Xinying Academy

Xinying Academy

Xinying Academy is a cultural relic protection unit of Jiangxi Province.

Established in the first year of the Xianping era during the Northern Song Dynasty (998 AD), Xinying Academy was the earliest academy in Luling (the ancient name for Ji’an City) and was founded in Shangjing, Shuangjing Village. Due to the academy’s reputation, students from other counties flocked here to study. Liu Hang, a native of Yongxin County, studied here during his youth and later passed the imperial examination as a Jinshi (advanced scholar) in the TianSheng era of the Northern Song Dynasty (1030 AD), ranking second, and became a prime minister in the Huangyou era (1053 AD). As the number of students grew, the academy was relocated to the Peng family ancestral hall. Over the dynasties from the Song to the Qing, more than 120 scholars from this academy passed the imperial examinations as Jinshi, Juren, or Xiucai. Twenty-two were conferred the title of scholar or higher by imperial decree below the rank of Hanlin academician, and 36 plaques bestowed by the imperial court, provincial, or prefectural governments still hang here. The plaque inscribed with “Fame Entered Heaven’s Register” remains hanging from the beam. During the Republican era, Peng Shuxin, a member of the Central Committee of the Kuomintang and party branch secretary in Shanghai, also hailed from this academy.

Due to the increasing number of students, the academy was moved into the Peng family ancestral hall — known as Chengde Hall. In the second year of the Yuanzhen era of the Yuan Dynasty (1296 AD), descendants of the Peng family renovated and expanded the hall using fine nanmu wood for pillars and red-heart fir for beams, renaming it “Chengde Hall.” This ancestral hall is 60 meters long and 12 meters wide, covering an area of 720 square meters. The beams and arches of the hall are adorned with paintings, calligraphy, poetry, and artworks featuring flowers, birds, fish, and animals, promoting harmony between humans and nature and inspiring ambition. In front of Chengde Hall lie seven “品”-shaped feng shui ponds that have, for centuries, embodied the villagers’ ideals of valuing literature and scholarly pursuit. Highly cherished by the community, these ponds, though located at the village entrance with a broad view, occupy a feng shui site considered highly auspicious. Yet, no one has ever thought of filling them in for construction. They remain well-preserved to this day. Beside the ponds lies a “feng shui forest” lush with greenery, including ancient cypresses, camphor trees, podocarpus, and metasequoia. Behind the hall stand hundreds of ancient camphor trees, among which the “King Camphor Tree” has a trunk circumference of 7.8 meters. There are also numerous ancient nanmu trees, lotus plants, and castanopsis. A wealth of historical relics and artifacts highlights the ancient village of Shuangjing’s cultural values of respecting knowledge, gratitude, and ecological harmony.

In addition, to promote respect for teachers and education and to advocate a culture that values scholarship, a Character-Respect Pagoda was built during the Jiaqing era of the Qing Dynasty (1820 AD). The pagoda is constructed from blue bricks, tapering from a wide base to a narrow top. It has six sides and seven levels, with a cylindrical top, standing about 8 meters tall. Each level contracts slightly, giving the pagoda a distinctive and elegant layered appearance. It is now a provincially protected cultural relic.

Shuangjing Village: Located in Yaqian Town in the northwestern part of Suichuan County, a key forestry region, Shuangjing Village is about 10 kilometers from Yaqian Town. Centered around Shangjing and consisting of six natural villages including Shangjing and Xiajing, the village has 323 households and a population of 1,408, organized into 15 villager groups. It covers a land area of 2,740 hectares, including 1,231 mu of paddy fields and 350 mu of dry land. The village has one primary school (grades 1–2) and two village clinics. The forested area spans 2,400 hectares, with a standing timber volume of 260,000 cubic meters, over 1.8 million bamboo poles, and a forest coverage rate of 87.5%.

Shuangjing is... Detailed information on Shuangjing Village ++

Further Reading:

· Sixth Batch of Jiangxi Provincial Cultural Relic Protection Units