Ancient City Museum – The Chen Baozhen Family

　　The Ancient City Museum – The Chen Baozhen Family is situated within Fenghuang Ancient Town and serves as yet another cultural landmark of the historic town. The site was originally part of the provincial governor’s yamen during the Qing Dynasty's Guangxu era, where three generations of the Chen Baozhen family once lived.

　　The Fenghuang Ancient Town Museum – The Chen Baozhen Family also displays historical cultural relics, personal belongings, photographs, images, documents, writings, and other materials donated to the museum by descendants of the Chen Baozhen family. These exhibits showcase the deep connections these esteemed figures had with Fenghuang and their remarkable life stories...

　　The museum currently houses over 500 types of mineral specimens and paleontological fossils dating back hundreds of millions of years. Through a three-dimensional sand table and bilingual (Chinese–English) displays, modern high-tech methods such as electricity, light, and sound are used to vividly present the geological features of the Fenghuang National Geopark. These displays bring to life the processes of Earth’s evolution, rock layer formation, and biological development in an engaging and visual manner.

　　Fun Fact: Chen Baozhen (1831–1900), whose original name was Chen Guanshan and courtesy name Youming, later referred to himself in his later years as the “Four-Awakened Elder.” He served as the Governor of Hunan and was a prominent figure among the late Qing reformists. In the autumn of 1898 (the 24th year of the Guangxu reign), when Empress Dowager Cixi launched the coup to end the Hundred Days' Reform, she imprisoned Emperor Guangxu, abolished the reform policies, and executed the Six Gentlemen. Because Chen Baozhen had recommended key reform figures such as Yang Rui and Liu Guangdi, he was accused of “recklessly recommending traitors” and was “immediately dismissed from office, never to be reinstated.” His son, Chen Sanli, was also dismissed on charges of “attracting heretical elements,” among others.

　　Admission is now free.