Unveiling a hidden gem

Villagers of Yuejiazhai, descendants of Southern Song Dynasty hero Yue Fei, have lived reclusive lives for hundreds of years on the Thaihang mountain ridge in Pingshun, Shanxi province [Photo by Yue Feng/ China Daily]

They also created terraced fields on the mountain slope and began to cultivate crops there.

Not far from the tree was a spring, the only water source.

The tree and the spring are still there today.

The tree is worshipped as the guardian angel of the village, and the spring is still a vital resource.

Most of the stone houses there are hundreds of years old.

Zhang Haigen, the village head, who is in his late 30s, and who was born and grew up in Yuejiazhai, says: "Life is quiet and natural here."

As for life in the village－the number of families has not changed much over 800 years: they eat what they plant and hunt; they wear what they make and find; and they speak Chinese using dialects that can be traced to Southern Song Dynasty.

The only thing they source from outside is salt.

"To outsiders, we look like savages," says Zhang, who left the village for the first time at the age of 16, using a road completed in the late 1990s.

"I suppose the outside world fears us as much as we fear it," he says.

Zhang is very good at climbing trees and working with his hands.

"We are very disciplined and literate 'savages'. We are familiar with all of Yue Fei's legends. They teach us to be responsible, loyal to family, beliefs and motherland," says Zhang.

For more than 800 years, the village operated its own school, clinic, temple and village committee. It had family law and village law, originating from the Yue family in the Southern Song Dynasty.

The local government started building a 20-kilometer mountain path connecting the village to the closest town in 1996, and the road, which includes a 50-meter tunnel, was completed several years later.