Former Residence of Yuanying

Former Residence of Yuanying

The former residence of Yuanying is a cultural tourism attraction.

The former residence of Yuanying is located in Duanshang Village, Pinghu Town. It was first built during the Chongzhen era of the late Ming Dynasty. Duanshang’s founding ancestor, Wenchang Gong, established the village’s first house over 400 years ago. The structure is a two-story wooden building in the Ming Dynasty style. The main building is 10.5 meters long and 5.5 meters wide, covering an area of 115.5 square meters; its side room is a 4x4 meter two-story building with an area of 32 square meters; the total area is 147.5 square meters. The house where Yuanying lived was part of his ancestral heritage. It is known that Yuanying’s paternal grandfather and father’s generations lived in this house. Yuanying was the eleventh-generation descendant of the village’s founding family, and his birth mother was Lady Que. He was born on May 12, 1878, and lived in this house from birth until the age of 14. From ages 15 to 17, he studied in Gutian and passed the imperial examination as a scholar. At 18, he visited Yongquan Temple and became a monk. He returned home to recuperate at 19, and re-entered monastic life at 20, in 1897. He left the house from then on and never returned — 112 years have passed since. The house was subsequently entrusted to his cousin Wu Zhenyu for safekeeping and residence. Zhenyu moved out in the 1970s, and the house has remained unoccupied for over 30 years.

In 2008, to commemorate the 130th anniversary of Yuanying’s birth, the former residence underwent renovation and sorting, during which four categories of relics were organized:

The first category includes plaques commemorating the political achievements, virtue, and merits of Yuanquan Gong — Yuanying’s benefactor, Wu Yuanquan, who selflessly took Yuanying into his private school, Qianjiao Zhai. These plaques were originally hung in Qianjiao Zhai.

The second category consists of items left by Yuanying’s mother: wedding lanterns, Buddhist incense burners, Buddhist incense tables, drums used for worship, bamboo baskets, vegetable baskets, weaving tools, rolled bottle fragments, wooden money chests, tripods, rice measuring scoops, fire shovels, rice bowls, oil pots, wheat straw baskets, wine strainers, and rice pots.

The third category includes items belonging to Yuanying himself: winter cotton-padded jackets, a tea canister for daily use, grain threshing tools (a small sled), reading and lighting lamps, firewood-dragging and ox-tying tools, bamboo paper lanterns for lighting, mustard seed containers, horns, a self-study desk, a perforated peculiar stone, firewood chopping knives, a pen stand, bamboo baskets, stone balls, stone stools, and stone pillows.

The fourth category includes livelihood tools used by Yuanying’s uncle: large and small traditional scales, an iron forge box, utensils for serving food, and five long-distance porter shoulder poles.

The fifth category includes some farming tools used by Yuanying’s father’s generation and their brothers: coir skirts, bamboo hats, fish baskets, lard baskets, bamboo baskets, wooden hammers, grain seals, lice-scraping rakes, lice jars, plow discs, carrying poles, mortar racks, manure hammers, bamboo hammers, and lunchboxes.