Fortress Jiangnan, Yinchuan 2-day free travel

Thanks to the great motherland for giving me two shots of the new crown vaccine for free, allowing me to help the national immune barrier. We were vaccinated as soon as possible, so that we can travel more safely. This is our first time to travel after the epidemic. This time, we fly from Shanghai to Yinchuan and travel around Yinchuan. Starting from Yinchuan, we can travel freely by public transportation, and go to Jingbian Wave Valley in Shaanxi, Yan'an, Ganquan Yucha Grand Canyon, Qikou Ancient Town in Shanxi, 8-day tour from Taiyuan to Shanghai

journey

Day 1: Shanghai plane arrives in Yinchuan, high-speed train to the railway station, Chengtian Temple, Drum Tower, Lao Maoshou, Yuhuang Pavilion, Nanxunmen, Huaiyuan Night Market
Day 2: Zhenbeibao Film and Television City, Helan Mountain Rock Paintings, Haibao Pagoda Temple, Huaiyuan Night Market
Day 3: Train to Jingbian, chartered car to Wave Valley, Danxia on the water of Wave Valley
Day 4: Wave Valley Scenic Area, chartered car to Jingbian Passenger Station, bus to Yan’an
Day 5: Yucha Grand Canyon group tour, Qingliang Mountain, Taihe Mountain
Day 6: Train to Luliang, CMB to Qikou Ancient Town. Chartered car to visit Lijiazhuang, Xiwan Village, Black Dragon Temple, Ancient Town
Day 7: Bus to Taiyuan, Liuxiang, train back to Shanghai at night
Day 8: To Shanghai

Chengtian Temple

Helan Mountain Rock Paintings

Jingbian Wave Valley

Ganquan Yucha Grand Canyon

Pagoda Mountain Scenic Spot - Yan'an Pagoda Mountain

Yan'an Qingliang Mountain

Lijiashan Village

Sai Wan Village

Qikou Ancient Town

Black Dragon Temple

Yinchuan High Speed Railway Station

Yinchuan Railway Station

Walk to the booked hotel. This hotel is about 10 minutes walk from Yinchuan Station. The main map of booking this hotel is the convenience of traveling by bus. The picture below is overlooking the Yinchuan Railway Station Square the next morning, with Helan Mountain in the distance.

Yinchuan Railway Station

After checking in, put your luggage away and go to Chengtian Temple Tower in Yinchuan. At 16:15, take B1 to the West Tower. 16:50 Enter the temple

Introduction to Yinchuan

Yinchuan, referred to as "Yin", is the capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, an important central city in Northwest China approved by the State Council. The city has jurisdiction over 3 districts, 2 counties, and 1 county-level city under its jurisdiction suburbs and Yongning and Helan counties). It is the capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and one of the famous historical and cultural cities in China. Yinchuan is a multi-ethnic area, with 26 ethnic groups including Han, Hui, Manchu, Mongolian, and Korean.
Yinchuan City faces the Yellow River in the east, Helan Mountain in the west, Qingtongxia City in the south, and Shizuishan City in the north. It is 64 kilometers wide from east to west and 82 kilometers long from north to south. The total area of the city is 3499 square kilometers, and the urban area is 1457 square kilometers. . Yinchuan is located in the northwestern part of China, in the middle of the Ningxia Plain, on the west edge of Ordos in the east, Helan Mountain in the west, and the Yellow River passes through the city. It is an important commercial center on the ancient Silk Road. The financial center, the central city of Ningmeng, Shaanxi and Gansu, the core city along the Yellow City Group, the core city of China, Mongolia, Russia, and the new Eurasian Continental Bridge Economic Corridor, is the window for the country to open to the west
Yinchuan is a famous national historical and cultural city. The ancient city of Saishang has a long history. As early as 30,000 years ago, humans lived and multiplied in the Shuidonggou site. It was the capital of the Xixia Dynasty in history. It is a national historical and cultural city. "City", known as "Xingqing Mansion" and "Ningxia City" in ancient times, is known as "the land of fish and rice on the frontier of the Yangtze River". To the west of the city is the famous national scenic spot Xixia King Tomb.
The main places of interest are the Haibao Pagoda with a history of 1,300 years, the Chengtian Temple Pagoda built in 1050, the Bell and Drum Towers, the Yuhuang Pavilion, and the South Gate Tower built in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. There are Nanguan Mosque with Islamic architectural style.
There are ancient city pools, palaces, pavilions, temples, pagodas, imperial mausoleums, and the Great Wall in Yinchuan City. The three major cultures of Xixia are a solemn and rare art city in China. In the outer suburbs, there are also the charming Helan Mountain Suyukou Primeval Forest Reserve, the Shahu Tourist Area, and the fascinating Zhenbeibao Film City.
Yinchuan has already formed Muslim customs, Xixia history and culture, Gobi desert wonders, the south of the Yangtze River, etc., and is gradually becoming a tourist attraction with unique scenery in western China. Chengtian Temple Pagoda

Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia, a famous historical and cultural city, has two famous temples and pagodas. One is the Haibao Temple and the Haibao Pagoda in the north of the old city of Yinchuan, also known as the North Tower.

