Kejia Residential Building Craftsmanship
01 · Historical Records
The origin of the southern Jiangxi Hakka walled houses aligns with the route of the Central Plains population's southward migration. The form of the walled house began with refuge from turmoil. From the Western and Eastern Jin through the Tang and Song dynasties, Han people of the Central Plains along the Yellow River migrated south in successive waves; settlements in the mountainous country of southern Jiangxi, to guard against banditry and wild beasts, shaped their living space into an enclosed ring, and in time the walled house came to be; the building craft was handed down along family bloodlines. The special geographical conditions gave the southern Jiangxi walled houses their distinctive defensive functions: the Hakka made use of small flat land amid the mountains and locally available special materials, and through distinctive building techniques and siting design constructed enclosed communal dwellings with complete defensive functions and a strong sense of kinship; sites were mostly chosen in the center of basins, which allowed the walled houses to save a great deal of earth-moving work by taking advantage of the terrain.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The southern Jiangxi Hakka walled-house construction technique is the craft by which the Hakka use small flat land amid the mountains and locally available special materials, and through distinctive building techniques and siting design, construct enclosed communal dwellings with complete defensive functions and a strong sense of kinship. Longnan County, Jiangxi Province, still preserves 376 Hakka walled houses of differing forms; for their great number, complete range of styles, and excellent state of preservation, they are regarded as an important representative of Hakka-characteristic dwelling culture. The Longnan Hakka walled houses are richly varied in form, with an enormous span in scale; there are many types, such as the 'guo' shape, the 'kouzi' shape, the 'hui' shape, and irregular shapes, with areas ranging from a little over 200 square meters at the Maojia Wei to more than 10,000 square meters. The most imposing and magnificent, the Guanxi New Wei, is one of the typical and finest walled houses among the southern Jiangxi walled houses. The walled-house architecture is sternly defensive, integrating residence, fortress, ancestral hall, council chamber, and central square (racecourse) in one, almost covering every scene of human life. The construction is mostly two or three stories, and sites are mostly located in the center of basins. Construction employs rammed 'three-in-one earth': lime, yellow clay, sand and stone (commonly called 'sanhe tu'), mixed with pebbles and prepared with tung oil, then rammed in place. The earth mixture for the walls follows a strict formula, with precise proportions of brown sugar, egg white, and glutinous rice added, and pebbles set in as the bones of the wall to enhance its strength. The earth-working craft is exquisite: the earth is thoroughly turned and fermented to prevent shrinkage and cracking. Walls are built by the 'gold-wrapped-in-silver' method: the outer wall is built of brick and stone, while the inner wall is built of adobe or rammed earth. The special historical, geographical, and cultural environment gave the southern Jiangxi Hakka walled houses their distinctive defensive character. The corners of the walled houses project outward from the wall face, and gun turrets are set on the roof tiling. The walled houses have wide, thick foundations; outer walls of fired brick or dressed stone that resist prying and digging; firing slits on the inside of the turrets designed narrow at the top and wide at the bottom; enclosure gates sheathed with two or three layers of sheet iron; hidden wells built within the enclosure as famine reserves; and moats ringing the houses outside the wall — making the Longnan walled houses solid and easy to defend but hard to attack.
Ramming the sanhetu walls
Walls are rammed from lime, yellow clay and sand blended with pebbles and boiled tung oil, each ingredient contributing firmness, plasticity or shear resistance.
The wall formula and its pebble core
Sugar, egg white and glutinous rice are dosed precisely into the earth, with pebbles as the structural core; thorough fermentation prevents shrinkage cracking.
The gold-wrapped-silver masonry
Brick and stone face the outside while adobe and rammed earth fill in, combining strength with economy where building material is scarce.
Gun towers, embrasures, wells and ditches
Projecting corner walls, rooftop gun towers, narrowing embrasures, iron-clad gates, hidden wells and encircling ditches together make the enclosure defensible.
Mortise-tenon joints and pebble masonry
Zhong Yanpeng mastered mortise-tenon, dougong, rammed earth and pebble masonry, and repairs by keeping structure, dimensions and beams unchanged.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Longnan still preserves 376 Hakka walled houses of mutually differing forms; for their great number, complete range of forms, and excellent preservation, they are regarded as an important branch of Hakka-characteristic dwelling culture. The plans of the walled houses span an enormous range in the Longnan area: 'guo' shape, 'kouzi' shape, 'hui' shape, and irregular shapes coexist, and in area they range from the Maojia Wei at little over two hundred square meters to others exceeding ten thousand square meters. Within a single walled house are stacked residence, fortress, ancestral hall, council chamber, and even the central square (racecourse): the daily life of ordinary families and the communal deliberation and ritual order of the clan are all duly accommodated within this same ring of walls. Among them, the Guanxi New Wei is the most imposing in bearing and is regarded as one of the typical and finest walled houses of southern Jiangxi. The southern Jiangxi Hakka walled-house construction craft, represented by Longnan, has an extraordinary and wide-ranging art of construction; it is both an important component of China's traditional dwelling construction techniques and a comprehensive vehicle of Hakka culture and art.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Kejiatulou Building Craftsmanship · Kejiatulou Building Craftsmanship · Kejiatulou Building Craftsmanship.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
From the Western and Eastern Jin through the Tang and Song dynasties, Han people of the Central Plains along the Yellow River were forced to migrate south; to guard against banditry and wild beasts, most Hakka lived together by clan, forming walled communal dwellings of extremely strong defensive character — the Hakka walled houses. Their construction technique has been passed down from generation to generation, mainly through family transmission. The southern Jiangxi Hakka walled-house construction craft, represented by Longnan, has an extraordinary and wide-ranging art of construction and profound cultural connotation; it is both an important component of China's traditional dwelling construction techniques and a comprehensive vehicle of Hakka culture and art, a valuable resource for studying the formation and development of Hakka culture, with high historical, artistic, scientific, and socio-cultural value. Zhong Yanpeng (related inheritor, official archive record): male, Han ethnicity, born in May 1951, from Longnan County, Jiangxi Province. Representative inheritor of the Hakka dwelling construction technique (southern Jiangxi Hakka walled-house construction technique), a national-level intangible cultural heritage item of the fifth batch. Since 1970, he has independently undertaken house construction and walled-house repair projects, for nearly fifty years to date. In the intervening years he strengthened study and innovation, mastering such walled-house construction techniques as mortise-and-tenon joinery, dougong bracket sets, rammed-earth walls, and pebble masonry, and adopting an electroplating method for aging wood, becoming a model for walled-house construction. Demanding strictness, high standards, and good materials, he insists that the structure not change, the dimensions not shift, and the ridge beams not move; he has repaired nearly ten structures, including the Yinglong Wei and the Wushi Wei. In recent years, together with his disciples Zhong Huimin and Zhong Rongyun, he established Longnan County Renfeng Ancient Architecture Co., Ltd., specializing in walled-house repair; it has undertaken more than fifty projects, including two national-level cultural relics protection units and six provincial-level cultural relics protection units.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xu Songsheng 01-0148
- Zhong Yanpeng 05-2741
- Zhang Xianyao
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。