Former Residence of Zhao Yi

Former Residence of Zhao Yi

The former residence of Zhao Yi is a cultural tourism attraction.

The former residence of Zhao Yi is located at No. 7 Qianbeian (Yanling West Road). Zhao Yi (1727–1814), styled Yun Song, also known as Yun Song, and with the pseudonym Ou Bei, was born in 1727 in Xiganqi Village, Anshang Township, Yanghu County (now Daixi Township, Wujin), and did not move to a residence beside Baiyun Stream within Changzhou city until he was 57 years old. He passed away in Changzhou in the 19th year of the Jiaqing reign (1814).

Zhao Yi was a renowned historian, literary figure, and poet of the Qing Dynasty, and was grouped with Yuan Mei and Jiang Shiquan as one of the “Three Great Masters of Jiangzuo.” The Zhao residence originally had five sections of single-story houses; the first and fifth sections have been destroyed, while the second section retains a two-room sedan-chair hall, and the third section has a five-room main hall—both are residential buildings. The fourth section consists of three rooms that served as Zhao’s writing studio, “Zhan Yi Hall”: a gable-and-hip wooden structure measuring 20.3 meters in width, 15.7 meters in depth, and 7.6 meters in height. To the west, there is also a three-room study called “Xiao Zhai,” all built in the early Qing Dynasty and currently inhabited by his descendants. Originally, there was a pair of stone lions in front of the main gate, along with a plaque inscribed “Ranked First in the Imperial Examination for the Third Place.” The central hall once housed a plaque inscribed “Zhan Yi Hall,” written by the famed Qing calligrapher Wang Wenjü, but these were completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.