Jieyang, Guangdong | De'anli

| De'anli. Tired of the hustle and bustle of the city? Come and see the charming ancient village! De'anli is located in Nancun, Hongyang Town, Gucheng, Puning City, Guangdong Province. It was built by the family of Fang Yao, the admiral of the Guangdong navy and a famous general at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and his brothers. It is the largest, best-preserved, and longest historical period of the giant mansion-style building complex in the Chaoshan area, and it is also a rare mansion-style ancient village in China. De'anli's architecture encompasses the entirety of Chaoshan residential architecture: grand ancestral halls, three-hall compounds, five-bay houses, four-point gold, descending tigers, horse-drawn carriages, five-wall connections, one-legged lions, etc. Architectural forms that are rare or unseen in Chaoshan can all be found here. The entire architectural complex of De'anli is organically composed of three parts, each part being an independent and complete architectural group with its own characteristics. One group is 'hundreds of birds facing the phoenix', and two groups are 'horse-drawn carriages', each group containing multiple independent structures that are distinct yet organically connected. De'anli's old and middle villages face from west to east, and the new village faces from north to south. The architectural pattern of the old village is 'hundreds of birds facing the phoenix', and the middle and new villages are 'horse-drawn carriages'. The architectural form retains the typical characteristics of Chaoshan villages in the late Qing Dynasty, and there are also Western-style buildings in the village, showing both inheritance and development. Although De'anli has undergone tremendous changes, the overall architecture is relatively well-preserved. Its scale, construction precision, completeness of styles, and beauty of forms are considered the quintessence of Chaoshan architectural art. With its rare architectural layout and unique design style, it has been included in the civil architecture textbooks of the School of Architecture at South China University of Technology. De'anli's architecture is a combination of art and science, with the most typical example being the village's drainage system. It adopts the traditional open ditch method, flowing through 'nine turns and eighteen bends' before finally converging into the stream in front of the village, passing through Baili Bridge and flowing into the Rong River. Another feature of De'anli's drainage system is that whether the water flows out from the patio or from the tributary into the middle ditch and then into the large ditch, the water always flows from the center, which in Chinese is 'yan', symbolizing endless life and prosperity for generations. Visiting time is about 1 hour! You can park your car inside De'anli