When traveling the Three Gorges of Yangtze River, if you start from Chongqing, then the first scenic spot you encounter is Fengdu - a ghost town between county of Zhong and Peling. It is a little graceful town lying at the foothill of the mountains and right by the river.
There is a necropolis called Fengdu modelled after the Chinese Hell in Taoist mythology, built over 1800 years ago. The famous ghost town will become an island after Three Gorges Dam project. Specifically, part of the ghost town of Fengdu will be submerged, but scenery above the "Door of Hell" will remain.
Legends said that Ming Mountain is one of the 72 graveyards for Taoism. Tao believes when people die, their spirits will gather there (also called "spirit world"). All the temples on the hill were built at Western Jin period (265 ~ 420A.D.) and rebuilt in Ming and Ch'ing Dynasty (1386 ~ 1911A.D.).
Fengdu is the only ghost city in China. The temples are all over the mountain with many statues. In the "spirit world", there are series of super beings in the temples. They all have its own responsibility, they guard the spirit world.
Fengdu has a great country forest park "Shuang Gui Shan"; Guiwang stone carving, one of the fineness in the world; this place has the most Han tombs (old graves from 206B.C. ~ 219A.D.) in China. Therefore, when you traveling the Three Gorges of Yangtze River, Fengdu is a place you do not want to ignore.
It is also said that Fengdu gained its reputation from two super beings - Wang Fangping and Yin Changsheng. They all lived at Han Dynasty (206B.C. ~ 219A.D.) and became super beings one day in Pingdushan of Fengdu.
Their magic stories attracted many believers. They merged their families names, - Yin Wang, it means the "ruler of hell". Therefore, in peoples' mind, Fengdu became a mystical and terrible place of spirits. Li Bai, the great poet of Tang Dynasty wrote this in his poem: "it is interesting that all the people will be a citizen of Fengdu one day". |
