Shangzhuang

Traditional village listing

A notice published on the Nanjing municipal government website on 22 August 2025 records that the eighth batch of traditional villages of Jiangsu named 70 villages, five of them in Nanjing, among them "Shangzhuang, Shanggang Community, Honglan Subdistrict, Lishui District". The batch was published by the provincial housing department.

Dating

A report of 14 July 2025 from the district media centre, published during the public notice period, states that Shangzhuang "was formed as early as the Ming dynasty". This comes from a local press report and is reproduced here as such, not as a precise year of founding.

Origin of the name, ancestral halls and traditional buildings

A report of 7 July 2025 by Xinhua Daily Media Network (Jiaohuidian News) supplies the origin of the name and clues to the ancestral halls of Shangzhuang, and is the most concentrated account of the buildings inside the village held here.

On the name, the report states that the history of Shangzhuang can be traced to the Ming dynasty, that it evolved from a settlement called Shenxing, and that it retains a traditional pattern of harmony between people and nature, with ponds scattered around the village. The name Shenxing and the statement that the district media centre made about formation in the Ming dynasty can be read together: both place the beginning of the village history in the Ming, but one comes from that report and the other from the district media centre, both being press reports, so no dating is asserted here.

On the ancestral halls, the report states that the village has two great lineage halls, of the Fu and the Yong families: the Fu Ancestral Hall was built in 1735 and preserves a legend of Fu Xie, a worthy minister of the Yin and Shang, and Fu clan members gather to worship the ancestors on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month each year; the Yong Ancestral Hall was built by contributions of the clan during the Qianlong reign and has a layout of three bays, two side rooms and one courtyard. The two accounts differ in their dating convention, one giving the year 1735 in the common era and the other only the Qianlong reign, and the report does not explain how the two relate; they are therefore reproduced as written and are not converted into one another. The worship date and the hall layout given in the report belong to that report's own account.

On traditional buildings, the report states that the village also has the old house of Yong Mingfu, built in 1942, and that of Fu Chengsi, built in 1953, which together with old cypress trees and an old well form a scenic group. A report from the district media centre further states that the ancestors of the Fu and Yong surnames flourished here, that the village reached more than five hundred households at its height, and that the ancestral halls of both families survive together with a stele nearly five hundred years old and a well a thousand years old; figures such as "more than five hundred households" and "nearly five hundred years" are the reports' expressions and are not used here for any calculation.

On folk custom, the report states that the Ming-dynasty "carrying out the bodhisattva" rite has continued to the present, the villagers carrying the figure in procession and burning incense to pray for peace and prosperity, and that bamboo weaving was once in its heyday, the winnowing baskets and bamboo trays it produced being finely made. Whether the village has any other customs is not recorded in the sources held here.

The limits of these data must be stated: the hall dates and the years of the old houses all come from that report, with no basis in an inscription or genealogy; figures such as "more than five hundred years" are the report's expressions and are not used as datings. The protected status and publication batch of the Fu and Yong halls appear in neither of the two lists held here, so grade and batch remain unverified.

The report also states that Shangzhuang was created as a provincial characteristic countryside village in 2020. That designation belongs to the Jiangsu characteristic countryside village recognition scheme, which is not the same as the provincial traditional village list; the two are not counted together. This library holds no published document of that designation and reproduces it only as the report's wording.

Scope of searching and negative results

This library searched the local gazetteers, academic papers and classical texts, and within the range read of the Kangxi and Guangxi editions of the Gazetteer of Lishui County found no record of Shangzhuang; Shangzhuang likewise appears in no village list of the five surviving county gazetteers. Every fact in this entry therefore rests on three reports of 2025, a low level of evidence, and confidence stays at medium. Should a photographic gazetteer, a genealogy or an inscription be obtained later, this entry will have to be rewritten.

Points of doubt

• Shangzhuang is a settlement within Shanggang Community; the entry's unit type is given as community, matching the administrative level it belongs to. Its relation to an administrative village still needs checking.
• The dating of the Fu Ancestral Hall in 1735 and that of the Yong Ancestral Hall in the Qianlong reign stand side by side; the report does not explain the relation between the two conventions, and they are reproduced without rewriting.
• The protection grade and publication batch of the two ancestral halls appear in neither of the two lists held here and remain unverified.
• The former name Shenxing and the account of formation in the Ming dynasty come from press reports; together with the district media centre's account, no conclusion is drawn.
• The designation of 2020 as a provincial characteristic countryside village appears only in that report; the published document of the provincial competent department is not held here.
• Apart from what the reports record above, the manner of founding of Shangzhuang, the full extent of its surviving structures and its boundaries are not recorded in the sources held here.