Tangyin Ancient Town

Tangyin Ancient Town

Jiangxi’s Historic and Cultural Town — Tangyin Ancient Town, one of the top ten historic and cultural towns in our province. The town still preserves over 160 well-preserved buildings from the Ming and Qing dynasties. The ancient saying “Small Yihuang County, Big Tangyin Town” has been sung by the people of Yihuang for hundreds of years. Because it was a major producer of summer cloth, Tangyin Ancient Town was historically known as the place with “30,000 chimneys and a population of 100,000.” Merchants flocked here, and the area boasts rich cultural heritage. Tangyin is the ancient town in Yihuang County with the highest number and most unique Ming and Qing buildings. The main ancient structures that remain intact to this day include:

Summer Cloth Guild Hall: A Ming and Qing building located beneath the old government building. The hall is over 60 meters deep and 30 meters wide. It features three main halls, two side wings, and originally had dozens of rooms including guest rooms for purchasing summer cloth, offices, and warehouses. In those days, the lower hall served as the accounting office. Historical records state: in the sixth year of the Hongxi era (1425 AD), Yihuang produced 51,127 bolts of summer cloth, which were used to offset 35,789 stones of tax. This shows that summer cloth was a major pillar of Yihuang’s economy at the time, and Tangyin Town alone had dozens of summer cloth workshops and dyeing mills. In 1939, the Provincial Department of Education established the “Hemp Weaving School” in Tangyin. Mr. Liang Bangzhu, a graduate of the Textile Department at Waseda University in Tokyo, served as the principal, while Mr. Ouyang Xuan from Yihuang (a graduate of the Dyeing and Weaving Department at Waseda University in Tokyo) served as the academic affairs officer. With a faculty of over ten teachers, they trained more than 200 young students in specialized technical fields, pioneering vocational education in Yihuang.

Temple of Lord Bafu: A Ming dynasty structure, serving as the ancestral hall of the Wu family. The central hall houses a 40-square-meter stage, with pillars so large that it takes more than two people to encircle them. The main hall spans over 200 square meters, with a 600-square-meter open-air courtyard paved with bluestone slabs in front, and two square wells near the central hall. The left and right wings feature long corridors, housing dozens of wooden-floored rooms. Entering through small garden doors on either side of the main hall leads to dozens more rooms. The front gate also includes a wooden building with over ten rooms, facing the ancient street. Its grand scale is rare in the Jiangnan region.

Luo Family Ancestral Hall: A Ming and Qing building, serving as the ancestral hall of the Luo family. It includes three halls, five courtyards, and one garden.

Cheng’en Archway: A Ming dynasty structure, serving as the front gate archway of the former residence of Wu Yuqing, one of the four great calligraphers of the Ming dynasty. The plaque above the archway bears the three bold and powerful characters “Cheng’en Archway,” handwritten by Wu Yuqing himself. Its structure is highly unique and rarely seen.

Embroidery Tower: A Ming and Qing building. The entire house consists of 99 rooms. For decades after liberation, it served as the site of the former town government and was also the main filming location for Wang Fulin’s TV drama “Tang Xianzu.”

Ying’en Pagoda: Originally built in the sixth year of the Chongzhen era of the Ming dynasty (1628 AD). It is a hexagonal, seven-story brick-and-stone structure. The pagoda stands over 40 meters tall with a diameter of 8 meters. Inside the pagoda walls, there are two spiral staircases with a total of 588 steps leading directly to the top. There are two entrances, allowing visitors to ascend from either side. As they climb, they pass each other on different levels without meeting until the top, where a horizontal beam allows the two paths to converge. Its unique structure makes it a county-level protected historical site.