What are the unique features of the Pingguandi Family Temple?

The Changping Guandi Family Temple is an ancestral hall built in the early Sui Dynasty by people in Guan Yu's hometown who admired Guan Yu's prowess and virtue.

The Guandi Family Temple is located on the south side of the majestic and beautiful Zhongtiao Mountain, and on the north side is the natural salt lake with vast expanse of blue waves. The layout of the entire temple adopts the "front palace and harem" structure and the axially symmetrical palace construction technique.

Although there are many Guandi temples in our country, Guansheng Family Temple is unique and unparalleled in the world. The Guanshengjia Temple, also known as the Guandi Ancestral Temple, is located in Changping Village, Yuncheng, the hometown of Guan Gong. It echoes the Guandi Temple in Jiezhou. It started as an ancestral hall and became a temple in the Jin Dynasty.

According to the "Reconstruction of Changpingguan Shengjia Temple Stele" written by Wei Yangmeng during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Ming Dynasty, it can be seen that in 1177, Wang Xing of the Jin Dynasty built 3 main halls, 40 encircling corridors, sleeping halls, and ritual gates. 3 rooms.

Later, Hu Kuo, a native of Changping Village, partially repaired and expanded the temple. After the construction of the Holy Ancestor Hall, there was no further repair.

Changping Guanshengjia Temple, also known as Changping Guandi Temple and Guandi Ancestral Temple, is nearly 10,000 meters away from Jiezhou Guandi Temple. It borders Zhongtiao Mountain to the south and ancient salt ponds to the north. It has beautiful mountains and clear waters and elegant scenery. It is a rare Feng Shui treasure land.

According to legend, the place where this temple is located was originally the former residence of Guan Yu. Guan Yu lived here from the time he was born until he killed the bully. Later, Guan Yu killed Lu Xiong, a bully who had harmed his neighbors, and had to flee. The descendants of the bully colluded with the government. After failing to capture Guan Yu, they planned to eradicate the Guan family and annihilate the nine clans.

As a result, all the people with the surname Guan in Changping Village fled to the ancient village area for refuge. Only Guan Yu’s parents, who had difficulty walking due to their old age, finally committed suicide by throwing themselves into a well. In order to commemorate Guan Yu's parents, people built a tower on the well.

After Guan Yu's death, the villagers admired his loyalty and virtue, so they built an ancestral hall on the basis of the pagoda and worshiped him at all times. In the Jin Dynasty, a complex of buildings of a certain scale was built and named "Guansheng Family Temple".

These architectural complexes have been completely preserved, especially the Ancestral Hall, the Empress Hall, the Prince Hall and the exquisite statues of the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, which are not found in other Guandi temples.

According to historical records, after the Sui Dynasty, as emperors of the past dynasties granted Guan Yu successive titles, temples were constantly added and expanded. Only after the restoration by Emperor Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, Guandi's family temple became It has been renovated or added 16 times, so most of the buildings are from before the Qing Dynasty.

Changping Guandi Temple covers an area of ??more than 15,000 square meters, mostly with brick and wood structures and glazed tile roofs. There are three archways in front of the temple, with wooden structures on the left and right and stone sculptures in the middle.

In the temple courtyard, there are six palaces built from front to back on the central axis, including Shanmen, Meridian Gate, Xiang Hall, Chongning Hall, Empress Hall, and Saint Ancestor Hall; both sides are equipped with wing rooms, The side halls, cloisters, etc. are arranged in an orderly manner.

The temple faces south and is grand in scale, rigorous in layout, and magnificent in palaces and pavilions. There are three archways built in front of the temple. The one on the east and west sides is a wooden structure. The top of the verandah with three doors and four pillars is named "Lingzhong Qianhai" and "Xiu Yutiao Mountain" respectively. The one in the middle is a stone structure, and there is an iron lion in the front. Yes, there are four big characters written on the forehead of the door in the Ming Dynasty: "Hometown of King Guan".

In terms of overall layout, Changping Guandi Temple and Jiezhou Guandi Temple also follow the "front dynasty and back sleeping" structure. The Shanmen, Meridian Gate and Xian Hall are all three rooms wide, with single eaves hanging from the top of the mountain, covered with gray tube tiles and trimmed with green glazed tiles.

The Guandi Hall is five rooms wide and surrounded by corridors, all with double eaves and nine ridge roofs. The wooden carved shrines in the temple are richly decorated.

