In order to avoid persecution, the kin of a Song Dynasty general took refuge on a mountain. But now, the village can be enjoyed by visitors. Li Yang and Sun Ruisheng report in Pingshun, Shanxi province.
Thirty-three families from Yuejiazhai, a village of the Yue family on the Thaihang mountain ridge in Pingshun, North China's Shanxi province, have lived in relative seclusion for hundreds of years. Yue Xianlai, the Party chief of the village, says: "We are the descendants of Yue Fei's third son Yue Lin. I am a 35th-generation descendant of Yue Lin."
Yue Fei was a military general who led the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) forces against the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) from northeastern China.
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Top and above: Villagers of Yuejiazhai, descendants of Southern Song Dynasty hero Yue Fei, have lived reclusive lives for hundreds of years on the Thaihang mountain ridge in Pingshun, Shanxi province. Photos by Yue Feng / For China Daily and Sun Ruisheng / China Daily |
He was put to death, along with his eldest son Yue Yun, in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, in 1142 by the Southern Song ruler after being accused of being a rebellion plotter.
However, 27 years later, he received a posthumous rehabilitation and was portrayed as a national hero for his loyalty.
But Yue Fei's death was turning point for his wife and other four sons.
And fearing further persecution, they fled.
The villagers say Yue Lin took 33 families with him, mostly relatives, servants and guards.
One night during their journey they camped under a big tree in a remote mountainous region.
Yue Lin had a dream that night, in which the tree told him to settle under it and it promised to protect his people.
The next morning, he decided to follow the instruction and the group began to build houses there using locally available stone.
They also created terraced fields on the mountain slope and began to cultivate crops there.
Not far from the tree was a spring, the only water source.
The tree and the spring are still there today.
The tree is worshipped as the guardian angel of the village, and the spring is still a vital resource.
Most of the stone houses there are hundreds of years old.
Zhang Haigen, the village head, who is in his late 30s, and who was born and grew up in Yuejiazhai, says: "Life is quiet and natural here."
As for life in the village - the number of families has not changed much over 800 years: they eat what they plant and hunt; they wear what they make and find; and they speak Chinese using dialects that can be traced to Southern Song Dynasty.
The only thing they source from outside is salt.
"To outsiders, we look like savages," says Zhang, who left the village for the first time at the age of 16, using a road completed in the late 1990s.
"I suppose the outside world fears us as much as we fear it," he says.
Zhang is very good at climbing trees and working with his hands.
"We are very disciplined and literate 'savages'. We are familiar with all of Yue Fei's legends. They teach us to be responsible, loyal to family, beliefs and motherland," says Zhang.
For more than 800 years, the village operated its own school, clinic, temple and village committee. It had family law and village law, originating from the Yue family in the Southern Song Dynasty.
The local government started building a 20-kilometer mountain path connecting the village to the closest town in 1996, and the road, which includes a 50-meter tunnel, was completed several years later.
"It took about one day to walk to the town before the road was completed. This was because there was a cliff on the way. So, if we wanted to go to the town, we had to go past the cliff," says Yue Xianlai.
Yue Xianlai's father fell off the cliff during one such journey and lost his life.
Speaking of the original plan to settle in the remote area, Zhang says: "Yue Lin made the right decision, as the village is like an island protected by formidable mountains."
Even the Mongolians, Manchurians, and Japanese, three main invaders and occupiers in northern China after 12th century, did not manage to get to the village.
If their ancestors knew about Yue Fei's rehabilitation 27 years after they settled there and left the area, many families would have become victims of the later wars, the villagers say.
Zhang Jianlu, Zhang Haigen's 76-year-old father, says: "Before the road was built, we just did not want to go outside the village, fearing that people outside would bully us."
Speaking of how access changed things in the village, Zhang Haigen says: "We started learning about what happened over the past 800 years (history) only beginning from the late 1990s.
"But our earlier education gave us a good foundation to adapt to modern life."
When the first visitors came to the village about 15 years ago, they were very interested in learning about us, and vice versa, says Zhang Haigen.
"The villagers did not even understand the concept of buying and selling at that time."
But together with the road came electricity and travelers.
Now, most young people go to work in cities, leaving only the elderly in the village.
Contact the writers through liyang@chinadaily.com.cn
