Deyuan Hall ---- Zhang Family’s Ancestral Hall in Taxia Village

Deyuan Hall is the Zhang family’s ancestral hall located in Taxia Village, Shuyang Town, Nanjing County, and it is one of more completed ancient ancestral buildings existed in China. Built in the late Ming Dynasty, it sits against green mountains in the north and faces a stream to the south. In the front of the building, there is a half-moon-shaped pond. The internal space of the building is decorated magnificently by carved dragons and phoenixes. There are 24 10-meter-high stone dragon flagpoles standing outside the hall. These flagpoles are embossed with vivid dragons soaring through the clouds and driving the fog. The hall has the largest number of stone flagpoles in existence in China at present. Taxia Villiage has branded how Hakka culture sticks to and inherits the Central Plains culture with the historical relics represented by Deyuan Hall and stone dragon flagpoles. These historical relics provide the evidence for the research of the cultural evolution of the Central Plains and the history of the Han nationality's southward migration. In 2006, Deyuan Hall was included into the sixth group of major cultural heritage sites protected at the national level.