“The Third City of Overlord” in “Peach Blossom Spring”. This article is from the WeChat public account:Authentic Style (ID: dialaofengwu), author : Zheng Li, Picture Editor: DC Zhang, Map Editor: F50BB, Head Picture from: Original Picture (Photography/Chen Jiji)
▲ The scenery of Yuanjiang Water Village in Changde. Photography/Chen Nixie
“In the Taiyuan of the Jin Dynasty, the people of Wuling made fishing. They walked along the river and forgot the distance of the road. Suddenly every peach blossom forest…”
When you walk around the streets of Changde, Hunan, and are obsessed with Changde rice noodles, you must remember this “Peach Blossom Spring” in the middle school Chinese textbook.
More than 1600 years ago, Tao Yuanming, a native of Jiangxi, made up a fictional story that took place in Wuling—now Changde, Hunan. In the story, the Wuling fisherman walked through a small mouth into the “Peach Blossom Spring” that fascinated the future generations. “The beginning is very narrow and talented. After walking for dozens of steps, he suddenly opens up.”
▲ From top to bottom: Taohuayuan Wuliu Lake, Taohua Mountain and camping base. Picture 1, 2 photography/commercial, picture 3 photography/Chen Minji
1. “Meteorological Rivers and Mountains” in “Peach Blossom Spring”
Changde is located in the northern part of Hunan, east of Dongting, west of Qianchuan, south of Yiyang, north of Jingxiang. The special geographical location makes Changde an important city connecting the central and southwestern regions since ancient times.
▲ Overview of the topography of Changde City. Draw/F50BB
And the “three-point hills, two-half hills, four-half plains and water surface” landform, makes Changde’s “beautiful appearance” not inferior to the famous Xiangxi.
It can be said that the mountains and rivers have shaped Changde.
1. “Roof of Hunan” in Changde
About 570 million years ago, under the influence of the Caledonian movement, the ancient land of the Yangtze River brought the Wuling Mountains to the sea. In the following hundreds of millions of years, the long and continuous shaping of the Indo-Chinese Movement and the Yanshan Movement laid the foundation for the basic landform of today’s Changde-The west is dominated by rolling mountains, The east is dominated by plains with dense water networks.
Changde City has 515 peaks above 800 meters above sea level, and 43 peaks above 1,000 meters. The main peak of Huping Mountain is as high as 2098.7 meters, which is called “Roof of Hunan”(In 2003, the Second Surveying and Mapping Institute of Hunan Province discovered an unnamed mountain in Ceyuan Township, Yanling County, Hunan Province, with an elevation of 2115.2 meters. However, this mountain has not been marked on the map due to various reasons such as no official name. ).
▲ The snow scene of Huping Mountain. Photography/Lao Li Chopper
Standing on the boundary between Hunan and Hubei provinces, Hupingshan “Controlling Hubei and Guizhou, and accepting Sanxiang”: There is the Three Gorges in the north, Taohuayuan Scenic Spot in the south, Zhangjiajie in the west, and Dongting Lake in the east. , Can be described as “Zhongxing Pengyue”. Li Bai, who has traveled well in famous mountains all his life, once left a good line “Hupingfei Waterfall, peach blossom at the entrance of the cave” here.
▲ Shimen Changtiai Village, located at the southern foot of Huping Mountain, has an exceptionally beautiful scenery. Photography/Chen Jiji
Because the tertiary immersion and the glacial movement of the Quaternary have little impact on Hupingshan, it is in the long geological movementIn, Hupingshan once played the role of “Noah’s Ark in the Eastern Hemisphere” and became an “ideal refuge” for terrestrial creatures. Many ancient relict plants and rare animals have survived here——The 665.8 square kilometer nature reserve has 831 species of woody plants and more than 350 wild animals. It is hailed by biologists as “a treasure within Jen’s treasure house”.
▲ Wenfeng Mountain and people in the village, Hupingshan Town, Shimen. Photography/Chen Zhengjun
2. “The Land of Fish and Rice” in Hunan
Mountains are just one side of Changde. The other side of Changde is water.
In Changde, there are dense river networks and disordered water systems. There are 371 rivers above 5 kilometers. Of the four major rivers in Hunan, two of them flow to Changde: one is Lishui and the other is Yuanjiang. After winding through the mountains, the two rivers finally merge into the vast Dongting Lake in Changde.
▲ Changde Flood Fighting Monument on the bank of Yuanjiang River. Photography/Ma Hongwei
▲ Hekou Town, Linli, Changde. Photography/Chen Jiji
As the second largest freshwater lake in China, Dongting Lake spit out the Yangtze River and Haohao Tangtang. Because of its huge area, it spans 11 counties and cities in Hunan. Dongting Lake is roughly divided into three parts: East Dongting Lake, West Dongting Lake, and South Dongting Lake (there are also data points There are four parts, and one part is Datong Lake). Changde and Yiyang share the West Dongting Lake west of Chishan Lake.
▲ Overlooking the Liuye Lake Sima Tower, Liuye Lake is part of the West Dongting Lake. Sima Tower was built to commemorate the Tang Dynasty poet and Langzhou Sima Liu Yuxi . Photography/Shi Yaochen
Although the natural lake area of West Dongting Lake is only 520 square kilometers, to Changde, she is a real “mother lake”——Two-thirds of the city’s arable land is Dongting Lake Silt the plains. When