Ganxi's Mansion - The Ninety-Nine and A Half Rooms

People's Daily Online, July 24, 2012

 

Ganxi's Mansion was constructed during the Jiaqing period of Qing Dynasty and is called "the ninety-nine and a half rooms". Together with Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum and Ming Great Wall, it is one of the three important heritages of Ming and Qing in Nanjing and has great value on history, science and tourism. It is the biggest and best preserved personal mansion in Nanjing.

 

Ganxi, the second son of Ganfu, is a famous writer during the late Qing Dynasty. In his whole life, Ganxi wrote many famous articles. Together with his father, Ganxi also traveled to many places, collected more than 100,000 books and built a library to store books. In 1982, the cultural relic department of Nanjing found the "ninety-nine and a half rooms" during a cultural relic survey. The department repaired some of the buildings to show to the citizens what it was like during the Ming and Qing Dynasty and restructured the place into a folk museum.

 

During the past decades, Ganxi's Mansion was abandoned and rebuilt for several times and was used by different people in different period. It was finally reborn and became famous in the late 20th century.