Hidden near Huangxing South Road, the Fengjiawan Mansion Complex and Chushan Hall survived the devastating 1938 Wenxi Fire. Built in the 1920s and 1930s, this linear cluster of brick-and-wood residences once formed an exclusive official street for high-ranking military officers of the Fourth Route Army.

At Fudeli No. 4, original red Yuxiang brand bricks support a roof of green glazed tiles that still catch the afternoon sun. A granite door frame, nearly three meters high, leads into an interior courtyard. Here, a wooden staircase, worn smooth by decades of ascending footsteps, spirals toward the second floor. The cast-iron balcony railings bear a sculpted Shou (longevity) motif, now softened by rust. Outside, a boundary stone embedded in the wall firmly declares its 1935 origins, a permanent marker of property lines carved by long-gone masons.

Down the alley at the Liushi Matou entrance looms Chushan Hall. Originally a four-story Western-style structure with European arched windows, this massive building served as a major charitable center founded in the late Qing dynasty. It provided winter porridge for child beggars and coffins for the destitute. In the 1930s, military commander Li Jue funded the hall, and his mother hosted elaborate spring Daoist rituals here to mourn fallen soldiers. Priests chanted for days, culminating in thousands of steamed buns being thrown from a high platform to feed wandering spirits.

Today, these elite official residences function as densely populated multi-family courtyards. The winding wooden staircase inside Chushan Hall groans under the weight of daily life, and the scent of evening meals drifts through the arched stone gate of Fudeli No. 7. Car plantain weeds push through the gaps in the old granite paving stones. Recent urban renewal efforts have stabilized these structures, allowing the 1931 white walls of Fudeli No. 5 and the double door frames of Fengjiawan No. 48 to continue sheltering the citizens of Changsha.