White Emperor City, Chongqing

Surrounded by water on three sides. Baidicheng is standing on northern bank of lhe Yangtze River which is at the mouth of Qutang Gorge. With Kuimen in the east and Eight Battle Formation in the west, Baidicheng is 451 kilometers away from the urban area of Chongqing and occupies the strategic position of both waterway and landway. The existing Baidicheng is a historic site repaired fromMing Dynasty to Qing Dynasty. For such a historic reason, on May 25th 2006, Baidicheng is approved by the State Council to be put on the list of the Sixth batch of Key Historic Sites under State Protection. For seeing the magnificent views of Kuimen, Baidicheng is the best place. In past dynasties, many famous poets, such as Li Po, Bai Juyi, Liu Yuxi, Su Shi, Huang Tingjian, Fan Chengda and Lu You, had visited both Baidicheng and Kuimen, and left a large number of poems there.Baidichengtherebygotitsreputationas "the city of poems".

According to historical records, Liu Bei, who was the emporor of the kingdom of Shu Han, once declared a war on the Wu country during the Three Kingdoms Period, but finally was defeated in Baidicheng. Foreating his heart out, Liubei was dying of illness, and before his death, Liu Bei asked his prime minister ZhugeLiang to help him take care of his orphan in front of the Yongan Palace of Baidicheng. Up to now, most of us are still familiarwith the details and there is an exhibition of clay sculptures of the story in a large scale inside the temple of Baidicheng. Apart from these, there are also many historical relics found in cliff coffins from Qutang Gorge and in the temple. In addition, there is two forest of steles, namely, the west one and the east one. Among them, over 70 intact steles are in exhibition, of which stone inscriptions of the Sui Dynasty are almost 1300 years old up to the present time. Owning to its profound historical accumulations and spissated poetic atmosphere, Baidicheng is made a famous ancient city full of legends.

As Three Gorges Project makes Baidicheng surrounded by water on four sides, nowtourists can directly get into the city by boat.

Edited by Athena Lee