Kegongfang

At the western edge of Sifang Street, where the stone paths of Xinhua Street meet the lower slopes of Lion Hill, stands Kegongfang. This twelve-meter-tall timber archway occupies a modest twenty-one square meters, yet its frame holds the intellectual transformation of Lijiang. Following the imperial administrative reforms of 1723, local families embraced Confucian education. Over the next eighty years, this remote valley produced sixty provincial scholars and seven national scholars.

In the mid-nineteenth century, local residents pooled their funds to build a two-story archway. They built it to honor three scholars from a single household: the brothers Yang Zhaolan and Yang Zhaorong, and Zhaorong’s son, Yang Shuocheng. Visitors walking beneath the structure today tread the same uphill path that these men climbed to reach their family home.

On a cold winter day in 1944, a fire reduced the original wooden beams to ash. Three years later, the community gathered to rebuild. They raised the archway to three stories, timed to celebrate the diamond jubilee of He Gengji, the last imperial scholar of the Naxi people. He Gengji’s home, located just up the alley, served as a military headquarters for Commander He Long when the Red Army marched through Lijiang in 1936.

The front half, facing the bustling market square, features a formal hip-and-gable roof with upturned eaves that sweep toward the sky. The back half, facing the quiet residential alley, transitions into a simple overhanging-gable roof covered in local grey tiles. This architectural duality mirrors the lives of the scholars who passed beneath it, balancing imperial duty with their Naxi heritage.

Today, the archway remains a quiet sentinel, its cool timber shadow offering shelter to travelers climbing the stone steps toward the summit of Lion Hill.