Xingning Hakka Village Forts

Xingning Hakka Village Forts

Among Hakka dwellings, forts are one of the most distinctive types of residences, the most famous being the Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong. As the name suggests, a fort is both a city and a village; it not only serves to prevent theft but also to guard against military unrest, making it a residential structure with military functions. Although it is a village, the walls are solid and sturdy, capable of withstanding attacks from primitive cannons. That’s why, after the British army finally captured the Kowloon Walled City, they took its iron gate back to Britain to showcase their military achievement.

In Xingning, there are also forts of this type, though much smaller in scale and even less known, to the extent that many locals in Xingning are unaware of them. According to the information I gathered from interviews (though not verified), there were four such forts in Xingning, built during the Qing Dynasty by wealthy families to defend against the Taiping Army. These four forts were all designed and supervised by the same master craftsman, who devoted his entire life to the task but managed to complete only three and a half. One was located in Jinxing, Longtian, but was demolished when the Ning River was rerouted; another was submerged during the construction of the Jianhe Reservoir. Today, only one remains relatively well-preserved, situated in Yuantang, Longtian, Xingning—the birthplace of the local Yuantang dialect (commonly called the “Snake Dialect”). Elders from the fort say it was built during the Xianfeng era of the Qing Dynasty, funded collectively by descendants of the Luo family’s Hanguang branch. The outer part consists of watchtowers; for defense purposes, the lower levels had no windows, but ancient gun ports for hand cannons remain, and the armory was always stocked with gunpowder.

The fort had a complete system for water supply, food storage, and sewage disposal, and even included vegetable plots. During wartime, with the gates closed, residents could stay inside for months without going out. A small crawl-out exit was left at the right corner of the fort, for emergency use, but was usually locked with several thick iron bars. At the left rear corner stood a watchtower-cum-gun platform, as tall as a four- or five-story building.

The gate frame was built from hard bluestone, several feet thick, and the gate itself was an extremely thick wooden door. Originally, the Luo ancestors had planned to make it an iron gate, but it was never completed, though the family records do not state why. I suspect the reasons were likely two-fold: either prolonged financial strain over the more than ten years of construction, or possibly because the Taiping Rebellion had already been suppressed by then.

The watchtowers were interconnected on all sides to allow for troop movement and defense, known as the "Horse-riding Corridor." After the land reform and subsequent reviews, the government distributed the towers to different households. As the population grew, each family enclosed the passageways belonging to them, making passage through the corridors impossible afterward. Elders said that when the fort was first built, few people lived there, but gradually more moved in, with the population peaking at over a thousand. After the Reform and Opening-Up period, as families built modern houses, people gradually moved out again. By the time I visited, the place was virtually deserted. Imagining the bustling scene of a thousand residents, I picked a wild thorny flower growing thick within the fort—a strong sense of history and change swept over me.