[2025 Qingchuan Attraction] Travel Guide for Qingxi Ancient City (Updated Apr)

Qingxi Ancient Town (a national AAA-level tourist Attraction) is an ancient border town with a long history of more than 1,700 years. During the Three Kingdoms era, the Shu general Liao Hua once cultivated land and garrisoned here. It was also here that perhaps the most successful sneak attack in the history of ancient Chinese warfare took place. The Wei general Deng Ai wrapped himself in a felt and sneaked across the Motianling Mountains to capture Jiangyou and Chengdu and destroy Shu. For many years, this place has always been a border town that has been relied on by successive dynasties. The ancient city covers an area of about 300 mu. It has been the county government of prefectures and counties many times in history. Before 1951, it was also the seat of Qingchuan County. The ancient city is located in the location of "Double Dragons Playing with Pearls" and "Five Horses Galloping in the Trough". Its shape is like a "boot" and the gate is like a "jar", so it is also called "Shoe City" and "Wang City". "Catching a turtle in a jar" and "Please enter the jar" come from this. To this day, the small city still preserves a relatively complete Ming Dynasty fortress pattern and the Ming and Qing architectural complex in northern Sichuan, with an ancient and simple style. This place controls the Yinping Ancient Road, one of the ancient Shu Roads, and further ahead are towering mountains. Officials, messengers, merchants, even prisoners of the court, or down-and-out literati would stop here to rest before continuing their next unpredictable journey. Qingxi Ancient City is not only rich in Three Kingdoms culture, but also closely related to the royal secrets. Emperor Jianwen of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yunwen, once lived in seclusion in Huayan Temple here. Qingxi Ancient City is a place where Hui and Han people live together and multiple religions coexist. The Hui and Han people live in harmony here. The strong Islamic residential arch architecture, the magnificent mosques and the surrounding Catholic churches, Taoist temples and Buddhist temples complement each other and become a beautiful scenery of Qingxi Ancient City. Walking in Qingxi Ancient City, you are simple, otherworldly and happy. The ancient city of Qingxi also left its own glorious chapter in the history of China's revolutionary war. In 1934, in order to cover the main force of the Red Army crossing the Jialing River and attacking Mianzhu, Li Xiannian led his troops to fight with Hu Zongnan's troops in Motianling, successfully covering the main force of the Red Army to the north, so there are still remains of the Red Army Bridge in Tangjiahe; in 1950, the People's Liberation Army entered Sichuan through the Yinping Ancient Road and liberated Qingxi and Jiangyou. The vicissitudes of the past are now just a joke. Today, the ancient city of Qingxi, which has experienced the severe disaster of the Wenchuan earthquake, has regained new vitality in the reconstruction and has become a popular tourist Attraction in northern Sichuan.