Ancient Fei Guildhall

Ancient Fei Guildhall

The Ancient Fei Guildhall is a cultural relic protection unit of Anhui Province.

In the early to mid-Qing Dynasty, over 30 commercial guildhalls were established in Bozhou. The second merchant group to build a guildhall in Bozhou was the Huizhou merchants from southern Anhui’s Lu Prefecture, led by Zhan Huangjian. Under his leadership, the Huizhou merchants built the “Ancient Fei Guildhall” in Hejia Lane, Bozhou. The site now retains structures such as the main gate, main hall, and side rooms. It is currently a key cultural relic protection unit of Bozhou. In the seventh year of the Kangxi reign (1668 AD), Zhan Huangjian purchased three acres of charitable burial land at Sanzhang An, two li north of the city, to serve as a graveyard for Huizhou merchants. This indicates that the Huizhou community in Bozhou was no longer small, had achieved some prosperity, and had established a solid commercial foundation. They were known for trading in the “Four Treasures of the Study”—Hu brushes, Huizhou ink sticks, She inkstones, and Xuan paper from Xuancheng—as well as primarily dealing in medicinal herbs. Later, as the Huizhou merchants' business expanded and more of them came to Bozhou to trade, the location of the Ancient Fei Guildhall became too small. In the forty-fourth year of the Kangxi reign (1706 AD), another guildhall, the Hui Guo Wen Gong Shrine, was built at the north side of the eastern end of Men Shen Street. The functions and nature of the guildhall and the shrine were essentially the same, and both were in use simultaneously. The Hui Guo Wen Gong Shrine guildhall featured a memorial archway-style façade covered in intricate Huizhou carvings, with halls built entirely in the southern Anhui architectural style and on a grand scale. Unfortunately, this guildhall was demolished during the Cultural Revolution.

Because it is located in the old street area, the Ancient Fei Guildhall fortunately retained ancient structures such as the main gate and front side rooms. According to elderly residents currently living in Hejia Lane, the Ancient Fei Guildhall complex included a gate tower and side rooms. Entering through the gate tower, arched doorways on both sides led to the front side rooms; going straight through the gate tower led to the main hall and side rooms. A small side door next to the main hall opened into the rear hall and side rooms. The main hall enshrined a statue of Zhu Xi (a Confucian educator). The rear section included a hall and rear hall; the southern eaves of the hall featured bracket sets and large wooden carved lintels; the rear hall’s upper beam structure was made of rough timber, while the lower part was carved decoratively; the northern eaves corridor used a progressive design method, with bracket sets on the exterior and carved fish-dragon motifs inside. Both the main hall and side rooms, as well as the rear hall and side rooms, had two-story halls, with the upper floors used as primary daily living quarters, preserving the dwelling-in-trees (“nest dwelling”) tradition of the indigenous mountain Yue people. The upstairs halls were generally spacious, consisting of reception areas, bedrooms, and wing rooms, with “beauty towers” (enclosed balconies) along the courtyard—room within room—a hallmark of Huizhou-style architecture.

Huizhou merchants, architecture, and the Four Treasures of the Study are core elements of Huizhou culture. Huizhou culture shaped the character of the Huizhou merchants as “literati-merchants.” Guided by Confucian values, they believed in Zhu Xi and upheld “benevolence” and “integrity” as their business philosophies, enabling them to form large-scale enterprises and financial groups that continued to grow and thrive in Bozhou and across China. Initially, the Huizhou merchants dealt in mountain produce, salt, cotton (cloth), medicinal herbs, and grain. For example, they utilized abundant timber resources for construction, ink-making, lacquer, tung oil, and papermaking—all major commodities transported to Bozhou—as well as transporting large quantities of tea, including premium varieties such as Qimen Red and Huangshan Maofeng. The early Qing Dynasty was a period of relatively developed commodity economy in Bozhou and also the heyday of the Huizhou merchants. The Huizhou merchants maintained their prominence in Bozhou for over 300 years until they gradually disappeared by the end of the Qing Dynasty.

Protected area: Within the original walls of the Ancient Fei Guildhall building.

Construction control zone: 50 meters outside the protected area.