Xinzhou District 信州区

Setting and landscape

The district's climate is humid subtropical, mild and wet, with four distinct seasons: average annual temperature is about 18.3°C, yearly rainfall about 1,955 mm and the frost-free season about 288 days. The district government sits in Maojialing subdistrict (茅家岭街道).

What to see

Xinjiang Academy (信江书院), on Xiangfu Road (相府路) on the south bank of the Xin River, is counted among the four great old academies of Jiangxi. The Guangxin prefect Zhang Guozhen (张国桢) founded it in 1697 as Qujiang Academy; it took its present name after an enlargement in 1781 and became Guangxin Middle School in 1902. Eleven timber buildings survive, including a lecture hall, pavilions and a terrace, and it has been a Jiangxi provincial heritage site since 1983. On the same street, the house at No. 17 Xiangfu Road (相府路17号民宅), the former home of the paper merchant Yang Yitai (杨益泰), built in 1922–1933, is also provincially listed and is managed by the Xinzhou District Museum.

The Shangrao concentration camp (上饶集中营) was built by the Nationalist government south of the city after the Southern Anhui Incident (皖南事变) to hold captured New Fourth Army officers, among them the commander Ye Ting (叶挺). It was used from March 1941 to June 1942, and more than 150 prisoners died there. In May 1942, with Japanese forces advancing on the Zhejiang–Jiangxi railway, the prisoners were to be moved to Fujian; on 25 May they staged a mass breakout, known as the Maojialing uprising (茅家岭暴动), and 24 escaped. The camp sites at Maojialing, Zhoutian (周田), Licun (李村) and Qifengyan (七峰岩) were made a national key heritage site in 1988, and Maojialing now has a martyrs' cemetery, monument and memorial hall.

Along Binjiang West Road (滨江西路), Twin Pagoda Park (双塔公园) holds the provincially listed Xinzhou Twin Pagodas (信州双塔), made up of Kuiwen Pagoda (奎文塔) and Wugui Pagoda (五桂塔), together with the city-listed Gexian Hall (葛仙殿) and a paper-burning furnace. The city-listed Lu Yu Spring (陆羽泉) is inside Shangrao No. 1 Middle School.

Getting oriented

Shangrao station, in Lingxi subdistrict (灵溪街道), is where the Shanghai–Kunming and Hefei–Fuzhou high-speed railways meet. The Hefei–Fuzhou platforms cross over the Shanghai–Kunming tracks at right angles, which made it the first stacked cross-shaped station on China's railways. The original station opened on Jiefang Road in 1935 and moved to its present site in 2006.

Highlights

• Xinjiang Academy 信江书院: Qing academy founded in 1697 on the south bank of the Xin River; one of Jiangxi's four great old academies; provincial heritage site since 1983.
• Shangrao concentration camp sites 上饶集中营旧址: Nationalist prison camp for New Fourth Army captives in 1941–1942; national key heritage site since 1988, with a memorial hall at Maojialing.
• Xinzhou Twin Pagodas 信州双塔: Kuiwen and Wugui pagodas in Twin Pagoda Park on Binjiang West Road; provincial heritage site.