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When a ship passes KonglingTan during the dry seasons,
three Chinese characters which read "driving toward
me "can be seen on the rock at the bottom of "Dazhu".
The three characters reflect the dangerous and miserable
life of the boatmen. The flow in KonglingTan is rapid
and chaotic, because of thick reefs. Facing the rushing
current and strange rocks in the middle of the river,
nonexperienced boatman dodged in all the directions. However,
they were always rushed towards the rockwall by the backflow
and collapsed.As the time elapsed, the boatmen finally
gleaned an experience through the long process of fighting
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is that when navigating the ship to this place, in order
to avoid the reef and get out of the danger, at first
one had to pointed the stem towards the jagged rode at
the bottom of " Dazhu" and then took the advantage
of thrust generated by the back flow .The jagged rock
was named by " driving towards me " which is
a trial of every boatman's daring. There is a thoughtful
story about the rock. On December 27, 1900, at the time
of bitter winter and during the dry seasons, a Germany
ship named passed here. Facing the dangerous terrain and
rough sea, the captain was frightened out of his wits
and could find no way out. The Germans had no way and
changed a Chinese navigator to operate the rudder. The
Chinese navigator, who was quite familiar with the boat
routines, drove toward the jagged rock according to the
rule. The foreign captain didn't understand this action,
but thought that the Chinese was deliberately destroying
and he avoided the jagged rock. In a flash moment, a strong
flow over attacked "ShanZhu", the ship collapsed
with the submerged reef and sank. According to the recorded
historical materials, the shipping business, which only
lasted for three years, was forced to be shut off for
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The
Ancient Plank Rood Along The Daning River
Along the rock wall by the right bank of the Daning River,
the holes arranged horizontally. The small ordered square
stone holes arranged from Longmen Gorge to Ningchanggu
town in the Wu Gorge with the number of more than 6800
altogether. According to some concerning historical records,
this was built in the 7th year of Eternal Peace period
in Han Dynasty (64 A.D) with the use of drawing salty
water from Ningchang to the Wu Gorge by bamboos. Later
because of the stop of the projects on drawing salty water
it was used as plank rood. Also the folktales said that
it was used in ancient war, for instance Songtaizu(the
first emperor of song dynasty) sent out the army to suppress
Shu (a small nation next Song Dynasty's boundary),but
Xiegang betrayed Tang Dynasty, and ZhangXianzhong entered
Sichuan province and they all used this plank road . It
was connected with zhuxi in Hubei province to the east,
zhenping in Shanxi province to the north, and Chengkou
County to the west. These Plank roads formed the ancient
plank road web which was as long as several thousand kilometers
.It can be estimated that this plank road web played an
important role politically, militarily, economically and
culturally for this region in the ancient times, Its broad
scale, tremendous project and dangerous geography could
apparently share the beauty with the famous Jiange Plank
Road. As for this huge project, when on the earth it was
firstly built, how the construction was undertaken, who
proposed to build it, how long the project last for, and
what it was mainly used for have left so many solicitudes.
It provides the travelers with involvement and research
programs for archeological association.
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Eating
Rice Dumpling and Dragon Boats Competition At the
time of May 5th in lunar calendar there is a tradition
of eating rice dumplings and dragon boats competitions
prevailing all through the country. This hereditary
tradition is to honor Quyuan, a well-known ancient
Chinese official.Why on the earth is this convention
popular in China?he reason can be found in an interesting
story,which is popular in Quyuan's hometown. After
Quyuan drowned in the Miluo River, his country fellows
suddenly dreamed one night that he came back. |
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Dragon Boats Competition |
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work the same clothes he wore when he was alive,
but there was a bit of misery and paleness of his
complexion. The country fellows with great happiness
and saluted him. Quyuan said with the back solution,"
Thanks for your warmth, Chu country's people are
so clear about what to love and to hate, and haven't
forget me yet, I have no regrets in spite of my
death." People found out that Quyuan was much
weaker than before during reminiscing the bygones,
so they asked concernedly: "Quyuan, did you
take the rice that we sent for you?" "
Thank you ", Quyuan appreciated at first, then
sighed: "It was a pity that the rice you had
sent for me was eaten by the aquatic animals such
as fish, shrimp, tortoise and clam". The countrymen
were all worried by hearing that: "What can
we do to make the aquatic animals not to eat it?"
After while, Quyuan said: "if the rice balls
were covered by bamboo leaves and made into shapes
with sharp horns the aquatic animals wouldn't care
to eat them because they would take them as water
chestnuts". At the next Dragon Boat Festival
the countrymen made a lot of horned rice dumplings
covered with bamboo leaves and cast them into the
river. But after the Dragon Boat Festival, they
dreamed Quyuan as he said: "I have taken many
horned rice dumpling that you sent for me, but there
were still a lot which were grabbed by the aquatic
animals ". All people asked him again: "
Is there any other better method? " Quyuan
answered: " The method is that you add the
signals of dragon to the dumplings when you casting
them, because the aquatic animals are all in the
charge of Dragon king. They will think of them as
the Dragon King's sending and dare not snatch them
at the sight of the beating of drums and the blare
of trumpets from every side and the paddle's churning."