Chongning Hall is the main building in the temple. It is built on a brick platform. It has a width of 5 rooms and a depth of 4 rooms. The surrounding corridors are 1 room deep, with a total width of 7 rooms and a total depth of 6 rooms. In the middle, there are double eaves on the top of the mountain, covered with green glazed and decorated with flowered glazed ridges.

There are two panel doors in the bright room of the main hall, and straight lattice windows in the left and right rooms; the wooden shrine in the hall is richly decorated, and there is a statue of Guan Yu inside. chair. There are four people serving him inside and outside the niche, who are respectful and respectful. The statue of the god is plump in shape and lifelike in expression.

The Empress Hall has 5 rooms each in width and depth, with double eaves resting on the top of the mountain. A corridor is built on the front eaves of the hall, and there is a hanging flower door. There are auxiliary halls on the left and right sides, forming a self-contained courtyard. There are shrines in the hall for the statue of Lady Guan, on the left and right. The statues of maids on both sides, some holding handkerchiefs and some holding sceptres, stand respectfully. They are masterpieces of sculptures from the Qing Dynasty.

The Holy Ancestor Hall is at the back end of the temple. It was built in 1773 and is three rooms wide. It has a single eave hanging from the top of the mountain, covered with gray tube tiles and placed on a masonry platform. The platform in front of the hall is spacious. In the hall, there are statues of Guan Yu's ancestor, great-grandfather, grandfather, father and his third ancestor's wife, which are rare in martial arts temples all over the world.

In the Guandi family temple, there is also an octagonal seven-story brick tower, about 15 meters high, which is said to be the tomb of Guan Yu's parents. The upper and lower parts of the pagoda are divided to a large extent, with overlapping eaves extending between layers and retracting inwardly to form the lower eaves and the upper base. There is a disc on the top. Unfortunately, the upper pagoda no longer exists. The brick pagoda is solemn, dignified and steady, with no decorations. It has survived the Hedong earthquake during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, but it is still intact.

At the foot of Zhongtiao Mountain in the south of the temple, there are green cypresses and numerous stone steles. It is the location of the Guan family's ancestral tomb. There were sacrificial halls, altars, etc. built on the passage from the Guansheng Family Temple to the Guan family's ancestral tomb.

There are dozens of various steles in the temple. These steles record the stories of Guan Yu that have been circulated among the people, as well as the titles given to Guan Yu in the past dynasties and the hereditary situation of the Guan people. They are precious materials for studying the history of the Three Kingdoms.

The ancient trees in Guanshengjia Temple are towering, intertwined with roots, lush and green, with criss-crossing branches. Almost every ancient tree has a meaningful and magical legend.

There is an ancient mulberry tree in the courtyard of the Queen's Palace, which was planted during the Ming Dynasty. It is more than 500 years old and can be encircled. Its skin is scaly, which is called "Qilin Skin".

Generally, the mulberries from mulberry trees only mature once a year, but the mulberries from this mulberry tree ripen and fall five times a year. There are 5 roots under the ancient mulberry tree, about the thickness of a bowl, about 1 meter exposed on the ground.

The trunk is above the root, and five thick branches stretch out from the trunk about 5 meters above the ground. They not only echo the five ancestral roots under the trunk, but also echo the great-grandfather of Guan Yu and Guan Yu in the family temple. The five generations of his grandfather, father, Guan Yu himself, Guan Yu's son Guan Ping and Guan Xing coincided with each other, and they were known as "five generations living under the same roof".

There is another ancient cypress in the northwest corner of the Empress Hall in the temple, named "Yunbai". The trunk is split in the middle and protected by iron hoops. The tree body is tilted at a 45-degree angle with the ground, pointing directly at ten thousand people. Jiezhouguan Temple meters away.

Every winter, heavy snow falls, covering everything, but this cypress will melt when the snow falls, without any covering snow, so it is also called "hot cypress", "snow-melting cypress" and "snow-free cypress". "Cypress", this kind of tree species is an endangered plant and is extremely rare.

On the left and right sides of the front eaves of Chongning Hall, the main building in the temple, there is an ancient cypress named "Dragon" cypress and "Tiger" cypress. The inner sides of the two cypress trunks are about one meter away from the ground. The bark of the tree is convex and concave, forming a dragon body and a tiger head, which are natural, lifelike and amazing.

There is a custom in the countryside, which is to wrap red rope around the trunks of dragon cypress and tiger cypress, and then cut a section of the red rope wrapped by dragon cypress and tiger cypress as a collar for the young son, recognizing him as the "godfather" , can bless your children to grow up healthily and bring great blessings to the world.