Tongcheng 桐城市

Setting and landscape

The land steps down from northwest to southeast, from mountains through hills to plain. Tongcheng is 90 kilometres from Hefei (合肥) and 68 kilometres from Anqing, and the Beijing–Hong Kong high-speed railway, the Hefei–Jiujiang railway and the Shanghai–Chengdu Expressway pass through it.

History

In antiquity this was the state of Tong (桐国), named, according to the city, for land suited to tung-oil trees. The present name dates from 757, when Tong'an County (同安县) dropped the character "an" because of An Lushan's (安禄山) rebellion against the Tang and became Tongcheng. The county became a county-level city in 1996 and is a national historic and cultural city.

Natives include the scholar Fang Yizhi (方以智), the father-and-son chief ministers Zhang Ying (张英) and Zhang Tingyu (张廷玉) and the aesthetician Zhu Guangqian (朱光潜). The city is known as a home of Huangmei opera (黄梅戏), and Tongcheng folk songs (桐城歌) are on the national intangible heritage list.

What to see

Six-Foot Lane (六尺巷), in Wenchang subdistrict, is a cobbled lane 100 metres long between the chief minister’s mansion to the south and the Wu family house to the north. When the Wu neighbours used a strip of spare ground beside Zhang Ying’s house, his household wrote to him in the capital; he replied with a poem telling them to give up three feet, and the Wus then gave up three feet too, leaving a six-foot passage.

Tongcheng Confucian Temple (桐城文庙), at the north end of Citizens’ Square, was begun early in the Yanyou era of the Yuan and served as both a temple to Confucius and the county school. Its buildings, centred on the Dacheng Hall (大成殿), include the Lingxing Gate (棂星门) and the Pan Pool (泮池) with its Zhuangyuan Bridge (状元桥). It has housed the Tongcheng Museum since 1984, including a display on the career of Huangmei singer Yan Fengying (严凤英). The temple and Wenhe Garden (文和园) are national protected sites.

Kongcheng Old Street (孔城老街), 12 kilometres from the city by the Dasha River (大沙河), is a 2.2-kilometre S-shaped street paved with granite strips, with 118 protected buildings. It was divided into ten wards, each gated at night with its own function, from rice shops and wine workshops to fish and vegetable markets. It became a 4A scenic area in 2018.

Food and local products

Local specialities named by the city include Tongcheng water bowls (桐城水碗), Tongcheng water celery (桐城水芹), Tongcheng feng cake (桐城丰糕), zinc-rich rice and Tongcheng Xiaohua tea (桐城小花).

Highlights

• Six-Foot Lane 六尺巷: Cobbled 100-metre lane left when two neighbouring families each yielded three feet.
• Tongcheng Confucian Temple 桐城文庙: Yuan-founded temple and county school, now home to the Tongcheng Museum.
• Kongcheng Old Street 孔城老街: 2.2-kilometre S-shaped old street divided into ten wards, each with its own function.