Why did Hoa Than design 9,999 bats in the villa?

The owner of 9,999 lucky bats is Hoa Than, a favorite god under the Qianlong Dynasty (Qing Dynasty, China).

According to Wikipedia, Hoa Than (1750-1799, 49 years old) belongs to the military clan, whose 5-generation ancestor was awarded the title of Tam Dang Khinh Xa Do Uy for his contribution to helping the Qing Dynasty enter the Central Highlands.

Hoa Than was the great god of the Qianlong Dynasty - famous for being a greedy and cruel mandarin. Hoa Than's embezzled assets amounted to one billion taels of white silver, equivalent to 10 years of Qing tax money. Whatever the Emperor's Palace has, the Hoa Than Palace has it. What Hoa Than government has, the Royal Palace is not sure to find it.

According to Thieu Vi Hoa, the Palace of Vuong Dich Tuc of Hoa Than is large and magnificent, divided into three routes, East, Central, and West, with majestic architecture, mettle, rich, pompous and sophisticated. The palace is luxurious, the landscape is extremely elegant, for example, as soon as you enter the middle road, there is already the word "Fu" written by Emperor Khang Hy.

If the Emperor's Palace has anything, the Hoa Than Palace has it (an image of the historical film Prime Minister Luu hump).

A special thing is that in Hoa Than Palace, there are many symbolic architectures in the shape of bats with chains of Phuc Tri (bat pond), Phuc Lonh (bat house), Phuc Ha (bat river) - called the three great blessings.

Why did Hoa Than like to arrange bats in his mansion like that?

It is said that his ancestor was in a dangerous, urgent situation that was saved by a flock of bats. Therefore, Hoa Than worships bats as mascots.

On the other hand, in Chinese, the word "bat" is close to the sound of the word "phuc", symbolizing marital love and longevity.

Hoa Than loved bats, was ignorant of bats, so he built the three great blessings, and every place was carved with bat shapes so that the small blessings could be spread throughout the palace. According to the statistics of the whole government, there are 9,999 (nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine) bats, missing just one is enough for 10,000.

The lack of 1 child is only enough for 10,000 later to be solved because Hoa Than wants to pray for "thousands of happiness", but knows that he has done too many unethical things, so he intentionally lacks 1 child to match the truth "full moon will wane". , full water will overflow", to ensure long-term sustainability.

Although he is an inhuman, unvirtuous, cruel person, Hoa Than is also a fair person who "has all the grace to repay". Typically, when Hoa Than took over the management and supervision of the exam, there were two people with the surname Ngo, who had been teachers in the past, many times failed the exam, so they came to Hoa Than to ask for help.

Hoa Than did not forget the old grace, silently bribed the eunuch to know what parts of the "Four books" often read the Emperor Qianlong recently, and what issues he was interested in, so he almost guessed the exact scope of the issue. subject. That year, the two teachers with the surname Ngo, with the help of Hoa Than, passed the exam, smoothly stepping onto the path of mandarin.

After Qianlong's death, Emperor Gia Khanh issued an edict to confiscate his estate, condemning Hoa Than to trial for slander - a very slow and painful death. But then decided to spare Hoa Than from death, forced him to commit suicide and spared his family.

Thus, Hoa Than likes "Phuc", hopes "Phuc" and certainly does a lot of research on "Phuc", but unfortunately, greed is too great to clarify the source of "Phuc" - that is, Phuc is right. must be "Blessed by accumulation of virtue" or "Blessed is not right like a tree without roots".

The image of a bat is always associated with the word "Phuc".

Talking more about the issue of Hoa Than's bat, this is an animal that the ancients considered a symbol of longevity. Legend has it that bats can live for 1,000 years, when they will turn white as snow. The book Pac Tu wrote: "The white thousand-year-old bat, dried and ground into a powder to drink, can help people live for ten thousand years".

The image of a bat is always associated with the word "Phuc". Although, from the time of Giap Bone script, the ancient writings had the word "Phuc", but its image is very vague. Therefore, in order for the word "Phuc" to be more specific and intuitive, the ancients gradually accepted the word "Phuc" in the word "Bat" to speak instead of meaning. The paintings of that time often depicted bats due to the harmonization of the word "Phuc" as a spiritual object that everyone wished for.

The bat is the embodiment of longevity, but also represents the prosperous future of the descendants. Many from the street, shrines often design convenient places for bats to hide, if bats come to nest there, it means bringing "happiness to the house". The carved works such as the foot of the altar, the beams, the columns, the main door of the Vietnamese people in the past and now still have many images of bats clinging to pray for luck, peace and longevity.

The meaning of the word Phuc in Chinese

The word Phuc: Symbol of luck, prosperity and happiness.

In the Sino-Vietnamese dictionary, the word Phuc is explained from 5 happiness: Phu-Qui-Tho-Khang-Ninh, which can be understood as the wealth of money and material, precious as the radio station of Cao Cao. luxury, longevity means long life, health means good health, security means peace, peace - these are everyone's dream.

The people's millennial dream, not dreaming of riches and riches, but just a simple, good life, full of happiness, lasting happiness - that is Phuc himself - contains a great meaning of life. peace, kindness, harmony.

The Bat symbol in feng shui home is prosperity, happiness and longevity.

According to folklore, the bat is because the mouse, after eating salt, will transform into a bat – because the head and body resemble a mouse, it is also called "phith" (flying mouse), or "trying fairy" (fairy mouse).

The bat becomes a lucky symbol, possibly due to the reading sound. Accordingly, in Chinese, the word "bat" (bat) has the same pronunciation as the word "fortune", which is a general way of saying good things, such as. The scope of application of the bat image is very wide, such as appearing in paintings with only bats (such as Song Phuc, Five Phuc.), auspicious paintings, auspicious patterns (such as five blessings of life, happiness at the eyes of money, peace of five blessings from Thien Lai). .).

The bat symbol is often used to decorate feng shui, painted in vermilion - with the color of joy and good luck.