Dizhu, or the landlords, were the backbone of feudal society before 1949 in China. After the founding of New China, the communist government confiscated their land and possessions which were presumably accumulated by forced slavery and bloody exploitation. The landlords were judged by the working class and virtually deprived of their privileges they had enjoyed over the centuries.

Though the class has disappeared, their grand manors have now become a hot destination for visitors who, in an ironic way, expect to explore the luxuriant life of these landlords, or at least to compare modern lifestyles to that of the dizhus.

The Mou's manor, home of an eminent northern landlord in Qixia City, Shandong province, is one of the nostalgic places where you can see the lifestyle of a landlord's family.

The manor, the extant best-preserved landlord manor in China and the largest of its kind in Northern China, belonged to the Mou's Family. In its prime, the family owned some 4,000 hectares of farmland and 8,000 hectares of mountains, which annually generated more than 3.3 million kilograms of grain.

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