Twelve storeys pinned to a rock in the Yangtze

The rock stands on the north bank at Shibao town in Zhong County, more than ten zhang high and sheer on all sides, in the red-cliff landform of the district. Legend makes it a five-coloured stone left over when Nüwa repaired the sky, which is why it is called Shibao, precious stone. Its shape, like a jade seal, gave it the second name, Yuyin Mountain. In the last years of the Ming, Tan Hong rose in revolt, called himself King of Wuling and held the hill as a stronghold, and that is the origin of the name Shibaozhai.

The building went up the rock in stages. In the early Qianlong reign a temple was built on the summit with the help of iron chains fixed to the cliff. In the Jiaqing reign a nine-storey gallery was raised against the rock, taking its line from the stone. In 1956 it was enlarged to twelve storeys, and the whole of it is timber. The group runs from the climbing path and the Bizi Bei stone archway through the gate and the tower to the Kuixing Pavilion and the Tianzi Hall. On 25 June 2001 it entered the fifth batch of national key sites.

After the reservoir filled, Yuyin Mountain became a small island jutting into the river, and the water around it rose to a level at which the rock below could soften and break up. So a great dike was built around the whole stronghold, enclosing the hill and the tower. The county's account is plain about the cost elsewhere: 102 square kilometres of Zhong County was flooded and the county seat was moved north. The local government built the protection in 2005 and reopened the site to visitors in 2009. The river valley here is the lowest ground in the county, 117.5 metres at Shibao town.