Ancient Qin City

Ancient Qin City

Ancient Qin City is located in Chengkou Town, 38 kilometers north of Renhua County, situated at the strategic pass between Hunan and Guangdong. The ancient city stretches from Bajiaoting in Chengqun Village in the east, to Enxi Creek (Chengkou West Creek) in the south, to Old Salt Street in the west, and to Sanjiaoping in the north.

The *Renhua County Annals* from the Ming Dynasty's Jiajing era record: The ancient city is located 130 li north of the county in Kangxi District, built by Zhao Tuo, the magistrate of Longchuan at the end of the Qin Dynasty. The ancient city walls have now been destroyed. The western gate tower, rebuilt during the Qing Dynasty, remains in good condition. It stands 6.2 meters tall, 5.4 meters wide, and 7.62 meters deep, oriented 337 degrees east-west, and is constructed with blue bricks and lime sand. The western gate tower has two gates, front and back. The front gate connects to an ancient road leading to Rucheng County in Hunan Province, while the back gate leads into the city. The streets inside the city are about 5 meters wide, and the gate is built with gray stone slabs. Above the lintel of the front gate is a horizontal red sedimentary rock plaque, 40 cm high and 120 cm wide. In the center, the three characters “Ancient Qin City” are engraved in regular script relief, each character measuring 25×30 cm. In the upper right corner is inscribed “1796, Mid-Winter, Auspicious Day of the First Year of the Jiaqing Reign,” and in the lower left corner is “Renovated Jointly by the Local Community.” It was designated as a county-level cultural relics protection unit in 1982.