There are many alleys with the word "warehouse" in old Beijing, such as shipping warehouse and Beixin warehouse. In the old days, these alleys with "warehouses" were mostly warehouses for storing grain. Lumicang Hutong, located on the east side of Chaoyangmen South Street, is one of them. This is the place where the Ming and Qing dynasties stored the rice of the Beijing officials. The building of the Lumicang still partially survives today. The building of Lu Micang has no ornamental value, but there is a temple called Zhihua Temple in Lu Micang Hutong.
Zhihua Temple is located at the east end of Lumicang Hutong, which was built by Wang Zhen, the eunuch of the Ming Dynasty, in the eighth year of orthodoxy (1443), and was a family temple built for himself. Later, the emperor gave the name "Zhihua Temple". Although the main building of Zhihua Temple has been repaired many times, many building structures, bucket arches, and painted paintings have retained the architectural style of the early Ming Dynasty, especially the wheel collection in the West Hall, which is the only Ming Dynasty log structure wheel collection in Beijing at present, the carving is exquisite, it has a history of more than 500 years from now, and it is well preserved. In 1961, Zhihua Temple was included in the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units. Just by virtue of the name of "Country 1", you will know the value of Zhihua Temple.
Zhihua Temple also has an original - Beijing**. It uses the scale of Chinese folk music. It is said that the score was brought out of the court by the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty privately, which not only contains the essence of Tang and Song Buddhist music, but also absorbs the tunes of Song, Yuan and Ming folk music, and becomes an elegant and popular art form. Although it has been more than 500 years, it still retains its original appearance. Photo by Liu Dapeng.