Jixi's most stunning scenic spot is here, a picturesque landscape with superb feng shui. Longchuan, Jixi, is a thousand-year-old village inhabited by the Hu clan. Founded during the Eastern Jin Dynasty, it boasts a history of over 1,600 years. The village is shaped like a boat, surrounded on three sides by mountains, with the Dengyuan River running through it. It's known as the "Dragon Boat Out to Sea." During the Song Dynasty, Hu Nianwu, the ancestor of the Hu clan in Longchuan, invited Lai Wenzheng, known as the "Earth Immortal," to design the village's feng shui. Lai Wenzheng transformed the village into a boat-like shape (crucially, he even hired a Ding family—a family that had only one male heir for a thousand years—to manage the wooden boat). He also changed the village's orientation from west-facing east to north-south, and opened up five north-south lanes, symbolizing the idea of "five sons passing the imperial examinations." He also suggested moving the Longchuan River north by 100 meters, directly facing Longfeng Mountain, and building the "Lingshan Temple" at the river's mouth to suppress evil and gather energy, creating a barrier at the mouth of the river where "two mountains enclose the water." This feng shui nurtured the grandfather of Hu Zongxian and Hu Jintao (see Figure 9, owner of "Hu Yuantai" during the Republic of China).
The Hu Clan Ancestral Hall is worth seeing: hailed as "the greatest ancestral hall in Jiangnan" and a "museum of woodcarving art." Originally built in the Song Dynasty and expanded during the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty, the main wooden structure remains to this day (it's the largest ancestral hall I've ever seen, and its scale is truly extraordinary [grin]).
The Yishi Shangshu Archway in the village: a representative Ming Dynasty stone archway, built for two Shangshu officials, Hu Fu and Hu Zongxian. The exquisite carvings make it a prime example of Huizhou-style stone carving.
Ancient houses line Longchuan Water Street. The bluestone paving and cobblestones create a "dragon scale" pattern, echoing the "white phoenix granite" of Feng Street, creating a "dragon and phoenix auspicious" landscape.
The village is surrounded by lush green mountains and the winding Dengyuan River. In spring, the rapeseed flowers complement the Huizhou-style architecture, while in autumn, the forests are ablaze with color.