Longfeng Mountain Scenic Area

Longfeng Mountain Scenic Area

Longfeng Mountain is the collective name for Dragon Head Mountain and Phoenix Crying Mountain, located southeast of Linzhou City and adjacent to the urban area. Before 1992, this was a desolate place, with only a teachers' college, a martyrs' cemetery, and a breeding farm as the main structures. With the reform and opening up and the flourishing of all industries, in 1992, the Lin County Party Committee and County Government placed the construction of the Longfeng Mountain Scenic Area on their agenda and assigned Deputy County Magistrate Shen Fusheng to oversee the project. After five years of hard work, the Longfeng Mountain Scenic Area was presented to the world in a brand-new look.

The Legend of Dragon Head Mountain

In ancient times, Lin County was once an ocean, and Dragon Head Mountain was originally a dragon in the sea. Due to geological changes, Lin County transformed from sea to land, becoming dry and lacking water. This dragon, unable to drink water, lay exhausted there and slept in a daze for hundreds of millions of years. By the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty, an enlightened county magistrate named Xie Sicong arrived in Linlu. He was from Ziyang County, Hebei Province, and advocated for the development of water conservancy to solve the difficulties of drinking water for people and livestock. He built a large reservoir at the southern gate of the county town, naming it Fumin Pool, which people also called Xie’s Pool. He also successively dug the Hongshan Canal, directing spring water from Fanshan into Anqin, and the Taoyuan Canal, channeling water into Fumin Pool. The clear, rippling water was sweet and inexhaustible, bringing joy to the local people.

The dragon of Dragon Head Mountain, which had gone without water for many years, wanted to lower its head to drink from Fumin Pool once water became available. It is said that if this dragon drank from the pool, Lin County would enjoy abundant harvests, long life, and prosperity, and would even produce as many officials as a bushel of sesame seeds. At that time, a foreign missionary discovered this secret, and jealousy arose within him: if Eastern culture flourished, how could Western culture continue to deceive the Chinese? He conceived a plan to suppress the dragon with a pagoda so it could no longer move. But as he was not a local, he could not directly build the pagoda. So, he summoned the then-county magistrate at the ancient temple on Dragon Head Mountain, engaged in mystification, spoke of feng shui, used reverse psychology, and deceived the magistrate by claiming: “The Taihang Mountains to the west of the city are like a tiger, and this mountain, though low, is called Dragon Head Mountain. A battle between dragon and tiger will surely lead to one’s defeat—the little dragon will definitely lose to the big tiger. The feng shui and land veins determine that whoever becomes county magistrate here will have a hard time.” When the magistrate asked for advice on balancing the land’s energy, the foreigner said: “Build a pagoda on this mountain to suppress the dragon’s head and keep it still. Avoid the battle between dragon and tiger, and you will have everlasting peace.” The magistrate, finding the solution simple, readily agreed. Since then, a pagoda was built on Dragon Head Mountain. The dragon never got to drink the precious water from the pool, the feng shui vein that could have produced a bushel of sesame-seed officials in Lin County was disrupted, and instead, it became a place that produced a bushel of sesame-seed craftsmen—tens of thousands of construction workers leave the Taihang Mountains every year to work in the capital and across the country. What could have been a land of officials became a land of builders.