Suizhong County 绥中县

Setting and landscape

China.com.cn places the county between the Liugu River (六股河), which separates it from Xingcheng (兴城) to the east, and the Bohai Sea to the south. To the west it meets Shanhaiguan in Qinhuangdao (秦皇岛); to the north it backs onto the last spurs of the Yan Mountains (燕山) and borders Jianchang County (建昌县). The same profile says the county's coastal areas are set aside for seaside tourism.

History

The area was once called Xinglin Fort (杏林堡). In 1428 the Ming made it the Zhonghou garrison post (中后所) of Guangning Qiantun Guard, and the Qing kept the name Zhonghousuo. In 1900 Russian troops arriving by train occupied Zhonghousuo and neighbouring garrison towns. The Ningyuan prefect, Zhao Chenyi (赵臣翼), then petitioned for a new county, saying the territory was too wide to govern, and the Qing court approved it in June 1902; the name joins sui, "to pacify", with the first syllable of Zhonghousuo. Suizhong is also the home town of Yang Liwei (杨利伟), China's first astronaut.

What to see

Jiumenkou (九门口), on the border with Qinhuangdao at Xinpuzi village (新堡子村), carries the Great Wall across a seasonal river. The wall here is 110 metres long, 23 metres wide and 10 metres high, pierced by nine arched gates with double timber doors that were shut in the dry season and opened to let floods pass; because the riverbed beneath was paved with fitted stone slabs, it is also called Yipianshi Pass (一片石关). It became a national key protected site in 1996, and the Liaoning government calls it the only stretch of the Great Wall built over water.

The Jiangnüshi site (姜女石遗址) at Zhimao Bay (止锚湾) in Wanjia (万家) is a Qin to early Western Han palace complex found in 1982 and spread over about 14 square kilometres of shore. Its main building, the Jieshi Palace (碣石宫), stands near the shore, and the south end of its axis faces three sea stacks called Jiangnü's Tomb (姜女坟), linked by legend to Meng Jiangnü (孟姜女) and identified by scholars with the Jieshi of the Qin-Han records. It has been a national key protected site since 1988.

The provincial government lists a 215-kilometre mountain-and-Great-Wall tourist road running from an ocean park at Dongdaihe (东戴河) to Fanjia (范家), linking the Jieshi Palace site, Jiumenkou, the Great Wall museum, the Zhuizishan (锥子山) Great Wall and the twin pagodas at Tazigou (塔子沟).

Highlights

• Jiumenkou Great Wall 九门口长城: Nine-arched section of the Wall across a seasonal river, a national key protected site since 1996.
• Jiangnüshi site 姜女石遗址: Qin to early Han seaside palace complex at Zhimao Bay, facing the Jiangnü's Tomb sea stacks.
• Zhuizishan Great Wall 锥子山长城: Great Wall section on Suizhong's 215-kilometre mountain-and-Great-Wall tourist road.