Jingde County 旌德县

Setting and landscape

Ridges running off the eastern foothills of Huangshan fill the county with valleys and streams. The county town, Jingyang (旌阳镇), sits in a mountain basin, summed up locally as "one pagoda, two rivers through the town, three bridges, and mountains on four sides". From Jingyang you can climb Zishan (梓山) or walk along the Hui River (徽水). Sika deer, clouded leopard, ginkgo and yew are among the protected species in the county's forests, and Jingde has long been called "the granary of Huizhou" (徽州粮仓).

History

Jingde became a county in 763, under the Tang, with a name meant to honour rites and display virtue. The Yuan agronomist Wang Zhen (王祯), county magistrate here for six years, wrote his Treatise on Agriculture (农书) and devised wooden movable type in Jingde, and the county describes the Jingde County Records (旌德县志) as the world's first book printed with wooden movable type. Between its founding and the end of the Qing the county produced 142 recorded jinshi (进士), holders of the highest imperial examination degree.

What to see

Jiangcun, a village of the Jiang (江) clan in Baidi (白地镇), was named a Chinese historical and cultural village in 2005, and its old buildings became a national key protected site in 2006. It keeps Ming and Qing buildings such as the Jiang ancestral hall (江氏宗祠), the Father-and-Son Jinshi Archway (江村父子进士坊), the former home of the mathematician Jiang Zehan (江泽涵) and an old street. The county's other national protected site is the Confucian Temple (文庙).

Food and local products

Xuan inkstones were prized under the Tang, then lost for centuries. In July 2010 a mudslide at Longtan Mountain (龙潭山) in Hongchuan village (洪川村), Baidi, washed the stone out of a stream bed, and old quarry pits can still be seen there; a Xuan inkstone culture park with a museum is graded national 3A. Jingde also calls itself the home of Lingzhi, and Jingde flatbread (旌德大饼) has been featured by CCTV. Jingde pillow zongzi (旌德枕头粽), on the county intangible heritage list, is a thick, square-cornered rice parcel of local glutinous rice and black pork marinated three parts fat to seven lean, wrapped in broad wild bamboo leaves and simmered over a wood fire for six to eight hours.

Getting oriented

Jingde station on the Beijing–Fuzhou high-speed railway (京福高铁) is described by the county as the closest high-speed station to the east gate of the Huangshan scenic area. National roads G205 and G330 cross the county.

Highlights

• Jiangcun 江村: Jiang clan village with Ming and Qing buildings; national key protected site since 2006.
• Confucian Temple 文庙: One of the county's two national key protected sites.
• Xuan inkstone 宣砚: Stone rediscovered at Longtan Mountain in Baidi after a 2010 mudslide.
• Jingde pillow zongzi 旌德枕头粽: Square rice parcel with black pork, simmered six to eight hours; county intangible heritage.