Huangping Taiping Cave

Huangping Taiping Cave

Taiping Cave

Known among the Miao people as "Gajialüewang," Taiping Cave in Huangping County, Guizhou Province, is located beside the highway from Huangping to Guliu Town, in Shanping Village, Guliu Town, below the site of the Huangpiao Victory (at the foot of Jiguan Slope in Tuancang Village), 1.5 kilometers from the Huangpiao Victory site and about 15 kilometers from the county seat. Taiping Cave is a massive natural karst cave, stretching 3 kilometers in length, with chambers within chambers, branching tunnels, and multiple ventilation openings. Several hundred meters from the cave entrance, on the cliffs of Xishan Mountain, lies a large terrace whose base is a cave capable of holding hundreds of people. This was where Miao rebel forces held out, cooking their meals. The location is strategically elevated and treacherous, and the rebels set up a watchtower here specifically to monitor the enemy.

The main entrance of Taiping Cave is 30 meters high and about 10 meters wide. To the right of the entrance is a smaller opening used as the access point, approximately 30 meters high and only about 2 meters wide. The rebels once set up a watchtower at the cave entrance to keep watch over the enemy. Lush trees and beautiful scenery surround both cave entrances, and a waterfall cascades from the main entrance.

During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi reigns of the Qing Dynasty, after Miao rebel general Bao Dadu ambushed and annihilated over 18,000 Hunan troops of the Qing army in the Tuancang Rock Gorge of Huangpiao, the Qing forces assembled six battalions to sweep through the Miao villages around Huangpiao, burning many of them. Over a thousand Miao rebel soldiers from Huangpiao, Tuancang, Wengyong, Baibao, Mengjia, Lisanzhai, Huangmao, Yanying, Guliu, and Xijiang took refuge in the cave to evade and engage with the Qing army. When the Qing forces approached, the rebels hid inside the cave; when the Qing army withdrew, they came out to farm and waited for orders to strike, engaging the enemy in this way for five years. They successfully repelled multiple Qing attacks, including attempts to smoke them out and bombard the cave. The Qing army, unable to capture the cave after prolonged efforts and suffering no rebel casualties, was ultimately forced into a humiliating retreat. People cheered, “Peace has come!”—hence the name “Taiping Cave” (Peaceful Cave).

Later, in March of the ninth year of the Tongzhi era (1870), the cave was captured by Tang Jong’s Sichuan-based Qing forces. In 1982, it was designated as a county-level cultural heritage protection site.