Tianzhu County 天柱县

Setting and landscape

Tianzhu borders four Hunan counties, Xinhuang (新晃), Zhijiang (芷江), Huitong (会同) and Jingzhou (靖州), and Jianhe (剑河), Sansui (三穗) and Jinping (锦屏) in Guizhou, and is known as the "first pass of eastern Guizhou" (黔东第一关). Islands dot the Qingshui through the county, and the Tianzhu Qingshui River Hundred-li Gallery (天柱清水江百里画廊) is a national water-conservancy scenic area recognised by the Ministry of Water Resources.

History

A Ming garrison battalion was set up at Tianzhu in 1392 and turned into a county in 1597; because the hill at the county seat is shaped like a phoenix, the town is also called Fengcheng (凤城). In 1637 the seat moved to Longtang (龙塘), which became the county's name until the seat returned in 1652. Tianzhu passed from Jingzhou in Huguang to Guizhou in 1726. In 1862 Dong rebels led by Jiang Yingfang (姜应芳) took the county town.

Schools here date from the Wanli reign of the Ming. Natives include Song Renpu (宋仁溥), the first Miao member of the Hanlin Academy from Qing Guizhou, and the generals Wang Tianpei (王天培) and Wu Shaozhou (吴绍周). The former homes of Wang and Wu are provincial protected sites.

What to see

The county government calls Tianzhu a treasury of clan-hall culture in south-west China: 128 clan ancestral halls were built and 77 survive in good condition. At Sanmentang (三门塘) in Banchu Town (坌处镇), a 4A scenic area, the old buildings are a national protected site. Its Liu clan hall (刘氏宗祠), begun in 1875, was repaired under a World Bank project from 2013 and received a UNESCO Asia-Pacific heritage conservation award in 2016. The county also promotes Ganxi (甘溪), a Dong village known as the "kung fu village".

The Forty-Eight Villages song festival (四十八寨歌节), on the national intangible-heritage list since 2011, is held at 13 song grounds along the middle and lower Qingshui. Each ground meets once a year between the third and ninth lunar months, usually on a mid-month day of the wu (戊) sign. All the singing is in the Dong language, including long narrative songs based on Han stories such as the Three Kingdoms.

Food and local products

Tianzhu camellia oil (天柱茶油), Tianzhu mule duck (天柱骡鸭) and Tianzhu flue-cured tobacco are protected as national geographical indications, and the county government calls it Guizhou's largest woody oil-crop county.

Getting oriented

The county town is 69 km from Sansui station on the Shanghai–Kunming high-speed railway and 145 km from the rail hub of Huaihua (怀化) in Hunan.

Highlights

• Sanmentang 三门塘: 4A scenic area in Banchu Town whose old buildings are a national protected site.
• Liu clan hall, Sanmentang 刘氏宗祠: Begun in 1875; its restoration won a UNESCO Asia-Pacific heritage conservation award in 2016.
• Forty-Eight Villages song festival 四十八寨歌节: Dong-language song fairs at 13 grounds along the Qingshui; national intangible heritage since 2011.
• Tianzhu camellia oil 天柱茶油: National geographical-indication product.