Location: Bacheng Town, Kunshan City, Suzhou
Time of Construction: Before the Yuan Dynasty
Population: 334
Introduction of Wushentan Village:
The natural village of Wushentan (“Wushentan” means “the God of War Pond”.), located in the northwest of Wushentan administrative village, features the layout in the shape of the Chinese character “人” (“human being”). All villagers live in houses built along the river. The village covers an area of 1. 32 square kilometres and has 63 households with 334 people. Wushentan Village is proper in scale and reasonable in size, whose borders are all natural. It retains the texture of a traditional village and the pattern characteristic of pastoral countryside. The village proves to be an integrated part of its natural surroundings.
Wushentan Village has a long history and profound cultural heritage. Word has it that the village has a relic of the “Nanwu City—An Eight-Diagram Water City” (“Ba Gua Shui Cheng”). Wushentan Pond at the back of the village serves as the core of the place. The village lies where the inner-city area of the ancient Nanwu City was situated. Nanwu City, one of the oldest water-city relics in the southern regions of the Yangtze River, was an eight-diagram stockaded water village in the shape of the Chinese character of “出” (“out”). Its design featured twelve watercourses serving as outlets, while within the village these courses interwove and bended to make the place puzzling and unpredictable. Built by the renowned strategist Sun Wu of the Spring and Autumn period upon the order King of Wu gave, the village took Yangcheng Lake as its natural barrier, adopted the theory of Yin Yang and eight diagrams and took advantage of its unique terrain to guard against invasion. It was easy to defend such a stronghold while conquering it was just the opposite. It is so far the only one of its kind in the country. When constructing the eight-diagram water town, the local watercourses were dredged and flood was thus turned into a beneficial factor. The village and town could be free from disturbance or invasions, which enabled local residents to engage in farming work in peace. Even today, the structure of “Eight-Diagram Water Town” is still vaguely recognizable.
