The legend of Yongding tulou

During the Yongjia period of the Western Jin Dynasty, that is, in the 4th century, there were frequent wars and natural disasters in the north, and the local people moved southward on a large scale, which opened the prelude to the continuous migration of Han people from the Central Plains to Fujian for thousands of years. The immigrants from the Central Plains who entered southern Fujian merged with local residents, forming the Fulao nationality with Minnan dialect as its characteristic. The Han nationality in the Central Plains who migrated from Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province to the mountainous areas in western Fujian Province constitutes another important ethnic group in Fujian-the Hakka ethnic group characterized by Hakka dialect.

Fujian Tulou is located in Nanshan District, southwest Fujian, where Fulao and Hakka meet. The terrain is steep and sparsely populated. At that time, wild animals appeared and bandits were everywhere. Living in groups is not only the requirement of the deep-rooted Confucian traditional concept in the Central Plains, but also the realistic need to gather strength and resist foreign enemies.

Fujian tulou is built on the mountain with reasonable layout. It absorbs the "Feng Shui" concept of traditional architectural planning in China, adapts to the living and defense requirements of people living together, and skillfully uses the narrow flat land in mountainous areas and local building materials such as raw soil, wood and pebbles. It is a self-contained, economical, strong and defensive high-rise building type with great aesthetic feeling.

These unique residential buildings in mountainous areas have pushed the long-standing rammed earth technology to the extreme. Hakka is an important ethnic group in the Han nationality, and its ancestors came from the Central Plains. Because of the war and disaster, the Hakkas have moved south on a large scale five times. Some of them moved to Fujian and formed Hakka clans.

Extended data

amusing piece of news

In the early 1980s, American satellites discovered that the western part of Fujian, China, was covered with numerous round or square unidentified buildings, which might be nuclear reactors or missile silos. The scale was huge and the number was amazing, which attracted the attention of the authorities in that country, so they sent agents as tourists to find out. It turned out to be a tulou ancient house.