Liu Tongxinglong Manor

Liu Tongxinglong Manor

Liu Tongxinglong Manor is situated on the ancient West Street of Sanhe Town and is also called “Liu’s Cloth Shop” or “Liu’s Rice Store.” It was a well-known shop on the ancient West Street during the late Qing Dynasty. The manor was founded by a person surnamed Liu, and the central phrase “Tongxinglong” was the shop’s brand. The owner, Liu Jintang (1879–1941), who served as the vice president of the Sanhe Chamber of Commerce, had five brothers. Among them, Liu Jintang and his second elder brother, Liu Jincheng, lived in “Liu Tongxinglong Manor.”

Covering an area of 700 square meters, Liu Tongxinglong Manor consists of five courtyards, eight wing rooms, and 32 rooms in total. In its heyday, the place was bustling with visitors and traffic, with business thriving from Yingshan in Lu’an in the north all the way to Nanjing and Shanghai in the south. The manor’s street-facing section is a two-story wooden building, the second courtyard features a revolving corridor structure, the third is an open hall used to receive guests, the fourth is a worship room for ancestral ceremonies, and the fifth serves as living quarters. The architecture follows the Huizhou style. The manor mainly dealt in various types of cloth and rice.

This multi-courtyard shop sold rice, cloth, gold and silverware, porcelain, and salt, and also included a pawnshop. Behind the courtyard was a grain storage facility. The rice sold here came in many varieties, covering nearly all types available today. Hence, another name for Liu Tongxinglong Manor was Liu’s Rice Store. The further you went inside, the more valuable the items became. Although this shop might not be found in the records of Huizhou merchants—after all, during the Qing Dynasty, the Huizhou merchant group shone brightly like stars in the sky—the smaller stars were naturally overshadowed by the larger ones. But in Sanhe Town, Liu Tongxinglong Manor was arguably the foremost establishment. Just the fact that it could sell salt indicates it wasn’t run by an ordinary merchant, as salt had always been a government-controlled commodity since ancient times.

At the very back of Tongxinglong is a reenactment of a daily life scene. The owner, either Liu Jintang or Liu Jincheng, is seen receiving guests. Two lifelike wax figures, which the guide says are the most valuable items in the attraction, depict the scene. Indeed, the wax figures are life-sized, and the expressions and positions of the host and guest are perfectly in line with their respective statuses. Especially the face of the host, which clearly shows an elderly man—with eye bags, scattered age spots, a graying beard, and wrinkles on the forehead—a merchant who, despite running a thriving business, still bears the marks of hard work and the passage of time.

In a room on the left, a young maid is preparing tea, fruit, melon seeds, and other refreshments for the guests. Clearly, the host and guest in the hall, who are exchanging polite greetings, have just met and haven’t yet had a chance to sit down for serious discussions. The abundance of items prepared by the maid suggests that the visitors are of no ordinary status. On the right side is the servants’ quarters. Further back would be the living area for the female members of the household. That part of the residence is also off-limits to visitors. But one can imagine how monotonous life must have been for the women in the family.

In addition to the high horsehead walls, Huizhou-style architecture features small windows built quite high up. The entire structure gives a sense of oppression and lack of openness. This is because Huizhou merchants often traveled for business, leaving the women at home to not only raise children and care for the elderly, manage vast wealth, but also adhere to strict codes of female virtue, avoiding interactions with men outside the family. Those small windows were specially designed to prevent secret meetings. Yangzhou historically had no shortage of Huizhou merchants. Many of the best-preserved gardens there were funded by Huizhou merchants. Beyond their extravagant lifestyles, with multiple wives and casual affairs, they certainly didn’t lack companionship. Those unfortunate women could only breathe in a bit of nature through those small windows.

Between each courtyard is a skywell that connects the spaces. Like traditional Huizhou buildings elsewhere, the eaves of each room face inward toward the skywell to ensure rainwater doesn’t flow into neighbors’ homes. At the four corners of the skywell floor are drainage channels, with covers featuring designs of wind-fire wheels and coins. These patterns symbolize the owners’ wishes for prosperous and booming business.

Sanhe Town: Located in central Anhui, Sanhe Town is situated southwest of Hefei, the provincial capital of Anhui, under the jurisdiction of Hefei. It borders Chaohu and Lu’an cities, with the East facing Chaohu Lake. The town is traversed by three rivers—the Fengle River, Hangbu River, and Xiaonan River—and lies on the golden tourism route between the national 5A-level scenic spots of Huangshan and Jiuhua Mountain. The Hefei-Tongling Highway runs through the town, while the Beijing-Kowloon Railway and Hefei-Tongling-Huangshan Expressway pass nearby, offering convenient transportation and excellent location advantages. The town covers an area of 70 square kilometers, governs 19 villages and 7 residential communities, and has a population of 72,000. The Sanhe Ancient Town scenic area spans 4.71 square kilometers, with a population of over 30,000. … Sanhe Town detailed information++