Huanghou Village

Huanghou Village

Bayan County is one of the counties in Heilongjiang Province that was established relatively early in history. During the Sui and Tang dynasties, the area was part of the Heishui Mohe tribes; during the Liao and Jin periods, it was inhabited by the "raw Jurchens" and belonged to the northeastern territory of Shangjing Huining Prefecture. According to the History of Jin, there were three Jurchen tribes within the boundaries of Bayan: the Nipenggu tribe, the Tanggu tribe, and the Zhujia tribe. Among them, the ancestral home of the Tanggu tribe was “Weiya Village,” which is now the “Tucheng Site” located about 500 meters south of Yaowuying Tun in Wuyue Village, Fujiang Township, Bayan County. Historically, this place gave rise to four empresses of the Jin Dynasty — as recorded in the Biographies of Imperial Consorts in the History of Jin: “The Jingzu ZhaoSu Empress, of the Tanggu clan, was a native of the Tanggu tribe from Weiya Village, known as Baozhen; the Kangzong Jingxi Empress, of the Tanggu clan; the Taizu Shengmu Empress, of the Tanggu clan; and the Taizong Qinyin Empress, of the Tanggu clan.” The “Tucheng Site” is located about 7 kilometers southeast of Bayan County’s county town. This is a plain area with boundless farmland. Only around the site are there trees, and the land here rises noticeably above the surrounding terrain, forming an earthen mound. At the northeast corner of the mound, there is a dilapidated small house with a sign on the wall reading “Site Protection Station.” Climbing onto the site, one discovers that the mound is actually a square enclosed by an earthen embankment, with a sunken center and sides standing over ten meters high above the ground, and elm trees towering along the earthen walls.

Wu Guangyi, a 66-year-old villager who guards the site, said that the earthen embankment is 160 meters on each side and square-shaped. It was not part of the original site but was formed during the Cultural Revolution when soil was dug out from the center while building a reservoir, and piled up around the edges. However, after the reservoir was completed, it couldn’t retain water and eventually dried up, later being turned into farmland. During the reservoir excavation, many artifacts were unearthed, mostly ironware and pottery from the Liao and Jin periods.

The village is located at what is now Yaowuying Tun in Wuyue Village, Fujiang Township, Bayan County, 500 meters due south, where a tucheng (earthen city) site still exists. With the passage of time, all that can be seen today are the vague remnants of broken walls and overgrown wild grass, but this was once the renowned “Huanghou Village,” the birthplace of four empresses of the Jin Dynasty. These four empresses are the Jingzu ZhaoSu Empress, the Kangzong Jingxi Empress, the Taizu Shengmu Empress, and the Taizong Qinyin Empress.

Address: Yaowuying Tun, Wuyue Village, Fujiang Township, Bayan County, Harbin City