Qichun County 蕲春县

Setting and landscape

The county government describes a long, narrow county shaped like a sail, high in the north and low in the south: mountains and deep gorges in the north, rolling hills in the middle, and a southern plain of polders scattered with lakes and creeks. The highest point is the main peak of Yundan Mountain (云丹山) in Qingshi town (青石镇), at 1,244.1 metres. Taihu (太湖县) and Susong (宿松县) counties in Anhui lie to the east.

History

Qichun became a county in 201 BC, in the Western Han, and is one of the oldest counties in eastern Hubei. For more than 1,080 years it was the seat of a prefecture governing other counties. In 1445 the Ming prince of Jing, Zhu Zhanggang (朱瞻纲), moved his court to Qizhou (蕲州), and the Jing princely line stayed there for ten generations and 198 years. The prefecture was abolished and Qichun County restored in 1912. The county is nicknamed the "professors' county" for the many academics born here; the scholar Huang Kan (黄侃) and the literary theorist Hu Feng (胡风) are among its natives.

What to see

Li Shizhen wrote the Compendium of Materia Medica (本草纲目), now on UNESCO's Memory of the World register. His tomb lies outside the east gate of the old city of Qizhou, where he is buried with his wife; his parents' joint grave is in the same cemetery, and the two tombstones date from 1593 and 1572. The cemetery grounds also hold the Li Shizhen Memorial Hall (李时珍纪念馆), whose name was written by Deng Xiaoping, a corridor of herbal steles, a medicine museum and a herb garden, with Yu Lake (雨湖) in front. The legends of Li Shizhen were added to the national intangible heritage list in 2011.

Food and local products

Li Shizhen's Compendium records that from the Chenghua reign mugwort from Qizhou was held the best in the land. The China Association of Chinese Medicine has named Qichun China's mugwort capital (中国艾都), and Qichun moxibustion (蕲春艾灸疗法), which burns local mugwort using folk methods passed down for about four hundred years, is on the national intangible heritage list. The county's "four treasures" are the Qi snake (蕲蛇), Qi turtle (蕲龟), Qi bamboo (蕲竹) and Qi mugwort.

Getting oriented

The Beijing–Kowloon railway and the Huanggang–Huangmei high-speed railway cross the county; the high-speed line's Qichun South station is the largest of its five stations. The county government sits in Caohe town (漕河镇); Li Shizhen's tomb is at the old city of Qizhou.

Highlights

• Li Shizhen Memorial Hall 李时珍纪念馆: Memorial hall, herb garden and medicine museum in the grounds of Li Shizhen's tomb outside old Qizhou.
• Li Shizhen's Tomb 李时珍墓: Joint grave of Li Shizhen and his wife, in the same cemetery as his parents' grave; tombstones of 1593 and 1572.
• Qi mugwort 蕲艾: Praised in the Compendium of Materia Medica; basis of the county's heritage-listed moxibustion.
• Qichun moxibustion 蕲春艾灸疗法: National intangible heritage using local mugwort and folk methods of some 400 years.