Turtle Village Fortress Against the Flow

Turtle Village Fortress Against the Flow

Originally named “Turtle Village Fortress Against the Flow,” “Baisha Water Encircled Village” is located in Baisha Village, Humen, and was built during the Chongzhen period of the late Ming Dynasty by Zheng Ru, a native of Baisha, Humen. Zheng Ru was a successful candidate in the imperial examination at the end of the Ming Dynasty and held the official position of Junior Vice Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial (a fourth-rank official at the time). The entire village is square-shaped, facing northeast and southwest, covering an area of 6,889 square meters, with each side measuring 83 meters. The fortress is surrounded by protective walls that are 6 meters high and 0.6 meters thick. The layout of the fortress is designed in the shape of a turtle. Because there is a stream flowing toward it from the north, it is called the “Turtle Village Fortress Against the Flow.” Surrounding the fortress is a 18-meter-wide man-made moat, and because the village is entirely encircled by water, it is also referred to as “Baisha Water Encircled Village.”

In front of the main gate of the fortress is a concrete bridge, which was originally a wooden bridge and serves as the only entrance and exit, representing the turtle’s tail. The small watchtowers at the four corners of the fortress represent the turtle’s four legs, while the watchtower rising above the protective walls on the northern side symbolizes the turtle’s head. The red bricks on the blue watchtower represent the turtle’s eyes.

The door frame of the main gate is constructed from red sandstone, and the lintel is inscribed with four classic and bold characters: “里闾堡聚” (translating roughly as “village homes gathered within the fortress”). Beside the gate is a stone-carved couplet. The upper line reads: “Front Butterfly Ridge, rear Dragon Pool, mountains and waters converge spiritual essence,” and the lower line reads: “Left Linked Peak, right Tiger Sea, clouds and rosy clouds bring forth refined writings.”

Upon entering the main gate, there is a straight north-south alleyway, 2 meters wide, with four parallel cross-alleyways on either side, each 1.4 meters wide. Seventy-two houses with a unified layout are distributed along both sides of the straight alley. Small rooms within the surrounding walls served as stables. All the houses are single-story, built with blue bricks and tiles. After hundreds of years of wind and rain erosion, very few carved decorations remain on the rooftops.

The drainage ditches and wells in the village are well-planned. Most remarkably, the crisscrossing drainage system throughout the fortress is quite ingenious. The ditches are about 20 centimeters wide and 10 centimeters deep. Elders who have lived here for decades say that no matter how heavy the rain, the water always drains away promptly, and the village has never been flooded. Experts from Germany and South Korea have sent multiple research teams to study the village’s drainage system.

At the end of the straight alley on the left side is the house where the founder, Zheng Yu, once lived. Most of the structure has collapsed. Inside is a blocked-up well, which legend says leads to a secret tunnel that goes directly outside the village.

According to research, Baisha is an ancient village. In the early Ming Dynasty, it once housed an inspection office, served as a salt distribution hub, and was the earliest production site of the European-style cannons in China. With its typical Ming Dynasty architecture, such a large-scale and well-preserved example is rare throughout the province.

The protected area of Turtle Village Fortress Against the Flow is bounded by the outer edge of the surrounding moat. The construction control zone extends 30 meters outward from the outer boundary of the protected area.