□Written and Edited by Tang Gang



Half of the Three Kingdoms History is Embedded in the Three Gorges Baidi Town in Fengjie : the most rueful place in the Three Kingdoms

□Written and Edited by Tang Gang

Taking a b oat along the Yangtze River from Chongqing would lead you to Fengjie, from which you look far beyond the mouth of t he Qutang gorge , t he famous tourist resort in the Three Gorges—Baidi Town in Fengjie will be beheld standing among the towering hills on north shore of the Yangtze River, where blocks of c ornices and pavilions are nestled in lush greenery .

Half of t he Three Kingdoms history is embedded in the Three Gorges; Baidi town has a reputation for being the most rueful place in the Three Kingdoms, a saddening scene still.

Baidi Town

Three Kingdoms period, Liu Bei(the emperor of S hu) 's sworn brother Guan Yu was mauled heavily in Maicheng and beheaded mercilessly. To seek a vengeance for his beloved brother, Liu dispatched an army to send a punitive expedition against the Kingdom of W u. During the journey, his sworn brother, Zhang Fei was murdered by the traitorous assistant generals Fan Jiang, and Zhang Da. His sanity giving way to exasperation, Liu urged his soldiers to advance boldly. In June, the second Zhangwu year, a total of seven-hundred-li barracks of Liu Bei’s army were set on f re under a t rap set by Lu Xun (major general of the Kingdom of Wu). He led his crushed army to Baidi town when inf icted a f asco by the Kingdom of Wu in Xiaoting, Yiling .

Trounced and shamed, Liu built Yongan palace in Baidi Town to e vade the meeting with his ministers. The Three Kingdoms were far from unif cation, his two sworn brothers had died one after another, and his army mauled heavily--the state affairs and personal enmity had drowned Liu Bei long in anger and misgivings, which f nally made him lapse into illness. At his death bed, he summoned the prime minister Zhuge Liang, who hastened to his sickbed at a starry night . At Yongan palace, Liu Bei’s son Liu Shan (who is also called A ‘dou) was entrusted to Zhuge Liang--the historic event is known as "Liu Bei Tuogu"(Liu Bei entrusted Zhuge Liang with his orphan-to-be son).

Anyone who has read the "Three Kingdoms" would resonate sadly with the historic scenario. L iu and Zhuge’s words still reverberate across Baidi Town, bringing audience back to that day.

The emperor said between tears, “ Your talent is ten times that of C ao Pi’s, which could bring st ability to a n ation and promise a foreseeable unif cation. If my son was good enough for your assistance, that would do; if not, you can take his place and make the difference.”

Zhuge wept and answered,”I will spare no efforts to live up to your expectations and be loyal to the new emperor till my last blood.”

Afterwards, Zhuge Liang exerted his best to assist the new emperor Liu Chan in governing Shu, bending his back to t he mission until his heart ceased to beat.

The legends in “Three Kingdoms”, like “Fire on Barracks of Seven Hundred li”, “Entrusting his son in Baidi Town”, popular and much relished, have added special reputation for the Baidi Town, appealing people to visit there in person.

But why Baidi Town? Well, it is a place beyond commonness.

Baidi is famous as one of China's “Five Emperors”; the title Baidicheng(Town), f rst appeared in the Western Han Dynasty. When Wang Mang usurped the throne, his major general Gongsun Shu separated Sichuan from his regime. Gongsun Shu, literary name Zi Yang, was also known as Master Maoling. In “the land of abundance”(Sichuan), he entrenched in the eastern part. With powers gradually expanding, he became ambitious and coveted being an emperor himself. Riding a horse to t he narrows of Q utang gorge, Fengjie, where the terrain is precipitous, easy to defend yet diff cult to attack, he launched the building of a town with expanding barriers and fortresses to prevent his troops from attacks. Later, the selfclaimed emperor heard that there was a w hite crane well in the town, within which white mist emitted from time to t ime, taking the shape of a d ragon and dashing straight into the empyrean. It was "White Dragon Straight out of t he Well," remarked Gongsun Shu, who deemed it as a symbol of auspice and a s ign indicating his enthronement in the near future. Therefore, he claimed himself “Baidi”(the White Emperor) in 25 A.C. and the fortresses he built "Baidi Town" . T he mountain where the town is based upon was also renamed as "Baidi Mountain." During Gongsun Shu’s reign, Baidi Town was the only place immersed in peace and stability while the rest of it were suffering in warfare. The local people specifically built the "Baidi Temple" and statues in Baidi Town to commemorate their emperor Gongsun Shu. Since the Ming Dynasty, Gongsun Shu’s statue was moved away to that of Liu Bei’s. Besides, the Baidi temple also accommodates statues of G uan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Zhuge Liang, and the title "Baidi(White Emperor ) Temple” lasts.

