Located at No. 12, Madalu Lane, Zhongjie Road, Suzhou City. In 1982, it was listed as a cultural relic protection unit in Suzhou. The site of the armory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was originally the Qiu family’s residence ‘Shenxiu Hall’, built in the Ming Dynasty. In the tenth year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty (1860), before the Taiping Army entered Suzhou, the homeowner left the city with his family to avoid chaos. After returning after the war, seeing coal, iron, cannons, cannonballs and the like in the hall and courtyard, it was obviously used as an armory repair and manufacturing workshop. It is also rumored among the people as the armory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. During the Tongzhi period, the Qiu family rebuilt their residence. In the early 1960s, stone cannonballs, round iron landmines, sawn-off iron cannons, and Taiping Army sabers and other weapons were found and unearthed from the underground of the courtyard. It is estimated that they were buried on the spot when the residence was rebuilt at that time. The entire residence covers an area of nearly 4,000 square meters and a building area of 3,000 square meters. It faces south and has three roads and four entrances. In the middle road, there are the gate hall, sedan hall, main hall and building hall in sequence. The main hall has three rooms with a width of 17.55 meters and a depth of 13.7 meters. It is surrounded by wide partitioned wooden screens on the east, west and north sides. The flat-beam frame has simple and round carvings such as mountain mist clouds. The colored paintings on the ridge purlins and other places faintly have dragon patterns. There are dragon and phoenix dripping tiles with the characteristics of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom remaining at the back eaves. The brick-carved gate tower in front of the main hall has the year inscription of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty. Except for the sedan hall and main hall which still have the architectural style of the Ming Dynasty, most of the other buildings in the residence were rebuilt in the Qing Dynasty. In front of the study room on the west road, there is a white-bark pine tree that can be encircled by two people. It is about nine meters tall and is also an object from the Ming Dynasty. In 1994, the cultural relics management department carried out a comprehensive renovation of the main hall. The rest of the buildings are still scattered as residential houses. The specific business hours are subject to the opening situation on the day.
Site of the Armory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
Located at No. 12, Madalu Lane, Zhongjie Road, Suzhou City. In 1982, it was listed as a cultural rel[...]
