A One-Day Tour of Thousand-Mile Jiangling
I set out in the morning for a business trip to Jingzhou, Hubei. Should have gone in the first half of the year, but due to reasons known to all, it has been delayed until now. If I don't go soon, this year will be over. I took a flight from Shanghai Pudong Airport to Yichang at noon. Jingzhou is located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, in the hinterland of the Jianghan Plain. There is no direct flight from Shanghai to Jingzhou. The nearest airport to Jingzhou is Yichang Sanxia Airport, about eighty kilometers away. Alternatively, you can take a high-speed train. There is a direct high-speed train from Shanghai to Jingzhou, taking about 7 hours, or transfer via Wuhan, taking about 6 hours.
Because I left a bit late, the subway was too slow. Checking the time, it was getting tight, so I quickly switched to the Maglev train at Longyang Road. I arrived on time at Yichang Sanxia Airport in the afternoon. The client's car picked me up and went directly to their office for business. In the evening, I checked into the Wyndham Hotel arranged by the client, one of the best five-star hotels in Jingzhou. The hotel is located in the Shashi New District of Jingzhou. Opening the window, I saw high-rises surrounding it. The room was luxuriously decorated, and the hotel had a fitness center and a swimming pool. Unfortunately, after the business dinner, it was already late when I returned to the hotel. For business travelers like us, staying here is a bit of a waste.
Today's business meeting was scheduled for ten in the morning. Although I have been to Jingzhou several times, I had only seen the ancient city wall briefly when passing by car. After an early breakfast at the hotel buffet, I decided to take advantage of the free time in the morning to visit the Jingzhou Ancient City.
Jingzhou City, anciently called Jiangling or Yingdu, is known to everyone through the novel *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*. The story of losing Jingzhou through carelessness is well-known. In the Four Great Classical Novels, *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, the author Luo Guanzhong favored Jingzhou, giving it a rich and vivid description, making it a viral hit of the Three Kingdoms. Today, Three Kingdoms culture is also an important part of Jingzhou tourism. After a ten-minute taxi ride, I arrived at the Jingzhou Ancient City, about five or six kilometers from the hotel. Crossing the Ma River (probably also a moat) over the Nine-Dragon Bridge, one of the landmarks of Jingzhou Ancient City, I faced the city gate directly. The Ma River below the Nine-Dragon Bridge is also the boundary between Jingzhou District and Shashi District.
In ancient times, Jingzhou was very large, but it did not refer to a single city. As a city name, it began in the early Ming Dynasty. The well-preserved ancient city wall has an east-west diameter of 3.75 kilometers inside the city, a north-south diameter of 1.2 kilometers, an area of 4.5 square kilometers, and a circumference of about 10.5 kilometers. The earliest city wall dates back to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. Most of the current ancient city wall was built in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. Currently, the Jingzhou Ancient City Wall has been announced by the State Council as a national key cultural relic protection unit. Because the wall is well-preserved and complete in form, it ranks second among the seven major ancient city walls in China. Together with the other six cities, Jingzhou has applied for UNESCO World Cultural Heritage status. This city wall can be compared to those of Nanjing and Xi'an, but its fame is far less. Arriving at the foot of the wall, I learned that the ticket to climb the wall costs 30 yuan. This year, Hubei Province offers free tickets to tourists from all over the country. I only needed to make a reservation on a mobile app, and after receiving the QR code, I could scan it to go up. In the morning, there was no one on the wall. Walking along the wall, I savored thousands of years of history. Standing at the top of the gate tower, I could basically see the entire ancient city. The total area of Jingzhou Ancient City is 4.6 square kilometers, divided into three layers: the outermost is the water city, the middle is the brick city, and the inside is the earth city. The water city (moat) is 10,500 meters long, 30 meters wide, and 4 meters deep, connecting to Taihu Lake in the west and Changhu Lake in the east, linked to the ancient canal. Around the city wall, there were originally six gates: East Gate (Yingbin Gate), Small East Gate (Gong'an Gate, Water Gate), North Gate (Gongji Gate), Small North Gate (Yuan'an Gate), West Gate (Anlan Gate), and South Gate (Nanji Gate). Currently, only the East Gate tower and about 1.5 kilometers of the city wall are open to tourists. I first came to the East Gate tower, which stands majestically in the middle of the city. The gate arch below still serves as a major thoroughfare. The gate tower is called "Binyang Tower," and it is the most imposing, with two stories and high flying eaves, very magnificent. However, the tower was rebuilt in 1987. The city has a barbican; when enemies attack, they can be trapped and defeated. Other gates also have barbicans, but the East Gate's is the largest. Outside the gate is the moat, the Ma River, which seems wider than ordinary moats. At this moment, leaning against the city wall, I saw the great river flowing eastward, ancient pines and cypresses standing tall, and the sturdy city wall revealing its resilience. I walked south along the ancient wall until I reached Gong'an Gate, about half a kilometer. The blue brick crenellations and the top of the wall were fairly well maintained. At that moment, my thoughts were stirred: the iron horses, the strategic passes, the swords and spears—all are gone. Only these silent city bricks remain, telling endless stories.
