Ruins of the Heavenly Official’s Mansion

Ruins of the Heavenly Official’s Mansion

The ruins of the Heavenly Official’s Mansion is a cultural tourism attraction.

The ruins of the Heavenly Official’s Mansion are located on a broad piece of land (locally known as Dawuji) behind E’xiangling of Xiangtan, beside Dasonping, backed by Wenxingzhai and facing Aotou Stream. This site features a three-courtyard complex with forty-eight pedestals, and it is the former residence of Han Guoxian, the “Heavenly Official of the Ministry of Personnel” during the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty. Judging from the layout of the ruins, the mansion was built along a central axis in a traditional Chinese palace-style design with “one entrance and three courtyards.” The front and rear courtyards are slightly lower, while the middle courtyard is elevated. The layout is harmonious, well-arranged, elegant, refined, and compact. Two double-pillared ornamental columns stand outside the courtyards.

According to elders from two generations ago: upon entering the mansion through the main gate, you would arrive at the outer hall — a caisson-ceilinged room with a black-lacquered, gold-plated screen standing in the center, inscribed with eight large characters: “Wenxing Die Xiu, Aotou Liu Huan” (“Literary Stars Layered in Beauty, Turtle Head Stream Encircling the Land”). The mansion was surrounded by lush flowers and trees, with red walls faintly visible. From afar, the green pines and cypresses shimmered brilliantly. In the past, because Han, the Heavenly Official, submitted a memorial advocating for “suppressing the powerful and reducing redundant officials,” he offended the powerful elites and was forced to “retire and live out his days” in middle age. He later passed away without illness within the mansion.

Unfortunately, his residence was set ablaze by straggling soldiers of the White Lotus Sect in the early Jiaqing era, who disobeyed orders. Today, only forty-eight carved pedestals (each large enough to serve as a water vat) and a mountain-like pile of rubble remain — nothing else can be found. The Heavenly Official lived a life of simplicity and poverty, and after his death, he was buried under “Kuixing Liang,” with no luxurious decorations on his grave. Even so, it was robbed twice. Because of this, members of the Han clan even engaged in several lawsuits against the robbers in Bazhou. After the Cultural Revolution, the grave was also lost, leaving only a broken stone tablet (inscribed with the three characters “Han Guoxian”) and a small pottery pot as evidence that these events truly occurred.