Stairway to Heaven: A Journey to the Summit of Mount Emei

2. Land of Shu

21 Chapter 2 Land of Shu Oh, how dangerous! Oh, how high! The Road to Shu is hard, Harder than climbing to the blue heavens!1 —Li Bo (701–762) The Road to Shu Is Hard Sichuan is China’s second largest province in land area. Comprising 487,000sqkm/301,940sqmi, it is roughly the size of France. As for population , today it ranks third with 86.5 million people.2 The heartland of the province comprises a fertile, low-lying basin. The alluvial farmland in this area, sustained by a warm, moist, central-tropical climate and extensive irrigation control, produces an abundance of food. Average annual rice yields, for instance, are estimated ten to fifteen times higher than elsewhere .3 Lofty mountains and high plateaus girdle the province on all sides, forming an impressive physical barrier between Sichuan and lands beyond its borders. In particular, the lofty peaks and rugged passes in the north have long served as a daunting obstacle between Sichuan and the Central Plains (Zhongyuan)—the traditional cradle of Chinese civilization that extends along the Yellow River valley. When the Tang poet Li Bo sang “The Road to Shu (or Sichuan) Is Hard,” he was not exaggerating. The first barrier is the rugged Qinling Mountains, next comes the Han River, and finally the formidable Daba Mountains. Traditionally, Sichuan is known by two alternate names: “Land of Heaven’s Storehouse” (Tianfu zhi guo), which aptly implies the area’s abundance, and “South of Sword Pass” (Jiannan), which suggests its inaccessibility. Self-sufficiency in food supply and physical remoteness from the traditional center of Chinese civilization had a tremendous effect on 22 Stairway to Heaven: A Journey to the Summit of Mount Emei Sichuan’s growth and development, especially in ancient times. Not until its annexation by the state of Qin in 316 bc did Sichuan come to be associated with what later (in 221 bc) became the unified Chinese empire.4 Before the arrival of the Qin invaders, residents of the Central Plains regarded Sichuan as an ethnically different, marginal, strange, mysterious, and downright foreign land. Although geographers cannot agree on the precise origin and meaning of the term “Sichuan” 四川 (lit., “Four Rivers” or “Four Streams”), there is consensus that its first textual appearance (referring to what we now regard as Sichuan) came relatively late in Chinese history, probably in the eleventh century.5 In any case, it is not surprising that the character chuan 川 (“river” or “stream”) appears in the place name for this part of China, for Sichuan hosts a vast network of navigable waterways. Because of the province’s physical isolation from the rest of China, Sichuan’s major rivers have long served as transportation channels to the outside world. The most important of these waterways is the Min. Running south from the lofty Min Mountains in northern Sichuan, the Min eventually joins with the Great River (or Yangzi) in modern Yibin City, and from there it was possible for river travelers to journey eastward all the way to Jiangnan, the fertile, scenic area “South of the [Yangzi] River.” Fan Chengda’s villa home at Rocky Lake (Shihu) stood on a hillside just south of Suzhou (modern Suzhou, Jiangsu), in the very heart of Jiangnan. During the Warring States period (475–221 bc) the area we now call Sichuan was divided into two regions, Ba and Shu. Ba refers generally to the eastern part of Sichuan. Shu includes the city of Chengdu and the fertile plain that surrounds it, the Min River valley, Mount Emei, and various territories in western Sichuan. The term Shu 蜀 in Chinese functions both as a geographical reference (the place “Shu”) and to a distinct people who once lived there and had their own recognizable ethnicity and culture.6 Until about twenty years ago, with the exception of a few surviving textual references and genealogies on patriarchal founder figures, practically nothing was known about ancient Shu and its people. This situation changed dramatically in the 1980s with a series of remarkable archaeological finds made at Sanxing dui (lit., “Three Star Mounds”)7 in Guanghan county, just 40km/25mi northeast of Chengdu.8 Information derived from these discoveries has provided valuable new insight into the early history of Shu and its people. So far, the most important finds at Sanxing dui date from 1986, when two sacrificial pits were excavated. Using data culled from almost one thousand recovered artifacts, archeologists and historians have determined that Sanxing dui contains...