Yingtan Waterfall

Yingtan Waterfall

Yingtan Waterfall

The Zhaotan Flat Lake in Penghua Xia’ao is as smooth as a mirror, and a silver waterfall pours down from the lake outlet dam to the lower river — this is the “Yingtan Waterfall.” Its grandeur and thunderous roar are both a visual delight and a heart-stirring spectacle. In the lake, a rocky hill rises abruptly from the river, with a strange rock on its peak shaped like an eagle’s beak protruding over the cliff by the water. A natural giant eagle thus stands vividly in the lake, guarding the water pass of Penghua Mountain’s Xia’ao. It also gives rise to extraordinary myths and history. This is the “Eagle Beak Rock.” In fact, legend has it that it is the incarnation of the great roc.

It is said that in the past, the Zhaotan under Eagle Rock was unfathomably deep, with a cave at the bottom connecting to the Guyong Shoal of the Xijiang River. It was also said that sunken ships swallowed by Guyong Shoal had once floated up in Zhaotan.

The history of Eagle Rock is even more extraordinary. Since ancient times, there was only one path through Xia’ao, and as long as someone guarded Eagle Rock, it was truly “a single brave man can hold off ten thousand.” It is said that during the Daxiao Valley Yao people’s uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty, government troops suffered a defeat while pursuing the Yao rebels here; during the “Huazhou Uprising” of the Taiping Rebellion, Qing soldiers and Taiping troops also fought battles for control here; when the Japanese invaded, they dared not advance upon seeing Eagle Rock, their war horses neighed and refused to move forward, forcing them to retreat in haste. Coupled with the liberation and bandit suppression campaigns, Eagle Rock has always been a strategic military location.

No one will forget that in the early years of liberation, the 461st Regiment of the 153rd Division of the People’s Liberation Army engaged in fierce battles with bandits around Eagle Rock while suppressing the remaining bandits in Penghua. As the bandits had seized the Eagle Rock stronghold in advance, the PLA was forced to retreat into the “Anchong” dead end. After a day and night of intense fighting, of the over 200 soldiers in three companies of the 461st Regiment, apart from some who broke through, more than 150 were either killed by falling off the cliff or died in battle — not a single one surrendered. The scene was extremely tragic and moving. This was the nationwide shocking “Danmu Battle.” Regarding this, an old comrade who later worked in Pengshan wrote a poem titled “Entering Pengshan”: “Back then we entered Pengshan together, / Along winding paths amid clouds and mist; / Pointing to the dark pines and cypresses, / Where heroes shed blood stains.”