Yanshan County 盐山县

History

In 210 BC the Qin magician Xu Fu, sent by the First Emperor, gathered thousands of boys and girls, warriors and craftsmen at Rao'an (饶安), now Qiantong town (千童镇), trained them there and set out across the sea. The Qiantong Xinzi Festival (千童信子节) remembers the children who never came back: in jiazi years, the first year of the sixty-year calendar cycle, on the 28th day of the third lunar month, children stand on stages set on poles about 12 metres high and call towards the east. It entered the Hebei heritage list in 2006 and the second national intangible heritage list in 2008.

People born here include the Tang frontier poet Gao Shi (高适), from old Rao'an; the physician Zhang Xichun (张锡纯), whose thirty-volume Yixue Zhongzhong Canxi Lu (医学衷中参西录) set out his way of joining Chinese and Western medicine; and the spear fighter Li Shuwen (李书文), remembered as "Divine Spear Li".

What to see

Qingyun (庆云镇), south-east of the county town, was the walled seat of Qingyun County from 1373 until a new county town was built in 1964, and Hebei named it a historic and cultural town in 2012. Its Taishan Xinggong (泰山行宫), a temple begun in 1374 beside the Zhangwei New River (漳卫新河), has a main hall with a statue of the goddess Bixia Yuanjun (碧霞元君) and a 17-metre gate tower, the Lingdang Pavilion (铃铛阁), named for the 108 bells hung from its rafter ends. The Qingyun Confucian Temple (庆云文庙), founded in 1373, keeps a Ming-style main hall and a stele of 1666. Hebei listed both as provincial protected sites in 1993.

In the county town, the Qiantong Museum (千童博物馆) opened in 2000 and shows over 300 objects. The Qiantong Culture Park (千童文化园), opened in 2015, is laid out along the route of the voyage as Qin, Jeju and Fusang gardens, and a geology museum in its south-east corner displays meteorites, fossils and minerals. Jingye Temple (净业寺), south of the Xuanhui River, was rebuilt in 2006 on the site of the Jinzhong Temple (金钟寺), which dated from the Northern Song and burned in 1928.

Getting oriented

The county sits where Hebei meets Shandong, at the centre of the area shared by Cangzhou and the Shandong cities of Dezhou (德州) and Binzhou (滨州). National highways 205 and 338 cross it, together with the Handan–Huanghua railway (邯黄铁路) and three expressways.

Highlights

• Qiantong Xinzi Festival 千童信子节: Pole-stage rites for Xu Fu's lost children, on the national intangible heritage list since 2008.
• Taishan Xinggong 泰山行宫: Temple of 1374 in Qingyun with the bell-hung Lingdang Pavilion; Hebei provincial protected site since 1993.
• Qingyun Confucian Temple 庆云文庙: Founded in 1373, with a Ming-style main hall and a Kangxi-era stele of 1666.
• Qiantong Culture Park 千童文化园: Park opened in 2015 whose gardens follow the route of Xu Fu's voyage.