Meiguan Ancient Road 梅关古道

About Meiguan Ancient Road

A track existed here from the Qin and Han, but it was narrow and steep. In 716 Zhang Jiuling, a Tang official from Qujiang in what is now Shaoguan, petitioned Emperor Xuanzong for permission to cut a proper road over Dayuling; work began in the eleventh month of that year, using farm labour in the slack season, and was finished within two or three months. The result was level enough, by the gazetteer account, for five carriages abreast, and it quickly became the principal crossing of the Five Ridges. Goods from Lingnan and from overseas went north over the pass into Jiangxi, down the Zhang River to the Gan, and out to the Yangtze; salt from Guangdong and rice from Jiangxi moved in opposite directions along it. The route stayed busy until the Yuehan railway and the Nanxiong-Dayu road were built in modern times.

The pass carries a stone gate tower first raised in the Jiayou era of the Song. A Nanxiong prefect added plaques to it in the Wanli era of the Ming, reading 'first pass of Lingnan' on one face and 'mighty pass of southern Yue' on the other; a stele next to it inscribed 'Meiling', 2.4 metres high and 1.4 metres wide, was set up in the Qing. From the gate the land falls away to Dayu in Jiangxi on the north and Nanxiong in Guangdong on the south. Of a route that once ran more than thirty kilometres, a core section of more than 1,200 metres survives intact, about six chi wide and laid with broken stone. Meiling was also a base for Chen Yi and the units left behind after the Central Red Army departed on the Long March in October 1934, who fought a three-year guerrilla campaign around Meiling and Youshan; in December 2016 the Meiguan Ancient Road area was added to the national catalogue of classic red tourism sites.

What to look for

• The Meiguan gate tower, first built in the Song Jiayou era, with its Ming plaques reading 'first pass of Lingnan' and 'mighty pass of southern Yue'
• The Qing-dynasty 'Meiling' stele beside the gate, 2.4 metres high and 1.4 metres wide
• The surviving 1,200-metre section of stone-laid road, about six chi wide
• The plum groves along the route, more than 2,000 trees of several kinds, on which the south-facing branches open before the north-facing ones
• The 136 poem steles set along the path recording plum poems from earlier dynasties

Location & getting there

Getting to Meiguan Ancient Road

Follow the currently permitted path and arrange the return before setting out. Do not infer trail continuity or difficulty from the route name alone.

• Search for 梅关古道 with 韶关市 and 南雄市.