Shangzhi Stele Forest

Shangzhi Stele Forest

Shangzhi Stele Forest is a cultural heritage conservation unit of Heilongjiang Province.

The full name of Shangzhi Stele Forest is the Shangzhi City Culture and Art Stele Forest. It covers an area of 32,000 square meters, with a building area of 2,200 square meters. Established in 1999, it has received a total investment of 10 million yuan and can accommodate 65,000 visitors annually. A newly built "Thousand Dragons Wall" calligraphy corridor was added.

Shangzhi Stele Forest consists of two major parts: one part is a stele corridor about 600 meters long, and the other part is a ground-level stele forest. Together, the two sections house over 1,400 stone tablets. The stele walls are built in an antique architectural style, with an average height of over 4.5 meters. The central arched section reaches up to 5 meters high, and the total length is 660 meters, making it the highest and longest stele wall in China. The individual steles are over 2 meters tall, and each stele, along with its stone base, weighs more than 2,000 kilograms.

In terms of content, the stele forest breaks away from the traditional construction norms of stele forests in China, forging a unique path by ingeniously dividing the entire site into three sections: "Pearl River Sentiments," "The Origin of Calligraphy," and "Timeless National Treasures."

The first section, “Pearl River Sentiments,” comprises 41 stone tablets, featuring inscriptions and poems by Chinese Communist Party and state leaders such as [names omitted] dedicated to the anti-Japanese national heroes Zhao Shangzhi and Zhao Yiman. It also includes inscriptions from veterans of the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army such as Han Guang, Feng Zhongyun, and Chen Lei, as well as stirring patriotic poems by martyrs Zhao Shangzhi and Zhao Yiman. The second section, “The Origin of Calligraphy,” contains 42 stone tablets that showcase classic works from the history of Chinese calligraphy, illustrating the evolution and development of this great art form. The third section, “Timeless National Treasures,” selects representative masterpieces from various dynasties according to the development timeline of Chinese calligraphy art, all meticulously replicated and carved. Literary masterpieces such as "The First and Second Memorial on Dispatching Troops," "The First and Second Red Cliff Odes," "Thousand Character Classic," "Ode to the Goddess of Luo," and "Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion" are fully engraved on the steles at Shangzhi Stele Forest.

The stele corridor features antique-style architecture. The inscriptions on the walls are exquisitely carved, with a bold and expansive layout, perfectly showcasing the artistry of traditional Chinese calligraphy. Shangzhi Stele Forest boasts the world’s largest echo wall for calligraphy art. This echo wall is part of the 660-meter stele corridor and is 84 meters long. It features a perfectly circular arc design, producing a distinctive echo effect.

Shangzhi Stele Forest is home to the world’s largest carved stone seal, the “Nine Dragons Seal.” Approved as the world's largest by the Guinness World Records headquarters on December 1, 2001, the seal consists of a 50.39-ton seal block and a 20-ton base. It measures 2.59 meters in length, 2.55 meters in width, and 3.15 meters in height. The seal inscription “Nine Regions Soaring Dragon” was designed by Qi Zhan Yi, the direct grandson of the famous Chinese painter and calligrapher Qi Baishi, representing the highest level of Chinese seal engraving art. The great seal has been hailed by Liu Jiang, a renowned Chinese seal carver and vice president of the Xiling Seal Art Society, as “the world’s largest seal.” The “World’s Largest Brush” is also a unique highlight of Shangzhi Stele Forest.