Pinghe County, Zhangzhou City, Fujian Province, this land brings together the life and culture of many Hakka people. When it comes to the famous places here, I have to say that it is the unique Hakka tulou. Every visitor wants to experience the charm of the "land of big fish and begonias", otherwise, it seems that they have never really set foot here.
Tracing the history of Fujian tulou, it originated in the Song and Yuan dynasties and reached maturity in the late Ming Dynasty. Pinghe County still retains 476 Tulou from the Ming and Qing dynasties, the earliest of which dates back to the 11th year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1583) and is called Yan'an Tower. This cultural heritage was honourably inscribed on the World Heritage List on 6 July 2008 at the 32nd session of the World Heritage Committee in Quebec City, Canada.
Hakka tulou, based on stone, with raw soil as the main material, staggered layers of rammed. The wall bones are drawn by bamboo and wood, and the T-shaped intersections are fixed with wood. Its internal structure is unique, with a combination of unitized units and inward-facing small corridors, which not only facilitates the interaction of families, but also ensures privacy. However, this structure also makes the criminal activities have obvious regional characteristics, such as rape, ** and other cases mostly occur in the tulou, while the fight mostly occurs between the tulou.
Time passed to the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, and a ** case that shocked the Quartet occurred in the Fengjia Tulou. The victim was Duan Lu's wife, Feng Shi, who died in the tulou the day after returning to her parents' home to visit relatives. At that time, the tribesmen worked at sunrise and did not return to the tulou until noon to eat. When they found the blood outside the door and followed the blood into Feng's room, she was lying in a pool of blood, breathless.
When the news came back, Duan Lu was so grief-stricken that he immediately rushed to the Fengjia Tulou and cried heartbreakingly when he saw his wife's tragic condition. After his grief, he began to carefully examine his wife's body and room. He found his wife neatly dressed, with no signs of a fight, apparently having her throat cut with a sharp blade. At the foot of the bed, he found a bloodstained wide knife.
This wide knife, originated from foreign countries, introduced through Guangzhou, was extremely rare in the market, mostly for private customization, is the plaything of the rich. The word "Peiquan" was engraved on the body of the knife, and Duan Lu speculated that this was the name of the owner of the knife. So, he began to ask everyone if they knew who Peiquan was. The patriarch responded: "Peiquan is Ji Ren's character. ”
This clue caused an immediate uproar. A clansman recalled that as soon as the Feng family arrived at his mother's house yesterday, Ji Ren followed closely and did not come from Feng's room until midnight. Another clan revealed that after Ji Ren's wife Hu found out about his whereabouts, she made a big fuss and chased him with a kitchen knife, which scared Ji Ren all night. So, some people speculated that Ji Ren might have returned to Feng's place last night and killed her, leaving the murder weapon in a panic. However, there are also those who believe that Hu may have been poisoned out of jealousy.
In the midst of discussions, Duan Lu used Guangdao as a evidence to sue Ji Ren and his wife in court, asking the prefect to seek justice for himself. Ji Ren insisted that he had already sold the Guangdao, and although the Hu family was spicy, he had no courage to kill.
Lu Yun, the governor of Zhangzhou, took over the case, and he summoned all the people involved and their neighbors to the court for a hearing. After careful interrogation and observation, Governor Lu found that Ji Ren looked panicked and spoke hesitantly when faced with Guangdao's question. Convinced that there must be something hidden in it, he ordered an in-depth investigation to find out the truth.