Learn the history of Nanping in Anhui

Naping has a history of over 1,000 years, first appearing during the Yuan Dynasty as a small village backing onto the nearby Nanping Mountain (a famous travel destination in Anhui for China vacation deals) which gave the village its name. When translated Nanping literally mean ‘southern screen’. Near the end of the Yuan, the village was settled by the Ye clan who moved from nearby Qimen, and during the Ming two other clans with long and wealthy history also came to live in the village - the Cheng and the Li. During imperial times 3 clans living together in the same village was quite a novelty, and many believe that it was the inter-clan competitiveness fostered by this cohabitation that caused the village to develop rapidly, with many of Nanping’s residents going on to become important merchants, scholars or officials.

The village continue to proper in the Qing, and between 1862 and 1909 20 families from Nanping were given the nickname ‘the 10,000 silver purses’ due to their prosperity, which grew even greater in the second half of the Qing as member of each clan branched out into different area of trade and government. As with many of the other trading villages of Huizhou, Nanping fell on hard times once the imperial regime collapsed, but fortunately most of the houses were spared from war, revolution and looting and remained intact and in good condition.

In modern day Nanping there are around 1000 inhabitants living in 400 houses, 300 of which date back to the Ming and Qing dynasties and are all in doo to reasonable condition, along with 8 ancestral, branch and family temples. Around 80% of the population still belong to Ye clan, with the remainder made up from the minority Li and Cheng clans, along with one or two other local families or officials who have moved into the village to look after dwellings or take advantage of tourist trade. The village has been open to the general public for about 7 to 8 years following the opening of Xidi and Hongcun in 1990s.

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