Must-see attractions in one-day tour of Shenguo Ancient Town

Shennuo Ancient Town is a thousand-year-old ancient town near Funiu Mountain in Henan Province. It preserves many ancient Central Plains cultures and ancient architectural styles, and many special delicacies are also a feast for the eyes. Here, I would like to share with you a one-day tour guide to Shennuo Ancient Town and recommendations for must-visit attractions.

Address: Shendou Town, Yuzhou City, Xuchang City, Henan Province

Introduction to one-day tour of Shenguo Ancient Town:

Walking through the Qiyu Bridge and walking into Wang Songcun, you will arrive at Shenguo Old Street.

It coincides with the Junci Cultural Festival, and the renovated ancient town is crowded with people and filled with joy everywhere. The red lanterns hanging on the eaves of the shops along the street also seem to have experienced a romantic carnival and hangover. Looking down at the long street, they are lazy and elegant.

Walking on the long road paved with bluestone slabs, you will feel familiar with the shops along the street. This suddenly made me worry that the goddess of God would become a replica of those ancient towns and lose her own things.

Fortunately, this is just a worry. The deeper you go, the more you feel the unique charm of the goddess.

In the ancient town, most of the shops along the street have small gables, and the doors and thresholds are very low, so you can enter by raising your feet. This may be related to the terrain here.

From west to east, the long street slopes along the mountain. Even if it rains, there is very little water. It is also located in a mountainous area with many ditches and streams. There are many villages named after ditches and streams, so if you think you are at the lowest place, you will always find a lower place.

This is why walking in a bustling place gives people a sense of seclusion and victory.

Because of the lack of water, the gods have no story of Qushui and no lilac girl. However, the home of the daughters of God is beautiful, otherwise there would not be the legend of "The Land of Diusim's Story"; the daughters of the gods are also tough, otherwise there would be no worship of the "Mother of Gold and Fire".

In the temple of the goddess Bolingweng, there are three gods sitting on the top of the altar. One is Sun Bin during the Warring States Period, who burned charcoal and was regarded as the god of the earth; the other was the elder Shun, who made pottery and was regarded as the kiln god.

There is also a fire god, the Virgin of Golden Fire, who is said to be the daughter of a kiln worker. In order to save her parents, she sacrificed herself on the stove and turned into a wonderful piece of Jun porcelain, which was enshrined by future generations. There is a couplet on both sides of the gate of Boling Ong Temple: "Magical treasures, passed down through the ages; Kunde is not utilitarian at all."

The bottom line is to pay tribute to Our Lady of Gold and Fire. The legend of the three gods makes the temple more splendid, more sacred and mysterious.

When you walk into the shops along the street, you can’t put it down, from tripods to incense tables. The owner of a shop said that every piece of Jun porcelain is unique because every piece of Jun porcelain comes out of the kiln in a colorful way. "Jun Wuyi" is the truth.

I once encountered an incense tray shaped like a lotus pond. The water in the deep pool, like deep longing, still attracts me. It's a pity that I missed it because of the price. Looking back, I never found the same one again.

The beauty of Shenguo Ancient Town lies in Junci and courtyard houses. In Shenguo, there was once a folk song like this: "Enter Shenguo Mountain, there are seventy-two kilns in the seven-mile long street, fireworks cover the sky, and merchants travel everywhere, making money every day."

The prosperous business has created wealthy businessmen. Now there are Wenjia Courtyard, Lu Family Courtyard, Wang Family Courtyard, etc. There are three entrances and five exits to the courtyard.

At the end of each yard, it is very high. Compared with the pavilions, pavilions and waterside pavilions in Jiangnan ancient towns, they are less refined and graceful and more solid and practical.

In the ancient town, every courtyard is an exhibition hall. The layout in the exhibition hall follows the old customs: the Eight Immortals table, the Grand Master's chair, the paintings in the main hall, the museum's bookshelves, and several boxes. Most of Nave's paintings are ink landscapes. No matter how rich a person is, he always yearns for mountains and rivers in his heart.

It is gradually achieved through the influence of Chinese traditional culture, like the infiltration of water. In the goddess, the charm of this traditional culture is also reflected in every artifact. Each piece of porcelain has a different auspicious or Zen meaning.