To the east side, Baidi Town is adjacent to Kuimen; to the west side, it enjoys the proximity with Stone Sentinel Maze; three directions of it are open to water--which makes the place a strategic position land and water, and a town of great military importance. Baidi Town is the best preserved ancient town in China, and the optimal view point to admire the scene"Kuimen tops the world by its grandeur ". The ancient town is located about six kilometers eastward of t he mouth of t he Three Gorges, Fengjie County, lying above the Qutang pass.

Except for being an important historical site of t he Three Kingdoms period, Baidi Town is also an ancient town over all the dynasties. The rich culture of it meanders in the historical river with the cultural heritage of the ancient Sichuan people. Inscriptions on precipices, stone tablets forests and ancient poetry are known as the three treasures of Baidi Town.

As an ancient building of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Baidi town was listed in the sixth national cultural relics protection units list by the State Council on May 25, 2006. Now, inside the Baidi temple stand a selection of colored statues, an artistic reproduction portraying the scene of “Liu Bei Tuogu”. From the initial temple for commemorating Gongsun Shu, it was transformed into a site to pay tribute to t he Shu Han emperor and off cials-- Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei. After several shifts, relics over six or seven thousand years, ranging from the Neolithic period to t he Qing Dynasty are on display in the showroom, hundreds among which were unearthed in Baidicheng; recently another large porcelain painting “Dufu, a great chanting poet ” had been completed.

Baidi Town, the optimal view point to admire the scene"Kuimen tops the world by its grandeur "

God has splashed the ink that can turn into beautiful river scenery in Fengjie, where the precipices of b oth sides of Qutang Gorge are standing straight up into the clouds; seen from afar, it is like a gate that stretches over the river. In Fengjie, Baidi Town lies above the Qutang Gorge, keeping the optimal view point to admire the scene “Kuimen tops the world by its grandeur ”.

“I bid my farewell to the Baidi Town in the morning when it was shrouded in bright clouds; and it would only take me one day to g o back to t he thousands -mile-away Jiangling ” t he quatrain, written by the great poet Li Bai in Tang dynasty, is in every Chinese’s mouth and invites generations of tourists yearn for the Qutang Gorge. Baidi Town. With plenty of scenic spots and historic sites, unique geographic landscape, gorgeous river scenery, profound cultural heritage, the place unfolded in the eyes of the tourists a splendid scroll of mountain and river and an arts corridor.

A galaxy of historic sites here are: the Ming-liang temple, built in the 11st Jiajing year (AD 1532) , w here the colored statues of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei are worshiped; to t he westward of t he Mingliang temple is located the temple of Marquis, where the colored statues of Z huge Liang and his descendants including his son Zhuge Zhan and grandson Zhuge Shang are enshrined; According to h istorical records, Zhuge Liang’s son and his grandson are also virtuous court off cials, dedicating themselves to the welfare of Shu people; in front of the Temple of Marquis is seated the Guanxing pavilion, which is decorated with cornices, carved beams, and a unique shape; the design is very elegant. Legend says that Zhuge Liang was observing the stars here to ponder over the military strategies when he led army to S ichuan, which has been theorigin of the title. There is an old bell hanging on the pavilion, with the stone tables and piers engraved with the famous poem "Eight Poems of Q iu Xing" by Du Fu when he was inhabited in Kuizhou; the carving is f ne and style unique; the Temple of Mingliang and Temple of M arquis are flanked respectively by the East and West stone tablets, which has gathered together more than 70 blocks of stone tablets from the Sui Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty. The seal characters, clerical script, regular script, cursive handwriting, and rapid cursive script on them are f ne works of art of Chinese calligraphy. The most famous monuments are the two Sui dynasty made ones, dating back to more than 1300 years. One is the "Long Gong Mountain Epitaph", the other is the Jinlun Temple dagoba tablet. The former was engraved in the Qing Dynasty with words "On 19, June , t he 9th Tongzhi year, f oods deluged, f ve zhang above the town", which have made the Guanxing pavilion a valuable hydrological data. Within the tablets forest hiding a tablet inscribed with the Emperor Kangxi’s poem-- a Tang Dynasty poem was written by the Emperor Kangxi as a farewell gift to an integrated retired off cial - the chief investigating censor Fu Zuoji. The poetry goes: "Tottering stones lead to a ste ep road, beyond the green hill households scatter; where is the Land of Peach Blossoms? Where the fallen f owers are f oating on the stream water."

