Ancient Plank Roads

　　    Plank roads were a type of pathway in ancient China, carved into cliffs and steep mountainsides with holes drilled for bridges and corridors. They also served as vital military transport routes. The construction was extremely arduous and the paths perilous, representing a marvel in the history of ancient Chinese transportation. As recorded in Strategies of the Warring States · Qin, "Plank roads stretched thousands of li across Shu and Han." The plank roads between Sichuan and Shaanxi were first built during the Warring States period and expanded during the Qin and Han dynasties. Due to the ravages of ancient warfare and two thousand years of erosion, traces of the ancient roads remain, evoking deep emotion.

　　    Nowadays, reconstructed sections of ancient-style plank roads have been built on the original sites. Visitors walking along them can not only enjoy the beautiful landscape but also reflect on the vicissitudes of a thousand years of history.

　　Major Plank Road Sections —

　　    The Ziwu Trail, also called the Ziwu Valley. Its northern mouth is in Chang’an County, known as the Zikou; the southern mouth is in Yang County, known as the Wukou, with a total length of 420 kilometers. After the Hongmen Banquet, Liu Bang was demoted by Xiang Yu to the Bashu region to serve as the King of Han, and he returned to Hanzhong via the Ziwu Trail. Along the way, upon the advice of Zhang Liang, he burned the plank roads behind him to prevent an attack from Xiang Yu in the south, while also ensuring that Xiang Yu would not suspect his eventual move northward. Along the Ziwu Trail are the Tomb Temple of Cai Lun and the Memorial Hall of Zhang Qian.

　　    The Baoshé Trail, with its southern mouth in the Baogu Valley north of Hanzhong and its northern mouth in the Xiégǔ Valley of Meixian County, commonly referred to as the Baoshé Valley, has a total length of 470 kilometers. The southern end of the plank road is called the Xiaoshimen, and the northern end is called the Dashimen. Since the Warring States period, people had been carving through rocks and erecting wooden trestles in the valley to construct plank roads. Successive dynasties continued the work, expanding and repairing the roads multiple times, which later came to be known as the "Baoshé Trail." Emperor Wu of Han greatly expanded and renovated 250 kilometers of the Baoshé Trail, leading to the flourishing era described as "plank roads stretching a thousand li, connecting all places." At that time, the method used to cut through the mountain rocks was not iron tools or gunpowder, but the primitive "fire-burning and water-shocking" technique. The inner walls of tunnels and the cliffs along both sides of the Ba River south of the Stone Gate bear inscriptions and poems by famous figures and literati from the Han and Wei dynasties onward, collectively known as the "Stone Gate Inscriptions." In 1971, with the construction of the Shimen Reservoir, 170,000 cubic meters of major stone inscriptions were relocated and preserved in the Hanzhong Museum.

　　    The Jinniu Trail, also called the Shu Plank Road, was an ancient transportation artery between Sichuan and Shaanxi, starting in Mian County in southern Shaanxi and extending to Dajiankou Pass in Bazhong, Sichuan. The section from Guangyuan in northern Sichuan to Ningqiang in southern Shaanxi is particularly rugged. The line praised by poet Li Bai, "The road to Shu is hard, harder than scaling the blue sky," refers to this very stretch.

　　    The Chencang Trail, starting in Chencang of Baoji in the north and ending in Mian County of Hanzhong in the south.

　　 Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province