Tusi City Ruins

　　Also known as Wanquan Cave. Located on the cliff of Pingshan on the north bank of Lou River, about 8 kilometers northeast of Hefeng County. It faces a sheer cliff across the river, over a hundred meters above the water surface, accessible only via a rugged mountain path. So steep and narrow that it can be held against a multitude. In the past, Tian Shunian, the Tusi chieftain of the Rongmei area, carried out extensive construction here. At the cave entrance are stone gates and walls, with an inner depth of about 70 meters — “capable of holding a thousand people, featuring the Moon-Embracing Pavilion on the left and the Sun-Receiving Pavilion on the right, with the Great Bodhisattva Pavilion in the center.” Further inside lies the “Weibo Tower,” where statues and plaques were erected in honor of ancestors such as Tian Hongzheng, the Weibo Military Governor and an early forebear of the Rongmei chieftains. When the Qing literatus Gu Cai visited, Tian Shunian “held music performances and incense offerings,” “organized poetry gatherings,” and “ordered stonemasons to polish a mirror-like flat rock on the cliff face and inscribe it with pearls of verse.” The last Tusi chieftain, Tian Mingru, used this stronghold to resist the Qing government’s “abolition of native chieftainships and establishment of direct governance” (Gaitu Guiliu), but was defeated and fell in the 11th year of the Yongzheng reign (1733).