A Historical Chinese Village - Zhuge Bagua Village

Many ancient villages and town exists in China, which some very old and traditional customs and lifestyle are well preserved. The following will give you such a village for your China tours.
Zhuge Bagua Village is located in the west of Lanxi of Jinhua City, in Zhejiang Province, China.

So far, it is the biggest settlement for Zhu Geliang's descendants. Zhu Geliang is known as a remarkable politician, strategist, diplomatist, and militarist in the period of Three Kingdoms (184 A.D.-280 A.D.). It is he who invented Eight Diagrams and Kongming Lantern. Eight Diagrams is a sort of military strategy which functions by skillfully arranging the battle array of troops. And Kongming Lantern works on the same principle as fire balloons. It is made of paper. Hence, Zhu Geliang is the first one to discover the principle that hot air weighs less than air of normal temperature.

Lanxi Zhuge Bagua Village shelters the main stream of Zhu Geliang's descendants. They have lived here for generations. And the village was constructed according to the Eight Diagrams. In the village, you may come across a picture of Eight Diagram easily. The aerial view of the village appears to be a big three-dimensional Eight Diagrams. And Zhong Pond, the center of the village, is the basic point. Eight roads start from the pond and stretch respectively towards eight hills outside the town. These roads connect numerous alleyways which circle the village. And the alleyways are lined with ancient houses originated from Ming and Qing Dynasty. All the houses and alleyways make a maze out of the village. You will find it is easy to enter but difficult to exit. You may get lost somewhere, for the houses and alleyways are much alike. Interestingly, the villagers didn’t realize their village was shaped like the Eight Diagrams until in recent years someone found records of that in an old book. Now as long as you climb up one of the eight hills outside the town, you can take an aerial view of the entire village and you will certainly find that it looks like the Eight Diagrams.

Compared with the well-known Shangri-la tour, Zhuge Bagua Village is not so famous that many tourists never heard of it. But if you have read the Chinese history of Three Kingdoms, you should visit this place.