The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Taimen, facing south and sitting north, houses buildings that were constructed during the Ming Dynasty, characterized by their simple and elegant style. Currently, some of the buildings are privately owned, others are public property, and some are part of the Linhai Museum known as ‘Yungu Studio’. The buildings originally belonged to Wang Jimei but were sold to the Lin and Chen families in the 6th year (1826) and 13th year (1833) of the Daoguang Emperor’s reign, respectively. In October of the 11th year of the Xianfeng Emperor’s reign (1861), Li Shiyuan, the attendant king of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, set out from Jinhua, dividing his troops into two routes to attack Taizhou. On November 1st of the same year, Li Shiyuan led his troops into Linhai and established his headquarters at the Chen family residence, which Chen Maosen referred to in ‘Linhai County Chronicles Draft’ as ‘Chen’s Residence in Guanrongtang Alley’. In the first year of the Tongzhi Emperor’s reign (1862), Li Shiyuan was ordered to return to aid the capital and by April, he withdrew all his forces from Taizhou, having been there for seven months. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Taimen, built by the Taiping army, is in the form of an ‘eight-character gate’, with a simple and generous design. The Ming Dynasty buildings within the Taimen cover an area of approximately 450 square meters, with a courtyard that is 9 meters wide from east to west and 6.7 meters deep from north to south, forming a triple courtyard structure. There are seven main rooms, three eastern and western wing rooms each, all of which are two-story buildings. The main rooms have a hard mountain roof, with a clear upper structure, and the front slope is slightly longer than the back slope. The overall width is 32.7 meters, and the overall depth is 11.24 meters. The central room is 4.75 meters wide, the adjacent rooms are 3 meters wide, the end rooms are 3.35 meters wide, and the corner rooms are 2.25 meters wide, with a front porch depth of 2.74 meters. The central and adjacent rooms serve as the hall, with a structure using a dougong-style wooden frame. Each joint has seven frames, with dougong placed on the top of the columns and the lintels, and above the column head section, there are decorative cloud pattern sparrow substitutes. The front eave column head section features a repeated upward ‘eight’ character inclined arch, with a larger sitting bucket, the bucket diameter is basically the same as the column diameter; it extends one upward, with a decorative head above. The central room and adjacent rooms have two sets of flat body dougong, all made in a child arch plan. The end rooms and corner rooms have no dougong; the end room has an inward joint of five frames and an outward joint of three frames, while the corner room has an outward joint of five frames. The front porch beam is made into a moon beam, and the eave drip is decorated with chrysanthemum patterns. Except for a few original constructions, most were added during the Qing Dynasty restoration. The structure of the two wings has been altered since the Qing Dynasty and no longer retains its original appearance. The entire text is open all year round and is open all day, with only exterior visits allowed.
