China · 16th century
Zhongjiabao Fortress ranks #8,583 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #80 of the 103 mapped in China. Founded 1600, it is older than 31% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 887 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. 1 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how China compares in the castle statistics.
Zhongjiabao Fortress is located in Zhaojiacheng village, Huxi She Ethnic Township, Zhangpu county, Fujian province, China, about 1 kilometre from Yi'anbao; in 1985 it was listed among the second batch of cultural relic protection units of Fujian province, and in 2001 among the fifth batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level.
Zhongjiabao was a building complex erected in the twenty-eighth year of the Wanli era of the Ming dynasty (1600) by Zhao Fan, a tenth-generation descendant of Zhao Ruohe, Prince of Minchong of the imperial family at the end of the Southern Song, and a jinshi of the fifth year of the Longqing era of the Ming; his son Zhao Yi extended it in the seventh year of the Chongzhen era. The building is a garden-style residential town with defensive capability, its walls averaging five metres in height. Since the old gazetteers call those built "by the government" cities and those built "privately" fortresses, it is called Zhaojiabao.
Its architecture imitates the construction of the old Song capital Bianjing, as for instance the "Bianpai Bridge" inside the fortress, which is said to have been modelled on the painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival. At present more than 700 people of the Zhao family, descendants of the imperial house, live there.
Machine-translated from “赵家堡” on the Chinese Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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