Across the moat, I saw a large group of figure sculptures. This was the Guan Gong Righteousness Park. Guan Gong guarded Jingzhou for ten years, and his spirit of "loyalty, righteousness, benevolence, and courage" has been immortalized, making him the "Martial Saint" and "God of Wealth" worshipped by Chinese people. Much of *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* records the legendary historical stories of Guan Yu in Jingzhou. As the birthplace of Guan Gong culture, the main battlefield and the place where he was active the longest, Jingzhou has the deepest accumulation of Guan Gong culture. It is only natural that Jingzhou should be the hometown of Guan Gong culture, and Jingzhou is most qualified and best positioned to play the Guan Gong card. To commemorate Guan Gong and also to promote Jingzhou, the city spent 1.5 billion yuan to build a statue 58 meters high (allegedly because Guan Yu lived to 58), the largest and tallest Guan Gong statue in the world. To make it more realistic, a large blade was specially designed, weighing 136 tons. Over time, it became a landmark of Jingzhou. However, as the saying goes, things are unpredictable. Just as Guan Yu unexpectedly lost Jingzhou, this landmark also had problems. Due to the long construction time, the ground showed signs of subsidence and cracks. Moreover, after its completion, it was mainly visited by local tourists, and there were said to be major problems with capital recovery, making it impossible to maintain normal repairs. Most importantly, this structure was actually built illegally. The illegal sign, combined with various safety hazards, led many to speculate that it might be demolished. I wanted to go see it, but time was tight, so I had to give up. Unexpectedly, a few days after returning to Shanghai, the official news announced that the Guan Gong statue was illegally built, violated regulations, damaged the ancient style and historical context, and was officially demolished. It seems I was destined to miss the Guan Gong Righteousness Park.
After walking along the open section of the ancient city wall, I saw that time was almost up. I hurried back and descended from the East Gate tower. The most intact part of Jingzhou Ancient City is the city wall. The rest has been gradually eroded by time over the long river of history. Therefore, there are no ancient relics left inside the city now. Below the East Gate tower, apart from a rebuilt pseudo-antique commercial street and the restored Zhang Juzheng Former Residence, which looks brand new, there are only disorderly, dirty, and chaotic residential houses that have completely lost their traditional ancient architecture and layout but are full of strong everyday life atmosphere.
Speaking of Jingzhou's history and culture, besides Guan Gong, another unavoidable figure is Zhang Juzheng. Zhang Juzheng was a native of Jingzhou. He served as the Grand Secretary of the Ming Dynasty (equivalent to Prime Minister) and was a famous prime minister in Chinese history. He implemented reform measures such as the "Single Whip Law," which led the faltering Ming dynasty to a revival. He was a politician and reformer of the Ming Dynasty. His history cannot be fully told in one or two articles, and he is remembered by later generations. Therefore, the Jingzhou Tourism Bureau and the Jingzhou District Government organized the construction of his former residence, based on his old house, to highlight the original historical style and human environment, restore the historical architectural landscape, and display Zhang Juzheng's life and historical culture. The current Zhang Juzheng Former Residence is a group of buildings in the style of a Qing Dynasty quadrangle and small garden. However, I had to hurry back to the hotel, fearing I might run out of time, so I could only pass by without entering.
After finishing the official business in the afternoon, I saw it was still early. Since there were colleagues who were visiting Jingzhou for the first time, our hosts were very hospitable and offered to drive us around. I suggested going to the Jingzhou Museum. I had visited it ten years ago and was deeply impressed. Don't be fooled by the fact that Jingzhou Museum is just a prefectural-level museum. In 1994, it was selected by experts from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage as one of the "Top Ten Prefectural and Municipal Museums" in China. In May 2008, Jingzhou Museum was included in the list of national first-class museums.
