number is on the vernal equinox, with 20,000 people a day at the peak.
▲The descendants of the Li family returned to their hometown to worship their ancestors and take photos
Li Wenqiang loved ancestor worship when he was young because he could pick up firecrackers and play in front of the ancestral hall. In the 1990s, Nantian was still a run-down small village. The Li family who moved to Taiwan When the descendant returned to his hometown, he wore a suit and tie, which made him "very strange."
An old man in the village described the large size of Li's ancestral hall this way - "If you want to open all the windows of the ancestral hall, you have to open them from the time the sun rises to the time the sun sets." There are 104 guest rooms, 26 living rooms, and 3 halls in the ancestral hall. Each guest room contains tablets from various clan branches for the descendants of the Li family to stay when they return to their hometown to worship their ancestors. The newly built ancestral halls nearby will basically refer to the style of the Li family ancestral hall.
Over the past two hundred years, the ancestral hall has experienced vicissitudes, serving as a commune granary and a local production brigade headquarters. The two carved windows on the left and right of the main door were sealed with cement and then unblocked. In 1992, the director clan members re-established the Ancestral Hall Management Committee and took on the task of liaising with and receiving descendants of the Li family from various places.
The ancestral hall is getting older and older. Two centuries of wind and rain erosion have damaged the main body of the ancestral hall in many places. The ground has been wet for a long time, part of the wall base is tilted, and the murals and reliefs have fallen off.
The older generation had been trying their best to promote the renovation of the ancestral hall before Li Wenqiang entered the management committee. The first time was in 1910, and the second time was in 1984. It basically relied on donations from descendants of the Li family. Because it is located in the backwater area of Mianmiantan Reservoir, the board members have repeatedly sought maintenance funds from higher authorities.
In 2013, the ancestral hall was listed as a national key protected cultural relic. On July 15, 2016, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued the "Reply on the Approval of the Renovation Project of the Li Clan Ancestral Hall in Guantian", agreeing to the approval of the Ancestral Ancestral Renovation Project. The protection plan has been revised and demonstrated several times. From the initial plan of overall elevation of the building, it was finally determined as the main repair and protection design.
In July 2022, the engineering team officially entered the site, with a project budget of 6.58 million yuan, and the restoration took nearly a year. In June last year, the third renovation of the main body of the ancestral hall was finally completed - based on the principle of minimal intervention, it was restored as it was before. The roof was restored to its original state as a cultural relic, and the collapsed cornices were repaired, and the decayed purlins and a large number of broken tiles were replaced; the walls were also restored to their original state as a cultural relic. Repair the sloping blue brick walls of the front hall, middle hall and back hall; replace broken and missing bricks on the outer wall of the enclosure; repair the original drainage facilities outside the cultural relic building to prevent the wall foundation and wall from flooding.
Li Wenqiang watched the ancestral hall from beginning to end for a year. He thought that it would last another fifty or sixty years after the repairs were completed. Unexpectedly, this rare heavy rainstorm directly destroyed the east and west buildings of the ancestral hall.
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Two options
Without this heavy rain, Li Wenqiang originally planned to immediately start further repair work on the mural painting in the third hall of the ancestral hall, and hire professionals to clean and paint it. This is also the most valuable cultural relic besides the ancestral temple building itself. At that time, a large-scale renovation celebration will be held and descendants of the Li family from all over the world will be invited.
Li Wenqiang said frankly that the most difficult aspect of clan work is how to balance the relationship between cultural relics protection and governing clan clans. A few years ago, in response to a flood that had not happened in 50 years, superior authorities planned to build a 2-meter-high wall outside the ancestral hall. The vast majority of villagers opposed it, "feeling that this would encircle the entire ancestral hall." The plan came to nothing.
Li Wenqiang introduced that currently, there are two sets of restoration plans for the Li Ancestral Hall. The first is to restore the old as before and repair and rebuild it in situ; the second is to raise and reinforce the overall foundation. The latter is a larger project. Which one will be chosen in the end? The plan still needs to be studied and judged by experts. Fortunately, starting in 2021, the Fujian Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau will pilot the "Cultural Relics Insurance + Service" model in Shanghang County. After this disaster, the County Culture and Sports Bureau has received 3 million yuan in advance compensation from the insurance company.
The daily maintenance of ancient architectural cultural relics generally relies on cultural conservators. The Li Clan Ancestral Hall has a management committee, which is maintained and managed by 11 people including Li Wenqiang and director clan members. Their responsibilities are to receive Li family members and tourists; inspect and take care of fire-fighting equipment , fireproof and anti-theft.
Although it is a national-level cultural protection unit, most of its funds are raised by clan members. The ancestral hall's daily income from donations such as accommodation and travel is basically enough to cover the wages of several people, ranging from 50 yuan to 60 yuan per person per day.
According to statistical data as of the end of 2021, Shanghang County currently has 4 national key cultural relics protection units with 11 points, and 24 provincial cultural relics protection units with 38 points. Most of them are brick or civil structures. Shanghang County often suffers from heavy rains and floods. , how to protect traditional structural buildings such as enclosed houses has become a difficult problem.
Regarding this, Chen Chunlian introduced that the first is to strengthen inspections and deal with the problem of blocked drainage ditches in a timely manner; the second is to discuss with cultural relic experts the optimal rescue reinforcement and maintenance plan for cultural relics buildings; the third is to gradually promote remote monitoring and intelligent early warning projects; fourth It is a new method of cultural relics protection that further explores "cultural relics insurance + service".
An insider in the cultural protection industry analyzed that the heavy rainfall is concentrated in the densely populated areas of Jiangxi, Guangdong and Fujian. In Meizhou, the old enclosed house of more than 300 years and the square building of more than 500 years were also washed away in the heavy rain. The state-protected buildings like the Li family ancestral hall are not intact yet. What is the current situation of other low-level cultural relics? There is an urgent need to attract attention from all walks of life. Fang pays attention.
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