Hongdou Villa in Suzhou

Hongdou Villa, formerly known as Biwu Villa, was built in the late Song Dynasty and early Yuan Dynasty, with a history of more than 700 years. During the Ming Dynasty, Gu Gengguang moved red beans from Hainan and renamed it Hongdou Villa. Later, the manor was inhabited by Qian Qianyi, the grandson of Gu Yuzhu and a famous writer in the late Ming Dynasty. Qian Qianyi and Liu Rushi, a famous lady in Jiangnan, were famous for their poems and articles, as well as their sensational marriage. The Qian Liu Memorial Hall in the villa records this romantic love story. The ancient red bean tree in front of the memorial hall has a history of 500 years and has witnessed the years that Qian and Liu spent together. There are statues of Liu Rushi and Qian Qianyi in front of the tree. On Qian Qianyi's 80th birthday, this red bean tree blossomed again after 20 years and bore a fruit. Liu Rushi presented this red bean fruit to Qian Qianyi as a birthday gift. In 1944, Chen Yinke, a historian in Kunming, accidentally purchased a fruit from the red bean tree that blossomed again in 1932, and vowed to annotate the love poems of Qian and Liu, thus creating a historical masterpiece, Biography of Liu Rushi.