The Lingxian Temple, also known as the "Kiln Temple", is located in the center of the old street in the town. According to historical records, it was built in the Song Dynasty. According to the existing inscriptions, it was rebuilt in the eighth year of Hongzhi (1496) in the Ming Dynasty. It was announced as a "key cultural relic protection unit in Henan Province" in 1986. It is a landmark building of Junci culture and an important symbol of "Jundu" and "Porcelain Township" after the gods. The main buildings in the temple include the kiln temple, the Flower Theater Tower, the Taoist Temple, the East and West Sun and Moon Halls, and the Flower Theater Tower at the main entrance. There are three statues in the kiln temple. The first one is Sun Boling, the kiln god. It is said that Sun Bin, a military strategist during the Warring States Period, learned from Guiguzi and once burned charcoal, both at the same time.

Bolingweng Temple in Hou Town

The founder of charcoal is also the kiln god of the porcelain industry; the second is "King Tushan", which is Emperor Shun in history. According to historical records, Shun was once "on the bank of the Tao River" and was worshiped as the earth god by the kiln people; the third one is "The Holy Mother of Gold and Fire", which is said to be a folk woman who jumped into the fire to worship the king.

A pavilion designed outside the temple gate, with stone lions, stone pillars and stone carvings, is simple, solemn and fascinating. It is rare among many ancient buildings in the province. The flower house is the main dual-purpose building of Bolingweng Temple (that is, the gate and the theater building are combined). It’s a combination of entrance, entrance, and acting. It is exquisitely designed, simple, solemn, beautiful and generous. The entire theater is a wooden structure with nine-ridged cornices, a pavilion-style building, dragonfly brackets, layer upon layer, yin and yang reliefs, a dragon and a phoenix, lions and elephants competing, and the carvings are exquisite and transparent.

The theater has carved beams and painted pillars, pink walls and colorful screens, and a well shape with a panlong sculpture as the center. Its shape design, line structure and description are all unique and exquisite. The entire building is covered with colorful glazed tiles, which shine golden in the sun. A unicorn stands in the middle of the ridge of the building, with a Jun porcelain vase on its back, which is lifelike and auspicious. The local porcelain guild supports a kind of "handful of clay" bangzi opera (the predecessor of the current Yuzhou Yu Opera Troupe), which has been performed in the "Flower Theater" for many years.

Guandi Temple is adjacent to the ancient Bolingweng Temple (now integrated and both are provincial cultural relics protection units). Side by side with the Boling Ong Temple in the south, there is a similar "Flower Theater", the East Theater. Adjacent to the kiln temple in the north, there are bell and drum towers and wooden archways, which were built in the 15th year of Qianlong's reign in the Qing Dynasty (1750). It is designed as one room, two columns and a building. This pure wooden structure can be preserved intact for hundreds of years and has certain reference value for the study of ancient wooden structures.

Old Street

When traveling to Shenhou Ancient Town, you must visit the scenic old street. The snacks you must eat are a unique Hui snack called fried chicken, steamed buns and twist buns. This snack has not appeared for a long time and was originally created by a local chef more than ten years ago. Especially the sauce he made has a unique taste that has been passed down to this day and is deeply loved by locals and tourists. Anyone traveling to Shenhou Old Street will pass by his shop.

Everyone is familiar with Xiao Long Bao and rolls, but what we usually eat are rolled shredded potatoes, scrambled eggs with chili, and mung bean sprouts mixed with vinegar. Rolling stick incense is really unheard of elsewhere.

In the northern areas where pasta is eaten, this kind of steamed buns is especially popular in summer, because steamed buns are not easy to preserve in summer. Eat fried chicken and bake some steamed buns, it's delicious and very convenient.

There are fried chicken legs, chicken steaks, chicken wings and squid, as well as skewers such as bean gluten, green peppers, fungus, enoki mushrooms, green vegetables, shiitake mushrooms, etc. Suitable for frying. The secret exclusive sauce and cumin powder are suitable for rolling into a steamed bun, and can be used to roll the steamed bun after cleaning.

This fried chicken pancake skewers are sold from 11:00 am to 23:00 pm so that tourists can eat fresh fried chicken and grilled skewers.

