Yushan County 玉山县

Setting and landscape

The county measures about 75 km from east to west and 62 km from north to south. It is mostly mountains and hills, high in the north-west and lower to the south-east, with the Huaiyu range as its main mountain chain. Most of it drains to the Xin River (信江): the Jinsha (金沙溪) and Gan (甘溪) streams join to form the Bingxi (冰溪). Mount Sanqing is a World Natural Heritage site for its granite landforms, and its old buildings are a national key heritage site. The local speech is Yushan Wu (玉山话), but some townships, among them Zihu (紫湖镇) and Sanqing (三清乡), speak a north-east Jiangxi form of Minnan, and their speakers are descended from people of Quanzhou (泉州) in Fujian.

History

A county was carved out of neighbouring districts in 695 under the name Wu'an, after Wu'an Mountain (武安山), and was renamed Yushan in 705 after Mount Huaiyu. At the end of the Yuan it belonged to Guangxin prefecture (广信府) under Jiangzhe province (江浙行省), and in 1371 it moved with Guangxin to Jiangxi because grain transport was difficult. During the first civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists, its north-western hills formed part of the north-east Jiangxi revolutionary base.

What to see

The Yushan examination hall (玉山考棚), in Bingxi subdistrict (冰溪街道) where the county government sits, is a Qing hall for the imperial examinations; with Nanjing's Jiangnan Examination Hall it is one of only two left south of the Yangtze. First built in 1792, rebuilt in 1838 and restored in 1867, it has four grey-brick blocks holding 100 cells in two rows, either side of a 100-metre walk paved with stone slabs and pebbles. It and the Hu clan hall of Guanxi (官溪胡氏宗祠) at Xianyan town (仙岩镇) became national key heritage sites in 2019. At Huaiyu township (怀玉乡) provincially listed sites mark where the revolutionary Fang Zhimin (方志敏) was captured and held, and the trenches of the Red Army's Anti-Japanese Vanguard. Other provincial sites in Bingxi are the tomb of Yan Liben (阎立本墓) at the north foot of Wu'an Mountain, the east gate of the city wall, Hong Garden (玉山鸿园) inside Yushan No. 1 Middle School and Wencheng Pagoda (文成塔).

Getting oriented

Yushan is about 290 km east of Nanchang and 354 km from Hangzhou. Yushan station is on the Shanghai–Kunming railway and Yushan South station on the Shanghai–Kunming high-speed line; the Shanghai–Kunming and Dexing–Shangrao expressways and national road 320 cross the county.

Highlights

• Yushan examination hall 玉山考棚: Qing examination hall of 100 cells, first built 1792; national key heritage site since 2019.
• Guanxi Hu clan hall 官溪胡氏宗祠: Clan hall with a Wenchang pavilion at Xianyan town; national key heritage site since 2019.
• Fang Zhimin capture and detention sites 方志敏烈士被俘地、关押地旧址: Provincial heritage sites at Huaiyu township, listed in 2018.
• Mount Sanqing 三清山: World Natural Heritage site for its granite landforms; its old buildings are a national key heritage site.