Haibao Pagoda Temple

There is also Chengtian Temple and Chengtian Temple Pagoda located in the west of the old city of Yinchuan, also known as the West Pagoda.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

The Chengtian Temple Pagoda is located in the west of the old city of Yinchuan. It was built in 1050. At that time, the Empress Dowager of Xixia did not have a Zang family. Faced with the ruling crisis of her son Li Liangzuo who was young, weak and lacked legitimacy when he ascended the throne, he funded the construction of the tower. Chengtian Temple prayed for his son. Chengtian Temple Pagoda is also part of the temple complex. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Chengtian Temple was destroyed by war, and only the pagoda survived.

Chengtian Temple

Chengtian Temple, the gate of the temple opens to the east, and the existing buildings in the courtyard include the Hall of Five Buddhas, the Pagoda, the Hall of Wei Tuo, and the Hall of the Reclining Buddha. There are north-south supporting halls on both sides of the two halls of Weituo and Reclining Buddha. Between the halls, brick-carved vertical flower doors with double eaves are connected with the surrounding walls to form a courtyard-style courtyard.

Chengtian Temple

The Hall of Five Buddhas located in the outer courtyard is built on the same east-west axis as the pagoda. The outer courtyard is spacious, with towering old trees, evergreen pines and cypresses, solemn and quiet.

Chengtian Temple

The Chengtian Temple Pagoda is the only ancient pagoda in Ningxia that records the date of its construction. It is also the tallest among the more than 100 ancient pagodas in Yinchuan. . When the pagoda was being built, the empress dowager buried the relics of the top bone of the Buddha presented by monks from the Western Regions under the base of the pagoda with a gold coffin and a silver coffin.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

After the pagoda and temple were completed, Empress Dowager Muzang and the emperor attended the consecration ceremony in person. At that time, the "Tripitaka" bestowed by the Song Dynasty was invited to the temple. Later, eminent Uighur monks gave lectures at Chengtian Temple, and the Empress Dowager and Emperor Liang Zuo often came here to listen impromptu. The temple is full of incense and monks, and there are often "celebrities from the east" and "masters from the west". Immediately, Chengtian Temple became a holy place for Buddhism in Xixia, and it was the same as Huguo Temple in Liangzhou (Wuwei, Gansu) and Ganzhou (Zhangye, Gansu) at that time. The Temple of the Reclining Buddha is equally famous, and it is also known as the three major Buddhist resorts in Xixia.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

In the early Ming Dynasty, Zhu Wei, the sixteenth son of Zhu Yuanzhang, king of Qingjing, rebuilt the temple and the pagoda. Chengtian Temple became famous for its Buddhist temple bells and became one of the eight scenic spots in Ningxia in the Ming Dynasty. The Ningxia earthquake in 1739 destroyed the tower of Chengtian Temple. The current tower was rebuilt in 1820, with a total of 11 floors and a simple appearance. The present pagoda is an octagonal eleven-story pavilion-style brick pagoda with a height of 64.5 meters. The tower body is built on a square platform with a height of 2.6 meters and a side length of 26 meters. Before the 1980s, the West Tower was also the tallest building in the urban area of Yinchuan. It witnessed the change of imperial power and dynasty of the Xixia Dynasty, and witnessed the modern development of Yinchuan.

Chengtian Temple

The tower gate faces east, and the tower room can be entered through a 4.8-meter coupon road. The tower room is a square space, and each floor in the room is a wooden floor structure, with wooden ladders circling up. On the first to second floors of the tower, there are niches with doors and windows on each side, and on the third, fifth, seventh, and ninth floors, there are open windows with doors and windows in the north and south. Three layers of ribbed bricks.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

There are iron bells hanging on the pomegranate-shaped iron handles at the corners of the eaves on each floor, and they jingle when the breeze blows.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

Five layers of angular bricks are picked out from the eleventh floor of the body, on which there are eight-sided pointed-top brake seats, and a peach-shaped green glazed tower brake stands on it.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

The fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth floors are equipped with east-west multi-door open windows, and the eleventh floor has four bright and four dark round windows. The whole tower is tall and straight, in a pyramid style, simple and simple.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

Inside the tower is a wooden staircase, the space is narrow, the stairs become steeper as you go up, and the last few floors are almost vertical like a ladder.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

Climbing to the tower, you can look around the city of Yinchuan in all directions.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

eleventh floor

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

In 2006, the Chengtian Temple Pagoda was announced by the State Council as the sixth batch of national key cultural relics protection units. The ancient building exhibition room in the pagoda courtyard houses many precious cultural relics in Ningxia's history, ethnicity, military and other aspects. It has become a historical site for people to understand Ningxia. One of the important tourist attractions in Yinchuan.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

Behind the pagoda is the gate of the apse, part of which was left during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty. You can see the brick carvings left at that time, but these brick carvings were severely damaged during the period. The heads of people and animals in the brick carvings were all destroyed. It was cut off, and the other buildings were rebuilt after the reform and opening up.

