Xishenggou Gorge

Xishenggou, formerly known as Xigou, is a quiet place for Taoist believers in Qingxu Mountain to practice. During the Anti-Japanese War, the Japanese army entered the mountain to sweep, and the local military and civilians fought back together to protect the military government organs and materials in the Jin-Cha-Ji Border Region, and won a major victory. In memory of this battle, it was renamed Xishenggou. Xishenggou is about 7 kilometers long and is a limestone landform. After years of wind and rain erosion, a karst peak forest landscape has been formed. The canyon is steep, with gurgling springs, dragon pool waterfalls, gurgling streams, and steep cliffs covered with stalactites.

According to experts, this was originally a large karst cave, which was cracked after crustal movement and formed the current canyon. The various and interesting stalactites in the karst cave were exposed, presenting a beautiful natural wonder. Many small karst caves such as the Immortal Cave and the Bottomless Cave have been preserved. The Huluotang, not far from Sanlongtan, is bottomless. There is a story about a tiger chasing a prodigal son in the local area, and the Huluotang got its name from this. A mountain is not famous without immortals, and a gorge is not magical without water. Xishenggou is named because of immortals and magical because of water. This is a Taoist holy place in North China. The canyon is deep and quiet. There are many Taoist temples in Hounuan Valley, Beitanyu, Longmen Mountain and other places, which are ideal places for Taoists to practice. There is an exquisitely shaped beamless hall in Hounuan Valley of Xishenggou, also known as the North Pole Hall, which was built during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty and has a history of more than 400 years. It faces north and south, has a single-eaved hip roof, and a Voucher door in the middle of the south wall. It is built entirely according to the ancient Bagua theory. From the outside, it is in the shape of a main body, with a horizontal ridge on the top and water on all four sides. From the inside, it is round on the top and square on the bottom, and is composed of multiple small combinations. It is built according to the theory of "Taiji gives birth to two yin and yang, two yin and yang give birth to four images, and four images give birth to eight trigrams" and the theory of nine nines returning to one. The roof has brick-carved eaves rafters on all four sides, and brick brackets with imitation wood structure are below. The roof is covered with gray cloth tiles, and the tile heads are decorated with dragon-patterned tiles and drips. The wall is reduced to a Xumi pedestal, with brick carvings on all four sides, which is very exquisite. The lower part of the hall is square, starting from 2 to 5 meters above the four walls, it is built with blue-gray bricks polished into fish scales, and gradually retracted into a dome with a caisson. There are brick-carved brackets with imitation wood structure on the upper part of the indoor walls, which can be divided into two types: corner paving and inter-paving. The architectural pattern of the beamless hall with a round top and a square bottom imitates the spatial environment of a round sky and a square earth, reflecting the ancient people's view of the universe. The entire building is made of bricks and tiles without a single nail or piece of wood. The brick carvings are exquisite, fully demonstrating the craftsmanship of ancient Chinese architecture and the ingenuity of the working people.