We arrived at the museum, located at No. 166 Jingzhong Road, Jingzhou District, near the West Gate of the ancient city. Due to its long construction history (built in 1958), the museum's exterior is not outstanding, and the museum itself is not large. It covers an area of over 50,000 square meters, with a building area of 23,000 square meters and a green area of over 11,000 square meters. However, Jingzhou Museum enjoys a high reputation in China and is a major tourist attraction in Jingzhou. Admission is free. To give us a detailed understanding of the exhibits, our hosts hired a dedicated guide for 100 yuan to explain.
Jingzhou Museum is a national first-class museum, housing many national treasure-level collections. Therefore, it is by no means inferior to ordinary provincial museums. The reason is simple: this is Yingdu, the capital of the Chu State. Therefore, the artifacts displayed here cover all aspects of Chu culture. Jingzhou Museum has a collection of over 130,000 cultural relics, including 492 first-class national treasures. Through various construction projects, the museum has unearthed and excavated over 120,000 precious cultural relics, including Warring States silk; the Spear of King Fuchai of Wu; Warring States, Qin, and Han lacquerware; the earliest mathematical monograph in China and the world, the *Book of Arithmetic*; and early Han bamboo slips such as the *Laws of the Second Year* by Xiao He. There is also a Western Han male corpse. The museum has excavated over 7,000 ancient tombs and nearly 200,000 square meters of ancient cultural sites through various infrastructure projects. We followed the guide and browsed through the large number of precious cultural relics on display, from stoneware, pottery, and bronzeware to porcelain, lacquerware, and jade. The museum has a beautiful environment, and the rich collection of cultural relics and unique regional treasures attracted us and many other tourists. Since I had been here before, I knew the most interesting exhibits were two things. One was a female corpse from the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, unearthed in 2009 from the Lujiashan ancient tomb in Jingzhou. When unearthed, her skin was still elastic, and the body was well-preserved in the museum, with intact dried muscles. The other was an ancient corpse unearthed in 1975 from a Qin-Han noble cemetery at the southeastern corner of Ji'nan City, the ancient capital of Chu, about five kilometers north of Jingzhou city. According to research, this ancient corpse was a native of Xishi Township, Jiangling County. His lifetime title was Wudafu (the ninth rank of the twenty ranks in the Western Han). He died at about 60 years old and was buried in the 13th year of Emperor Wen of Han (167 BC), 2,142 years before its excavation. When unearthed, the body was basically complete, 1.66 meters tall, weighing 52.5 kilograms. The skin, muscles, and soft tissues were still elastic. The joints of the limbs could move. All 32 teeth were intact and firm. The nasal passages were clear. The eardrum of the left ear remained. The skull was intact, with clear meningeal blood vessels. The internal organs were all present. The bones were normal. The subcutaneous collagen fibers were well preserved, very close to fresh tissue. Proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in the body were preserved to varying degrees. This Western Han male corpse is of the same type as the Western Han female corpse from Mawangdui in Changsha. Compared with the two, the male corpse was buried earlier, but it is the most well-preserved Western Han male corpse to date. This major archaeological discovery is of great significance for the study of science, economy, history, and culture in ancient China, especially during the Western Han period. It is therefore hailed as the museum's treasure. Unfortunately, recently the Jingzhou Museum has been undergoing renovation and exhibition layout adjustments, and many exhibits, including these two ancient corpses, are not on display, leaving a slight regret for our museum visit.
The Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai's poem "Early Departure from White Emperor City" is widely known, and the line "A thousand miles to Jiangling in one day" made Jingzhou famous. Today, our "One-Day Tour of Thousand-Mile Jiangling" during our free time allowed us to get to know the new Jingzhou, and we gained quite a lot.
Travel notes directory: 1. 2020-11-05 Shanghai - Yichang - Jingzhou, 2. 2020-11-06 Jingzhou Ancient City, Jingzhou Museum. Hotel index, strategy index, air ticket index, website navigation, travel index, cruise index, corporate travel index, join cooperation, distribution alliance, friendly links, corporate gift card procurement, insurance agency, agency cooperation, hotel franchise, destination and scenic spot cooperation, more cooperation, about Ctrip, about Ctrip, Ctrip hot topics, contact us, join us, user agreement, privacy policy, business license, security center, Ctrip content center, intellectual property, Trip.com Group algorithm publicity.
