An Castle

An Castle

An Castle is a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Anhui Province.

An Castle is located on a hill in Houhe Village, Zhongxin Township, about 20 kilometers east of Taihu County.

It was formerly known as Qingcheng County, Shangge City, and Le Castle. The fortress is said to have been first built by Cao Ren, a renowned general of the Three Kingdoms period. The Qing-era *Taihu County Annals* states: “Qingcheng County, located forty li to the east of the county, was originally built by the Wei general Cao Ren.” During the Wude era of the Tang Dynasty, Qingcheng County was established here, and by the Ming and Qing periods, it was renamed Shangge City. The *Shici Stele Inscription* from the first year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1736), which still exists within the castle, records: “My late grandfather Longhua, during the turbulent times of the late Ming Dynasty, moved his residence to this city… It came to be called Le Castle, though Shangge City remains its former name.”

An Castle is situated atop a mountain ridge, enjoying a commanding and steep position that is easy to defend but hard to attack. To this day, many remnants of military camps can still be found near the castle. Having endured over a thousand years of rise and decline, the castle’s overall structure remains largely intact. The walls were originally built from rammed earth and later faced with bluish-gray large bricks, stretching over 1.5 kilometers in circumference. The ancient city had four gates: the West Gate, South Gate, North Gate, and Great West Gate, all of which were arched brick gateways. Currently, only the city walls and the stone-paved paths inside the city remain, along with a 3-meter-high, 1.2-meter-wide *Shici Stele Inscription*, engraved with over 700 characters, serving as an important testament to the city's historical evolution.