The price of this kind of steamed stuffed bun rolls with string incense ranges from five yuan to ten yuan. If the prices of fried chicken legs, chicken wings, chicken steaks, squid, chicken fillets or others are different, bro

Houshen Ancient Village consists of four ancient villages in the east, west, south and north. Every village has tall and thick walls, some of which are more than 3 feet high and 2 feet thick, as strong as a city wall. There are turrets around the village and on the city walls, mainly used for military defense, defense against bandits and flood control. Each village has an elegant name, such as "Wang Song" in the east village and "Tianbao" in the west village, which are inlaid on the gate of the village with bluestone calligraphy. The Dongzhai City Wall was built in the 20th year of Guangxu's reign in the Qing Dynasty. The wall is a blue brick structure, and the wall base is about 2m high and made of huge stones. The wall is about 10m high and 80cm square. It goes around Dongzhai and is about 6,000m long. The gate of the village is about 4 meters high, with an arched blue brick upper part, and the gate is about 8 meters long. There are three blastholes at the entrance of the village for observation and shooting. The word "Wang Song" is engraved on the door. It is said that Songshan Mountain can be seen from the gate of the ancient village, so it is called "Wangsong Gate". Each village has many traditional buildings, such as Bolingweng Temple, Guandi Temple and Flower Theater in Dongzhai (Administrative Street), as well as Confucian Temple, Erlang Hall, Laojun Temple, Baiyi Hall, Xie Zhen Paiji, etc. in Xizhai , there are also shops along the street, and houses with period and local characteristics. In terms of administration, each village has a Garbo organization and armed vigilante groups to maintain local order and prevent soldiers and bandits. In terms of education, every village has a school. Therefore, every village looks like a small town in terms of politics, economy, culture, education, and architecture.

The Bai Family Courtyard

The Bai Family Courtyard faces south to north, with a high gate platform, a walking horse gate tower, a stone gate pier, a wooden door forehead, five spines and six animals, and a screen wall. The second door of the brick archway has six steps, two floors up and down, and the backyard can be reached from the right gable. The brick carvings, wood carvings, stone carvings and small ornaments in front of the house, especially in the main house, are all brick peonies, which have high historical and artistic value.

Wenjiayuan

Wenjiayuan faces north and south and consists of a main courtyard and a cross courtyard. The main courtyard is the fifth courtyard, and the living room on the left side of the gate has carved beams and painted pillars. Spacious and bright, it is an important place for the owner to receive visitors. The main house, also known as the upper courtyard, is composed of five two-story Qing-style buildings, tall and majestic. The entire courtyard has a rigorous structure and is well-proportioned. There are ancient wells, side entrances, sidewalks, and courts in the courtyard. It was a reception station for dignitaries in feudal society after they fell into trance.

The Huo Family Courtyard

The Huo Family Courtyard faces north and south, with a high gate platform, a walking horse gate tower, one gate and three houses. The gate has a north screen wall, a west screen wall and a hanging flower door. The upper room, upper room and side rooms are all column-type brick and wood structures. The doors and windows are exquisitely carved, the ceilings and wooden partitions are exquisitely crafted and beautifully painted.

Jiadayuan

The Xin Family Courtyard is located on West Street, facing south, as soon as you enter the third courtyard. Now it has a main door, a main door, a main room and a side hall. The main room has three floors, with iron-clad doors and stone windows. Has good fire safety performance.

Deng Yulou

Denglou (basically original appearance) was originally the residence of Deng Yu, the general of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when he was stationed in the army. It is a "one into three" mansion. The front yard is very small, with a gatehouse, three fronts to the street, and a west wing. The second door is a vertical arch. After entering the second door, the west wing is made of blue bricks, gray tiles and stone windows; the east wing is made of red stone cannons, three stories high, with brick-carved stone windows on each floor; the room above is a three-story staircase.

It is well preserved and rebuilt in the Ming Dynasty.

Corner Building

The corner (basically the original appearance, the top has collapsed), facing east and west, is a four-in-one building covering an area of ??several acres. Gatehouse with double doors. After entering, use the door frame as a ladder to climb to the second floor. From the gate tower to the north, east, south and west, you can go around the compound for a week without going downstairs. In the compound, there are dozens of families living upstairs and downstairs, which facilitates joint defense and mutual assistance, and can also prevent bandits and theft. This is an unusual housing pattern in northern China, and is

The fifth painting is a portrait of a great man. Can you see the great man in the Jun porcelain vase? There are six portraits of great men in the Jun porcelain exhibition hall of the Kong family.