Pilgrimage to the Nationally Protected Sites in the Zhuozhang River Valley: Summer Yu Shrine

Traces of Time in the Countryside Houbai Village, located on the southern bank of the Zhuozhang River Valley, is a historic village. In 2019, Houbai Village was included in the fifth batch of China's Traditional Villages list. A millennium of historical and cultural accumulation has left Houbai Village with many valuable cultural heritages. Here, there are faith relics left by Dayu’s flood control efforts and the essence of northern mountainous residential architecture. The village’s greatest pride lies in its two nationally protected cultural relics—the Summer Yu Shrine and Huilong Temple. The Summer Yu Shrine is situated on a high platform at the northeast corner of Houbai Village, built facing cliffs on the east and north sides, making it the village’s highest point. Both the Summer Yu Shrine and Huilong Temple back onto the Zhuozhang River, only a few hundred meters apart, one high and one low, complementing each other and guarding this ancient village by the river. The Summer Yu Shrine, commonly known as the Yu King Temple, as the name suggests, is a place dedicated to worshiping Dayu. Yu was the founding monarch of the Xia Dynasty, hence he is also called Xia Yu by later generations. Yu is a sage king in ancient Chinese legend, renowned alongside Yao and Shun. His most outstanding achievement, celebrated through the ages, was controlling the devastating floods and delineating China’s territory into nine provinces. Among the eight nationally protected ancient buildings in the Zhuozhang River Valley, the Summer Yu Shrine is the only one dedicated to worship. It was established in the second year of the Zhiyuan era of the Yuan Dynasty (1336), and was repaired during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The existing structure is a single courtyard with a traditional quadrangle layout. Along the central axis from south to north are the mountain gate (with an inverted opera stage above), a moon terrace, the main hall, and corridors on both sides. The main hall faces south, with three bays in width and six purlins in depth, featuring a single-eave hanging gable roof. The column heads and inter-column brackets are all four-bracket sets, characteristic of Yuan Dynasty architecture. In front of the hall is a stone moon terrace. According to records, the deity statue inside the main hall was destroyed in the 1940s. Currently, parts of the deity statue’s warm cabinet remain on the beams of the main hall. The moon terrace in front of the hall is carved from bluestone, with well-proportioned and elegant design. Unfortunately, the exquisite patterns of coiled dragons and flowers on the waist of the terrace were damaged during the Cultural Revolution’s “Four Olds” campaign. The east corner pillar of the moon terrace bears an inscription from the second year of Zhiyuan. The mountain gate’s inverted opera stage has three bays in width and four purlins in depth, with a hanging gable roof; the upper part serves as the opera stage, and the lower part is the mountain gate passage. Inside the courtyard are three stone offerings carved during the Ming Jiajing period. The Summer Yu Shrine is an important physical site for studying ancient sacrificial culture, with its main highlights focusing on the Yuan Dynasty architectural remains, exquisite stone-carved moon terrace, and unique mountain gate opera stage. Zhuozhang River