Last year, when I traveled the Eight Passes of the Taihang Mountains, I followed the common interpretation that regarded the Puyin Pass as the Zijing Pass, connecting the latter section of the Feihu Pass—that is, the Juma Trail from Laiyuan to Zijing Pass to Yixian—as the Puyin Pass. But upon further historical research afterward, I discovered that there was indeed a Puyin County in history. It was established as Wangdu during the Eastern Han Dynasty and as Qizhou during the Northern Song Dynasty, which is present-day Anguo City. Both Wangdu and Anguo are located southwest of Baoding, and from the Lingqiu area of the Taihang Mountains in Shanxi, there is also the Shuikou–Tanghe route. By following the Tanghe River southwestward, you can reach the area around Wangdu. Therefore, the Puyin Pass should actually be the Tanghe River route, leading along the Tanghe to Puyin, which is the southern part of the North China Plain around Baoding.
According to the concept of a passageway, where there is a passageway, there must be a mountain pass.The mountain pass along the Tanghe route should be located at the narrowest and most treacherous point of the Tanghe River.
After agonizing over it for nearly half a year, I decided to take a solo trip along the Tanghe route during the Qingming holiday to complete my exploration of all the Eight Passes of the Taihang Mountains.
Hebei has now been largely highway-ized. I had originally planned to take provincial roads out of Baoding, but road construction was everywhere, and my GPS redirected me back to the highway, so I ended up in Shunping County.
Shunping is known as the hometown of Emperor Yao, and it’s said to have the ruins of a Temple of Yao. I had wanted to visit it, but after arriving in this small county town and asking many locals, no one seemed to have heard of such a place, so I had to give up on the idea.
Shunping is a small county town with a rather disorderly streetscape, but I did notice a newly built memorial archway inscribed with the words “Forever Bathed in the Spirit of Yao.”
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Leaving Shunping, I took a rural road that cut through to Dabeixiang and entered the Tanghe River area.
Although spring hadn’t truly arrived yet, the scenery along the rural road was still quite beautiful.
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When I reached the banks of the Tanghe River, I was astonished by its beauty. Compared to the Juma River, the Tanghe is gentle and graceful, with a poetic charm reminiscent of the hundred-mile painting-like section of the Baihe River. The mountains along the Tanghe are also uniquely picturesque.
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Starting from Dabeixiang, Provincial Highway 332 follows the Taihang Mountains and runs alongside the western bank of the Tanghe River.
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The beauty of the Tanghe River kept captivating me, and I found myself stopping from time to time to take photos.
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Traveling westward along the Tanghe, the natural destination is the ancient mountain passes. The most well-documented among them is the Daoma Pass. There should have been other passes as well, such as the upper pass of Daoma and the mountain passes southeast of Lingqiu, but these may have been more severely damaged, making it difficult to find relevant information.
In its heyday, the Daoma Pass was an extremely important strategic checkpoint, guarding a vital inland pass and even rivaling the fame of the Zijing Pass.
The ancient city of Daoma Pass is now a small rural village. Judging from the remaining broken walls, the city once had gateway towers on both the eastern and western sides. It was protected to the south by the natural defenses of the Taihang Mountains and to the north by the surging Tanghe River, which also served as a defensive barrier. A protective wall was built along the river to fortify the pass, making it an extremely secure stronghold. According to local villagers, in the past, once the gate was closed, not even a massive army could breach the pass. The remaining base of the ancient walls is still about 5-6 meters thick, giving us an idea of just how tightly fortified the pass once was. Photos showing the remnants of the ancient eastern and western gateway towers, the riverside walls, and the natural mountain defenses are displayed in sequence.
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