The horned rice dumplings are today's Zhongzi. From
then on, the custom of making the Zhongzi and paddling
the dragon boats at the Dragon Boat Festival was
extended from Quyuan's hometown to the whole country. |
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The
Legend of Goddess Peak
In the ancient times the 23rd daughter of the immortal
Queen of the heaven named Yaoji lived in the Yaochi
palace. She learned various fairy crafts and was
entitled Madam Yuanhua. Yaoji was born active and
surely couldn't endure such lonely life in the celestial
palace. One day she finally left the celestial palace
and roamed the Donghai Sea with the accompany of
her attendants. However, when she saw the strong
winds and furious waves causing sever disaster for
the human being, she left out of the Donghai Sea
and mounted the clouds westwards. On the way she
flied over thousands of mountains and ridges and
appreciated all the fantastic views of the man's
world. How happy they felt! When they got to the
sky over the Mt. Wushan covered by boundless clouds
and rains, they say 12 dragons stirring up trouble
and causing damage to people. Yaoji got so furious
that she determined to get rid of dragons and disaster
for mankind.hus she stopped moving clouds and pointed
at the dragons slightly. Then the roar of thunder
was heard, the quake of the earth and mountains
was seen. Till the winds and wines waves down, the
carcasses of the 12 dragons had turned into |
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Peak |
12 mountains Which flocked up the Wu Gorge, congested
the Yangtze River, mate the surging flood over flew
to the fields and residence and changed the zone
of Sichuan nowadays to a boundless ocean .In order
to bring the flood disaster under control, the hero
Xiayu who was good at dealing with flood came to
the Yangtze River from the Yellow River immediately.
However, it was not so easy to take the manner if
clearing the mountains and dredging the flood under
the condition of such nigh mountains and swift flood.
when Xiayu was extremely anxious, Yaoji was moved
by his indomitable spirit, called on Huangmo, Tongjing
and some other 4 assistants to exhibit their fairy
crafts and to help Xiayu dredge the Three Gorges
watercourse and let flood flow smoothly into the
Donghai Sea. When Xiayu knew the fairy had helped
him secretly, he climbed onto the Mt. Wu to thank
Yaoji for her assistance. Getting to the top, he
surprisingly found out a tall and erect blue stone.
After a while it turned into a wisp of blue smoke
and rose slowly, then into flocks of blue clouds,
fast and thickly falling and floating dragons, colorful
phoenixes, white cranes flying among mountains and
valleys. As Xiayu was surprised, beautiful Yaoji
appeared suddenly in front of him. She said: "you
are creditable for dealing with the flood, but you
should comprehend the changing causes of the things
over the world". As saying so, she took out
of a precious book covered with yellow sick fabric
on handling with the disaster, and presented it
to Xiayu. Although the flood has been brought under
contort, Yaoji didn't leave but still stand firmly
on the top of the Mt. Wu pointing out the courses
for the passing ships, getting rid of dangers for
people, summoning winds and rains for mankind, planting
precious herbs for medicating. Year after year,
she had forgotten the heaven as well as herself
and finally turned into the attractive Goddess Peak,
and her assistants also turned into several mountains
just like natural barriers and warriors, quietly
guarding around the goddess .The legend of the Goddess
Peak spreads extensively with all kinds of forms
.The ancient people around Mt. Wu called her "Miaoyong
zhenren"(means ingenious person) respectfully
in order to commemorate the goddess in their hearts
and set up a NingzhenTemple (the Goddess Temple
) for her at the foot of the Mt. Filing Phoenix.
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Dangled
Coffin
On the east bank of the Bawu Gorge, there is a rectangular
hole located about 4 or 5 hundred meters high at
a yellowish- brown cliff, in which a pitch-dark
coffin is placed. That's "Dangled Coffin"
More than 2000 years ago Dangled -coffin burial
was the customary burial manner of Pu race Who dwelled
on the zone of Daning River. As result of textual
research in Chuqiu zhanuwo period, the people made
the coffin after their parents passing away and
located it in the hole at the middle of the mountain
facing the river, and lung the dead body from the
top of the mountain. The higher the coffin located
more dutiful the descendants appeared to be .The
Danged -coffin Tower was built on the other bank
of the river, where travelers can an get off the
ship and land to appreciate the Bawu Gorge dangled
coffins by high-degree telescopes.
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Longgu Slope Ancient Ape-men's site
Longgu Slope Ancient Ape-men's site stands at Longgu Slope,
Longping village, Miaoyu town, Wushan County, and takes
up about 700 square meters. It was discovered in 1986.
People found here the jaw bone fossils as well as soores
of fossils which was the same level as the human being's,
fossils of the Giant Monkey, the sword-toothed Tiger,
the Double -horned Rhinoceros and so on. As a result of
textual research, these fossils belonged to former renew
century, 2,040,000 ago. This great discovery fills the
gap of Chinese ancient human being's fossils, and has
an extremely important scientific value in the research
of the human beings origin and the history of Three-River
Valley's development.
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Daxi
cultural site
Daxi cultural site, located at the eastern outlet of the
Qutang Gorge, the Daxi town at the bank of Daning Rivers
wide valley, is the origin of the Yangtze River's ancient
culture. It's the important site of China's matriarchal
New Stone Age. Guomo'ruo called it as " Daxi culture
". On the west of Daxi town, which belongs to Wushan
county, there is a stream flowing into Yangtze River .It
is named " Daixi" because of its dark green
water. There are vast and mighty waters in the flood season,
so it's also called "Daxi".
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