Pingding County 平定县

What to see

Niangziguan, 45 km northeast of the county town, is a Great Wall pass known as the "ninth pass under heaven"; it was first called Weize Pass (苇泽关). The county culture and tourism bureau links the later name to Princess Pingyang (平阳公主), sister of Li Shimin, who held the pass with her women's army, or to a shrine to the sister of Jie Zitui (介子推). The present fort was built in 1542, in the Jiajing reign of the Ming. Its east gate is inscribed "直隶娘子关" (Niangziguan of Zhili); the south gate, built of blue stone, carries the Sujiang Tower (宿将楼) and opens onto a stone-paved cart road of nearly 100 metres. Inside the 650-metre wall are a Guandi temple, a Zhenwu pavilion and houses whose residents largely descend from Ming and Qing carters. About 300 metres from the east gate a waterfall drops down a cliff, and the Mian River (绵河) runs past stone houses and bridges.

Guguan Great Wall is a national 3A scenic area whose wall runs north to south for 20 km. The bureau writes that the pass was moved about ten li west of the old site at Jiuguan village (旧关村), which proved hard to defend, and rebuilt in the Jiajing reign; it counts it among the Taihang Eight Passes (太行八陉).

The county also has four nationally protected monuments: the Guanshan (冠山) twin pagodas of Tianning Temple (天宁寺双塔), Guanshan Academy (冠山书院), the Kaihe Temple grottoes (开河寺石窟) and Machiyan Temple (马齿岩寺). The twin pagodas are octagonal, storeyed towers on a raised earth bank in the south gate quarter of the county town.

History

In the Warring States period the area belonged to Zhao and was called Shangai (上艾). In 979 the Song emperor Taizong renamed Guangyang County as Pingding and moved its seat 40 km to the old Yuguan walled town (榆关城), now the upper town of the county seat. From 1724 Pingding was a directly administered Qing prefecture; it became a county again in 1912 and came under Yangquan in 1983. The writer Shi Pingmei (石评梅) was born in Xiaohe village (小河村), and her former home is provincially protected.

Getting oriented

The county town lies 9 km from central Yangquan and 127 km from central Taiyuan (太原). The Qingdao–Yinchuan Expressway and national roads 307 and 207 cross the county. Local products of the county include Pingding sand-pottery (平定砂货) and dried cucumber (黄瓜干).

Highlights

• Niangziguan 娘子关: Great Wall pass 45 km northeast of the county town; the present fort dates from the Jiajing reign of the Ming.
• Guguan Great Wall 固关长城: National 3A scenic area; 20 km of wall running north to south, rebuilt in the Jiajing reign.
• Twin pagodas of Tianning Temple 天宁寺双塔: Nationally protected pair of octagonal storeyed pagodas in the south gate quarter of the county town.
• Pingding sand-pottery 平定砂货: Listed as a local product of the county.