Mawang Bridge

Mawang Bridge

Mawang Bridge, also known as Tongji Bridge, is located outside the southern gate of the county town, spanning the Yixi River. It is a single-arch bridge made of blue stone. Originally built during the Tianfu era of the Later Jin Dynasty in the Five Dynasties period by the Chu King Ma’s troops stationed in Jingzhou, it later came to be called "Mawang Bridge." It has a history of over 1,000 years. According to the Qing Dynasty’s Guangxu-era *Jingzhou Direct-Controlled Prefecture Records*: "On the third day of the fifth month in the 19th year of Qianlong (1754), flooding occurred at Jiulong Mountain, causing extensive collapses in the southwest region, and Mawang Bridge was washed away." It was later restored. In the 4th year of the Republic of China (1915), when the Yixi River experienced a sudden flood surge, the bridge’s arch was broken by the rushing waters but was subsequently repaired to its original design. On July 1, 1966, when Jing County was hit by torrential rains with 384.1 mm of precipitation, the Shichong and Feishan reservoirs burst, and while some of the stone parapets on the bridge deck were washed away, the main structure of the bridge remained solid and undamaged.

The bridge is 31 meters long, 5.4 meters wide, 8 meters high, and has a span of 14 meters. The entire structure is built with standardized blue stones. On the upstream side, two fan-shaped stone retaining walls, each 3 meters high and 6.4 meters wide, were constructed along the arch foundations. The bridge is equipped with a stone parapet wall that is 1 meter high, 0.35 meters thick, and topped with a prism-like design, offering both safety and an elegant aesthetic. The bridge deck is paved with blue stone slabs in a turtle-back pattern, and both sides are carved with drainage grooves approximately 30 cm wide and 10 cm deep to channel rainwater off the bridge surface. The design embodies the traditional structural style of China’s stone arch bridges.

Source: Jingzhou History and Chronicles Office