Qutang Gorge, or the Kui G orge, is the starting point of the Three Gorges of t he Yangtze River, and also one of t he shortest, narrowest, and the most magnif cent, steep canyon. In the west side, Qutang Gorge starts in the Baidi Town, Fengjie County, to t he east; it reaches to t he Daxi town, Wushan County. On both sides of the gorge stand cutting precipices and towering cliffs, within which raging torrents are surging forward; although only eight kilometers, it demonstrates the majesty of "to the west it has ran over to B ayu and across thousands of valleys , to t he east it connects the Chu territory and pressed the mountains, " -- It controls the water in Sichuan and clutches the throat of Chongqing and Hubei; Since ancient times, it has enjoyed the reputation of “Jiange tops by its steepness while Kui Gorge its majesty”. At the Qutang entrance ends are cliffs that rise steeply and less than 100 meters apart between, shaped like a p ortal, named Kuimen, also known as Qutang Gorge. Kuimen, with magnif cent mountains, is reputed as an impregnable pass.

Currently, Fengjie County is building Baidi Town, Qutang Gorge into a scenic spot, open unitedly to visitors. Within the scenic areas are unique scenery, countless scenic spots and historical sites: take the Baidi Town as the representative of the Three Kingdoms relics; Kuimen saber-toothed elephant fossil site the representative of prehistoric cultural sites; the upper reaches of the gorge are the Fengjie County, Eight Diagrams, Yufu towe , w ithin the gorge are the Tiexiao pass that crosses over the river, the narrow steep ancient plank road, mysterious ancient Fengxiang gap, deep and unpredictable Huangjin cave; the South bank has Fenbi walls that are full of i nscriptions with legends like Mengliang ladder, monks hung upside down, armor cave, Phoenix spring, rhino looks up at the moon. Daxi cultural site in Qutang south bank is a place that garners the archaeologists’ interests. Only a few kilometers away from Baidi Town, the Du Fu Thatched Cottage is appealing to the poets.

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Baidi Town • Qutang Gorge Scenic Resort

Baidi Town

4A National scenic spot, national cultural heritage, state-level scenic spot. At the end of Western Han Dynasty, Gongsun took over Shu, claimed himself Baidi (the White Emperor ) in April, AD 25, and then changed the title Ziyang to Baidi. The town was famous for another reason-- after Liu Bei ‘s f asco by Wu in the Three Kingdoms period, he entrusted his family and state affairs to Zhuge Liang. Since the Tang and Song dynasties, great poets like Li Bai, Du Fu, Liu Yuxi, etc.had left numerous poems. Li Bai wrote the fastest poetry in the worls "I bid my farewell to the Baidi Town in the morning when it was shrouded in bright clouds; and it would only take me one day to go back to t he thousands -mile-away Jiangling"; Du Fu wrote the best verse in the world "Leaves are falling endlessly, and the Yangtze River is rolling to the eastward"; Liu Yuxi offered the best amatory poem "east sunrise yet we st raining, the sky is overcast while his love is clear". Therefore, the Baidi Town won its reputation of “Town of poem”.

The Qutang Gorge

Westward, starting from the Baidicheng Town,Fengjie County, Qutang gorge runs over eastward to Daxi Town, Wushan County, with a total length of 8 k m. In the Yangtze River Three Gorges, it is the shortest, narrowest, and the most majestic and treacherous.Over the gorge, mount.Baiyan and mount Chijia face each other; the 1,200 meters height creates a gate by nature, constituting the world-famous "Kuimen tops the world by its grandeur". Qutang gorge enjoys the most magnif cent spectacle and the richest famous historical sites; the spectacular scene of "to the west it has ran over to Bayu and across thousands of valleys , to the east it connects the Chu territory and pressed the mountains, “and a treacherous view of "high river raging gorge with thunders roaring, ancient woods and old vines with the sun and the moon shadowing”. Qing Dynasty poet Zhang Wentao has lamented: “Unstoppable rain within the gorge keeps people idle, a lonesome boat is put into an ink-splashed painting; Mountains on both sides of the Qutang Gorge are beyond what the most exquisite pen can describe.”

Kuimen

Kuimen has another name--the Qutang pass. Mountains on both sides of t he river form a n atural gate for the Yangtze River running from the Sichuan Basin to the Three Gorges. High mountains on both sides of t he Kuimen— Southward is the“Mount. Baiyan”, and the Northward “Mount. Chijia”; They stand towering straight into the sky. Near Riverbanks the precipices rise steeply, like a gate made by nature. The Mount. Baiyan(White Salt) has its name because the water solution adhering to t he rock contains calcium, whose color is like white salt, silhouetted against the sun, it is "as if the salt piles into a hill"; the Mount. Chijia-- an aqueous solution containing iron oxide adhering in weathered rock surface so that the mountain has red earth and rock like human bare backs, hence “Chijia”(Red Armor). "Mount. Chijia" is like a bright red peach, so it is also known as "Peach hill." Under the bright sky, the mountain tops are like putting on rouge make-ups . Across the river, one is rouged, while the other is pure white; what a wonderful view!