Japanese invasion of China
In the wake of the September 18th Incident in 1931, Lin left for Beijing, where she studied ancient Chinese architecture. Upon her return, she helped establish the Architectural Department at Northeastern University in Shenyang, where she then taught architecture briefly. Meanwhile, in 1928, she designed a railway station in Jilin. This was one of the few buildings Lin designed. Throughout the 1930s, Lin and her husband lived in Beiping (nowadays Beijing) near both of their families. Close friends at the time were the Americans Wilma and John K. Fairbank, who admired her sense of living on a "kind of double cultural frontier," and facing the problem of "the necessity to winnow the past and discriminate among things foreign, what to preserve and what to borrow." He recalled the joy she took when she and her husband climbed the roof of the Temple of Heaven, which made her the first woman to attempt the walk on the emperor's palace roof and when in 1937, she discovered the main hall of Foguang Temple near Doucun, Shanxi.Li Huiyin and Liang Sicheng, during the 15 years from 1930 to 1945, conducted surveys on 2738 ancient buildings in 190 counties. Many of these ancient structures gained national and international recognition through their research, leading to their protection. Notable examples include the Zhaozhou Bridge in Hebei, the Yingxian Wooden Pagoda in Shanxi, and the Foguang Temple on Mount Wutai.
In 1931, Lin Huiyin was employed by the Peking Society for the Study of Chinese Architecture (Zhongguo Yingzao Xuehui). The following year, she designed the Geological Hall and the Grey Building student dormitory for Peking University.Over the next several years, she frequently traveled to various provinces such as Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Zhejiang to conduct field surveys and measurements of dozens of ancient buildings. She published papers and reports on architecture, either independently or in collaboration with Liang Sicheng, including "On Several Characteristics of Chinese Architecture," "Miscellaneous Records of Architecture in the Suburbs of Peking," and "A Brief Survey of Ancient Architecture in Jin and Fen." She also wrote the introduction for Liang Sicheng's book "Qing Style Construction Rules".
Li Huiyin and Liang Sicheng went to Henan for an inspection. They arrived in Jinan in the latter half of June.
In the summer of 1937, she discovered the oldest wooden structure in China in the Wutai Mountain area of Shanxi—the Foguang Temple Main Hall, which was built during the Tang Dynasty.
As Japan's invasion loomed, Lin Huiyin and her husband had to cut-short their promising restoration work of Beijing's cultural heritage sites in 1937 and abandoned their now famous courtyard residence in Beijing to flee southward along with personnel and materials of the Architectural Department of Northeastern University; their exodus led them and their children to temporary sojourns in the cities of Tianjin, Kunming, and finally Lizhuang in 1940. It was in Lizhuang where the bedridden Lin, still suffering from tuberculosis, was told of her younger brother's death while serving as a combat aviator in the air force in the defense of Sichuan. Lin wrote a poetic memorial:
Brother, I do not have words appropriate for this era to mourn over your death. This era made a simple request of you and you responded. Your absolute and simple heroism is a poem of this era. I want to add more sorrow to the unavoidable reality by screaming - you understand why - that you have gone too soon. Brother, your bravery is great. Your death is too cruel.
In the wake of the Lugouqiao Incident, Lin Huiyin and Liang Sicheng moved with the Architecture Society first to Changsha, and then in January 1938 to Kunming, where they lived in a residence called "Zhiyuan" on Xunjin Street. The first research project they undertook was a survey of ancient buildings in Kunming. Liang Sicheng was often away for field investigations, while Lin Huiyin stayed at Xingguo An, managing daily affairs, taking care of and educating their children, and organizing a large amount of drawings and textual materials.
From October to November 1938, more than 50 main ancient buildings in Kunming, including Yuantong Temple, Tuzu Temple, Jianshu Guild Hall, Eastern and Western Pagodas, Zhenqing Temple Hall, and the Golden Pavilion, were surveyed by Lin Huiyin and Liang Sicheng.
In 1940, she followed Liang Sicheng's work unit, the Academia Sinica, to Lizhuang near Yibin, Sichuan, and lived in a low, dilapidated farmhouse.
The life of displacement and the harsh material conditions led to a recurrence of her lung disease. On her sickbed, she read the parts of the Twenty-Four Histories related to architecture, collecting materials for writing "A History of Chinese Architecture," often working late into the night. During this period, her literary works were not many, and in her poetry drafts, confusion, melancholy, desolation, and depression had replaced the tranquility, elegance, clarity, and gentleness of the style before the war. The poems often revealed her concern for the future and fate of the motherland.
