The construction of the Yamen here started in 1303 in Yuan Dynasty, and thepresent buildings were built in Qing Dynasty. It was the most well preservedgovernment office of country level in feudal China. Since our opening up to theoutside world in 1984, it has attracted a number of our government officials andvisitors form both at home and abroad because of its special history, science,attractive value and its own charm. We have the famous saying : Beijing is thedragonhead while the dragon’s tail is in Neixiang. It is also one of theimportant cultural relics of state level.
The front part building of the Yamen was called a screen wall, which wasbuilt with blue brick relief sculpture. In the middle of the screen, there is astrange beast, which is called “Tan”. It was said to be a greedy beast thatcould swallow gold and silver treasures in the legend. Here in the picture wecan see that around it there are treasures everywhere. But he is not satisfied.His mouth opens widely intending to swallow the sun in the sky, but as a result,he falls off the steep cliff, having his body smashed into pieces. The pictureon the screen was first created by Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of the MingDynasty. The purpose of the drawing is to warn the government officials not totake bribes and break the law. Here is the main entrance, halfway there isanother gate right in the middle, called Yimen, the second main officialentrance. It used to be open only on the day when new governor took his place orwhen higher official came to visit. On both sides of the second gate, there’retwo small doors, the one on the east was called Life door, while the one on thewest was called Death door, or Ghost door, which was used only by the criminalswhen they were sentenced to death and were going to be killed. Passing throughYimen, you can see a grand building here in front of you . That is the greathall. The great hall was the place where the governor of the county announcedthe government orders, and also some important ceremonies were held here andsome important and serious criminal cases were tried here. In the middle of it,a trial desk was placed, and on the desk, the four treasures of the study andthe red and green bamboo pieces used for trial could be found. On the front sideof the screen, there’s a picture of seawater, tide and the sun, meaning that anofficial should be as clear as the sun and the moon and as clean as seawater. Inother words, an official should be honest and upright. When the prosecutor andthe defendant were taken to the hall for trial, they must kneel down on thestones. The square stone on the east was for the prosecutor, and the rectanglestone on the west was for the accused. Since most cases
involved more defendants, the stone for them was longer then. The housebehind the great hall was called doorman house. The man who guarded the housewas called Doorman, who was the county governor’s relative or people who wereclose to him. Now we have come to the second hall. It was the place where theCounty Magistrate dealt with small cases. Please look at these famous couplets,which means that before law everyone is equal. So the judges should pass thefairest judgment on people. This is called Fuzi Yard, an ancient form of addressto a Confucian scholar or to a master by his disciples. Fuzi was usually theofficial’s assistant who was usually their close friend of knowledgeable andartistic talent. Everyone, including the county governor respectfully addressedhim as Lao Fuzi, so the place where Fuzi worked was called Fuzi Yard. Finally,let’s go to the third hall. It was the place where county governor did his dailywork. If the cases he dealt with were of great importance, he would do it here.There was also a garden behind. It was here that county governor enjoyed hisfree life and got away from his government affairs. As we can see now, there’remany succinct couplets with rich intension here. But this one before the thirdhall was the most famous. It was written by GaoYigong , a county governor inNeixiang county. It means that being the local officials, we rearded the commonpeople as our parents. We worked for them voluntarily and willingly.Nowadays ,many of our Party leaders like Chairman Jiang Zemin read it with deep feelings,and Premier Zhu Rongji sings high praise of it. The words can be no doubtregarded as famous saying and epigram, and the only one of its kind. So now theYmen in Neixiang, together with the Museum Palace in Beijing, and the other twoin Hebei and Shanxi, has formed a special international tore route of the fourgreat ancient Chinese Yamens. Neixiang is now going out of Henan and into theworld. We warmly welcome all the reiends from all over the world to visitNeixiang, and enjoy the elegant demeanor of the ancient Yamen.