The ancestral home of Hai Rui is located in Shixia Village, Xinxing Town, 2.5 kilometers east of the 70-kilometer marker on the Haiya Middle Line. It features the remnants of the Hai family’s ancestral residence and the tomb cluster of the Hai family. In the twenty-eighth year of the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Hai Rui stayed in Shixia Village for 25 days while paying homage to his ancestors. During this time, he was deeply angered by the brutal killings of the Li people by the soldiers, which later became the basis for his writings ‘On Governing the Li’ and ‘On Pacifying the Li’. In these memorials, Hai Rui proposed many beneficial methods for dealing with ethnic conflicts, refuted the tendencies of Han chauvinism, and contributed to the unity of various ethnic groups in Hainan and the improvement of the living conditions of the Li people. The Hai family has been residing in Shixia Village for generations, known for their kindness and benevolence, and later produced a loyal minister like Hai Rui, thus earning the respect of the villagers. Every year during the Qingming Festival, people bring incense, paper money, and offerings of chicken, duck, fish, and meat to pay their respects at the Hai family tombs. The ancestral home of Hai Rui has been preserved to this day under the voluntary protection of the local people. Shixia Village, as the birthplace of a loyal minister, has a long history and is an important historical site in Tunchang County, holding significant value for sightseeing, tourism, archaeology, and research. The tomb cluster in Shixia Village, Xinxing Town, includes four ancestral tombs of the Hai family: the tomb of the Ming Dynasty’s founding ancestor Hai Gong (Hai Dar), the tomb of Hai Rui’s father, the tomb of Hai Rui’s mother Xie Shi, and the tomb of Hai Rui’s wife.
Hai Gong’s tomb is situated on a hillside to the south of Shixia Village, marked by a stone stele approximately two meters high, inscribed with ‘Tomb of Ming Dynasty’s Founding Ancestor Hai Gong’. According to the elders of Shixia Village, the Hai family was a prominent clan, and their ancestral tombs were well-preserved before the Cultural Revolution, with stone carvings of dogs, horses, musicians, and surrounding stones still intact. Particularly impressive is the tombstone of Hai Rui’s mother, Xie Shi, which stands at five meters high and half a meter wide, exuding an imposing presence. Today, only stone carvings of a water pot and a water bottle remain on the site of the ancient tomb cluster, while the tombstone of Xie Shi has been split in half, with the middle part missing, leaving only the top and bottom sections lying horizontally in the grass.
Tip: The locally produced peanuts are quite good and worth taking some back. The opening times and business status are subject to the actual situation on the day.
Hai Rui’s Ancestral Tomb
The ancestral home of Hai Rui is located in Shixia Village, Xinxing Town, 2.5 kilometers east of the 70-kilometer marker […]
