| Liuzhou -- City of the Dragons
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Liuzhou, located by the Liujiang River in the central part of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has convenient land and water communications and is a newly developing industrial city. It is rich in natural resources.
A legend says that during the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589), eight dragons emerged from the Liujiang River, and ever since the place has been called the "city of the Dragons."
Liuzhou's climate is warm and pleasant, and there are many good places for sightseeing-the winding Liujiang River looking like a floating jade belt, the towering crags of Fish Peak Hill (Ma'anshan), and Goose Hill (Eshan).
Many valuable archaeological finds have been unearthed in Liuzhou, and it has become an important place for pale anthropological studies.
Marquis Liu Park (Liuhougongyuan)
Located in the city proper, Marquis Liu Park occupies an area of 260,000 square meters. A temple was built here to commemorate the outstanding literary achievements of Liu Zongyuan (773-819), a renowned man of letters of the Tang Dynasty who was dismissed from his official post in the central government and demoted to be the magistrate of Liuzhou because of his reformist ideas. A tomb containing Liu Zongyuan's clothes can also be visited in the park.
Fish Peak Hill Park
This park is in the southern part of Liuzhou and features such scenic spots as Fish Peak Hill (Yufengshan), Carp Peak (Liyufeng), and Little Dragon Pool (Xiaolongtan). Fish Peak Hill is connected with a beautiful legend, which says that Third Sister Liu, a beautiful girl and a good singer, ran away from the evil landlord Mo Huairen and was carried by the current of the Liujiang River down to Liuzhou, where she was saved by a fisherman and later fell in love with a young man. Unfortunately, Liu was caught again by Mo Huairen's men, who threw her into Little Dragon Pool. This time she was saved by a fish goddess who jumped out of the water and carried her up to the sky, while another fish goddess flew over and took Mo Huairen in her arms and then turned into a hill with the evil man underneath -- the hill called Fish Peak Hill today. The top of the hill affords a marvelous view of the city of Liuzhou and the beautiful Liujiang River.
Dule Cave
Situated in the southern suburbs of Liuzhou, this limestone cave with its fantastically shaped stalactites and stalagmites was formed more than a million years ago, like Seven-Star Cave and Reed Flute Cave in Guilin. At one place on the ceiling of the cave, there is a small hole through which the sky can be seen, as from a deep well. Legend has it that the cave was inhabited by yet another fish goddess who leaped out of the cave through the ceiling, leaving a hole in it, when she heard that Third Sister Liu was in trouble. Dule Cave is very deep, with many twisted passages and many smaller caves within it. The oddly shaped rocks and the gurgling of underground streams give and cave an eerie atmosphere.
Site of Liujiang Man
In September 1958, a fossilized human skull was found in a cave sixteen kilometers southeast of Liuzhou. The fossil was named Liujiang Man by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Pale anthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Lijiang Man, who lived fifty thousand years ago, is the earliest trace of modern Homo sapiens found to date in China and Southeast Asia.
(china.org.cn)
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