Exploring Baoding | Touring Baoding with Poetry: Langya Mountain, a Spur of the Taihang Range

Langya Mountain, a spur of the Taihang Range, when viewed from afar, seems to rise sheer from the flat land into the clouds. Its precipitous peaks thrust up and stone forests tower, forming a world of its own. Close up, you’ll find fantastic pines and rocks, cascading springs and waterfalls—like a magnified bonsai landscape. People everywhere revere it as a “Mountain of Heroes” and yearn to visit.

Langya Mountain was originally named Lang Mountain, after the son of Crown Prince Liu Ju of the Han Dynasty, who took refuge here to escape the “Witchcraft Scandal.” Because “Lang” and “Wolf” sound similar in Chinese, it was also called Wolf Mountain. As its towering, jagged peaks resemble wolf fangs, it became known as Langya Mountain (Wolf Fang Mountain). It is celebrated as “Wolf Mountain Beauty,” one of the Ten Scenic Spots of ancient Yizhou and the Eight Scenic Spots of old Baoding.

The mountain features not only natural wonders like Wind-Stirred Stone, Immortal’s Bridge, and Southern Heavenly Gate, but also many cultural relics such as Laojun Hall, Sanjiao Hall, and the Silkworm Maiden Temple.

Chessboard Peak is one of the Five Finger Peaks of Langya Mountain. Near its top is a large blue-gray rock clearly engraved with nineteen crisscrossing lines—exactly like a Go board. Next to it stands a millennium-old cypress with gnarled branches and a cloud-like canopy. According to folklore, the Daoist immortal Wang Chan Laozu and the strategist Sun Bin played chess and practiced martial arts here. After reaching the summit, standing behind the memorial tower and gazing west and north, you see thousands of peaks and ridges heaving like ocean waves—some clustered, some surging, rolling and undulating in spectacular grandeur. The Greater and Lesser Lotus Peaks rise like water lilies above the surface, proudly blooming, while mist drifts through the ravines and layers of mountains stretch into the sky. This is the heart and essence of Langya Mountain’s peak forest.

The heroic feat of the Five Warriors of Langya Mountain is renowned worldwide. The area is a national forest park, a patriotic education base, and a key site on the national red tourism route.

At the most prominent spot at the entrance to the Langya Mountain scenic area stands a bronze group sculpture of the Five Warriors, backed by a huge, vivid red Party flag. At the foot of the mountain, the Five Warriors Exhibition Hall displays weapons and everyday items used by the army and civilians in the revolutionary base area, as well as precious manuscripts and photos left by revolutionary pioneers. Beneath the ancient cypress on Chessboard Peak, the site of the fierce Chessboard Peak blocking action is marked. Inside the Five Warriors Memorial Tower at the summit, a five-tier steel ladder leads up to a small chamber at the top. Looking far to the west, you can see the smaller Lotus Peak, where the five warriors jumped, hemmed in by clustered mountains. A silver-white stainless steel memorial tower stands atop the high cliff, from a distance resembling a warrior about to leap into the air.

Langya Mountain is a mountain of heroes, but also a mountain of splendid peaks. It has a heroic side, and a tender one, too—its cloud sea.

After a rain, the breeze is light and the temperature just right, refreshing on the skin. Every peak, soaked by the rain, is brushed by cool winds as clouds gather and scatter, full of poetic grace. The cloud sea after rain sometimes looks like feathers, gently floating in the air; sometimes like fish scales, neatly arrayed across the heavens; sometimes like a flock of sheep, endlessly scurrying about; sometimes like a cotton quilt, covering the sky completely. At other times, the clouds assume shapes of mountain ranges, rivers, lions, or galloping horses—now decorating the sky with beauty, now shrouding it in gloom. It is precisely this ever-changing drama of clouds that gives Langya Mountain endless wonder and mystery, drawing countless photography enthusiasts to capture the moment. The Langya cloud sea feels dreamlike and ethereal.

Cloud seas are usually associated with places of exquisite beauty, like the Yellow Mountain cloud sea, which has become a fairyland. Among northern mountains, such sights are rare. Langya Mountain, like a paradise of immortals or a realm beyond the mundane, occasionally churns with magnificent, indescribable cloud seas. The Wolf Mountain cloud sea is supremely beautiful, yet few have witnessed it, and even fewer have captured it in photos.

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Source: Baoding Culture and Tourism, Baoding Tourism General Entrance, compiled.