Yizhou Ancient City Cave

Yizhou Ancient City Cave

Yizhou Ancient City Cave is a cultural tourism attraction.

Introduction   　

　   Located about 3 kilometers north of Yizhou City in the rear of Miancun Village, it was built in 1255. Surrounded by mountains with steep cliffs on all sides, the site is fortified like iron on all fronts, capable of housing ten thousand cooking stoves inside and controlling a strategic throat pass outside. It is impregnable and extraordinarily treacherous, hence nicknamed “Iron City,” and later known as Ancient City Cave.

The Ancient City Cave is divided into an inner city and an outer city. On the cliff faces at both ends of the inner city wall, there is an inscribed stele on each. The one on the eastern cliff is the “Record of the Iron City,” standing 300 cm tall and 195 cm wide, engraved in the same year the city was built. This stele mainly documents the construction process of the Iron City. The one on the western cliff is the “Ode to the Iron City,” measuring 359 cm in height and 230 cm in width, engraved in March of the year following the completion of the Iron City. It was composed by local people to praise the achievements of Yun Gong in building the city. On the eastern mountainside there is a cave, with the four large characters “Purple Mist Cave Abode” carved above its entrance. Other sites include the Gold and Silver Caves, the Cool Breeze Cave, and the “Flying Spring Stone Well.” To the east of the outer ancient city lies Ma’an Village. At the eastern foot of Moma’an Mountain stands the “Song Immortal Temple,” and on the mountainside behind the temple is a stone stele engraved with a landscape-praising poem by Wei Zhen, a Ming Dynasty military commander.

Guangxi Hechi City