Beautiful Farming and Reading Scenic Area

Beautiful Farming and Reading Scenic Area

The Beautiful Farming and Reading Scenic Area is a national AAA-level tourist attraction.

The Beautiful Farming and Reading Scenic Area is located in Gengdu Village, Hezhen Town, Jiangshan City, in the western part of Jiangshan. It lies at the junction of Hezhen, Tanshi, and Daqiao towns, covering an area of 3.52 square kilometers. The scenic area consists of the natural villages of Gengdu at Hutangling and Dashishandi at the foot of Dashishan Mountain. It is a Zhejiang Provincial Greening Demonstration Village, a Zhejiang Provincial Forest Village, and a Quzhou Municipal Comprehensive Well-off Construction Demonstration Village. It is also a national 3A-level scenic area.

The natural village of Gengdu can be traced back to the late Yuan Dynasty, boasting a history of seven to eight hundred years. On a small hill northeast of Hutang Reservoir, archaeological excavations have uncovered a Western Zhou cultural site. Legend has it that Gengdu was originally called Gangtou. Due to generations of ancestors valuing the tradition of farming and reading, a scholar from the late Qing period proposed changing the village name from Gangtou to Gengdu. In the northwest corner of the village stands the Kanghuang Hall, built during the Southern Song Dynasty. On the 22nd day of the seventh lunar month each year, the Kanghuang Temple Fair is held, attracting tens of thousands of worshippers and pilgrims from Changshan, Kaihua, and Yushan in Jiangxi. The village is home to more than ten ancient trees under first-, second-, and third-level protection, including camphor and maple trees. Many myths and legends are still passed down in Gengdu, such as “Kanghuang Saves Lives,” “The Filial Son of Hutang,” “Immortals Playing Chess,” “The Azure Dragon Emerges from the Mountain,” and “Five Bowls of Offering.”

To the west, the scenic area backs onto Dashishan Mountain, the watershed between the Qiantang River system in Zhejiang and the Gan River system in Jiangxi. Dashishan Mountain, with an elevation of 300 meters, is located in western Jiangshan and serves as a natural barrier for Gengdu Village. From the top of Dashishan, one can see the mountains of Yushan County, Jiangxi Province, to the west, and the Tiger Mountain in downtown Jiangshan, over thirty li away, to the east. To this day, Dashishan Mountain still features the Chessboard Stone where immortals supposedly played Go, the Dragon Cave (a limestone karst cave), and a spring-fed pool. The scenic area’s eastern gate leads to Hutang Lake, which has a water storage capacity of 230,000 cubic meters and a surface area of 80,000 square meters.

Source: Quzhou Municipal Bureau of Tourism