Chengtian Temple

Chengtian Temple was built in the first year of Yizong Tianyou Chuisheng (1050 A.D.) in Xixia. It has been more than 800 years ago. The Chengtian Temple Tower in the temple also has a long history. It's not big inside, but it's quiet and refined. I walked around for an hour and climbed to the top of the tower to take pictures. The ticket is 10 yuan. Anyway, I still visited a small park. The tower ticket is 20 yuan to climb the tower.

Chengtian Temple Pagoda

Chengtian Temple

Climbed to the 11th floor of the tower at 17:13, and left the temple at 17:42. I asked the staff how to get to the Yinchuan Drum Tower. I was told that it was a short walk away. In fact, it was still a bit of a journey. I walked for 30 minutes to the Drum Tower.

Yinchuan Drum Tower is located at the intersection of Jiefang East Street and Drum Tower South and North Streets in Xingqing District, also known as "Cross Drum Tower", "Four Drum Towers", and commonly known as "Drum Tower". It was built in the first year of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty (1821), but only the foundation was built at that time. In 1908, a three-story pavilion was built in the center of the base of the Drum Tower. In 1917, four pavilions were built at the four corners of the Drum Tower to strengthen the momentum.

drum tower

The building is 36 meters high and covers an area of 576 square meters. It is composed of platform base, pavilions and corner squares. The base of the platform is square, with a side length of 24 meters and a height of 8.5 meters, built with bricks and stones. There are door openings with a width of 5 meters on all sides of the platform base, with a cross in the middle, connecting with Jiefang East and West Streets and Gulou South and North Streets.

drum tower

There are stone inscriptions on the forehead of the cave on all sides, saying "Yingen" in the east, "Laixun" in the south, "Yishuang" in the west, and "Gongji" in the north. There are two gates on both sides of the east door opening. The forehead of the south gate is inscribed "Kunhe", and the inside is an ear chamber; the forehead of the north gate is inscribed "Qianpi". From the Beiquan Gate, you can climb to the platform foundation along the stone steps of the secret passage. In the center of the platform, there is a three-story pavilion with double eaves on the top of the cross Xieshan, and each pavilion is surrounded by ring corridors. Climbing on the pavilion, overlooking the railing, the scenery of Yinchuan,

drum tower

The architectural momentum is still good. There are many records of this kind of "high platform" buildings in the Tang Dynasty and before, but there are very few in the Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. The top ridge of the pavilion is decorated with dragon heads, and in the middle is a string of beads, showing the trend of two dragons playing with beads, which is very interesting.

drum tower

Just south of the Drum Tower in the old city, there is a pedestrian street named Gulou South Street, with many merchants on both sides. This is the most densely populated place in Yinchuan, and the entrance is the "City of Love" sculpture, which brings together the major shopping centers in Yinchuan

In 2013, a 4-year-old girl lost the external processor of her cochlear implant near the pedestrian street. This cochlea is her ear. If she cannot find it, the child may bid farewell to the world of sound forever. After searching to no avail, the child's father posted a post. What he didn't expect was that a relay of love would begin. The government microblog took the lead in helping, and the public security, transportation and other departments actively interacted. Netizens forwarded the news of the cochlea one after another. Newspapers, TV, and websites followed up and reported continuously. The bus company even posted the missing item notice on the bus and taxi. Drivers and sanitation workers also joined the "ear" search team. Under the butterfly effect, the phone of the child's father was completely off the hook. After 114 hours, the cochlea was found, and the 4-year-old child heard the voice again. The "City of Love" sculpture was built to commemorate this story. During those 114 thrilling hours, everyone was a hero.

old hairy hand

Lao Mao Shouzhuo highlights the Islamic style and national color with its unique appearance, and the returning home style highlights the unchanged national character.

old hairy hand

After dinner at 19:30, the Drum Tower has not yet been lit up. I can’t wait for the night view of the Drum Tower. I walked more than 200 meters to the Yuhuang Pavilion. The Yuhuang Pavilion was built in the Ming Dynasty. The exact year has not been investigated. It is a traditional wooden structure with multiple buildings The building is called Yuhuang Pavilion because of the bronze statue of the Jade Emperor in the pavilion. The main building is a double Xieshan-top hall facing south, about 22 meters high, with symmetrical bell and drum towers on the east and west sides.