A bald man wearing worn-out grey trouser, a navy long-sleeve t-shirt and old army shoes came out. He invited me into his house.
After pouring tea in a large ceramic bowl, Master Gu pointed at a detailed map he had drawn himself. Everything was on the map: the walls, the watchtowers, the major courtyards that belonged to the different family clans (the Dou 窦, the Zhang 张, the Lu 卢, the Yang 杨), the gates, the Buddhist temple (佛庙), the Confucius temple (文庙), the Money god temple (财神), the major wells and the market places.
The castle of the ‘high-ranking wives’
On Master Gu’s map, Douzhuang (窦庄) was dubbed the ‘town of high-ranking wives’ (夫人城). The village was founded by a man of the Dou family clan (窦氏). By the end of the Yuan dynasty, three sons of the Zhang clan (张氏) from the town of Yangcheng (阳城) who became officials via the imperial examination system married women of the Dou family, thereby sealing an alliance between the two clans.
