Among the twelve peaks of the Wu Mountains, one is Fairy Peak. Folk tradition makes it a fairy who helped Yu the Great control the waters and guide boatmen, which is a useful thing for a peak to be. The cult is practical: a landmark that looks like a person on the skyline is a bearing for anyone working a boat through a gorge in fog. Wushan lists its scenery as three terraces, eight views and twelve peaks, and names Shennü Peak as the representative of the group. Li Daoyuan described these gorges in the Commentary on the Water Classic in the Northern Wei.
From the journal
Twelve peaks above the Wu Gorge, and the fairy who guided boats
Wushan's scenery is catalogued as three terraces, eight views and twelve peaks. The best known of them is a rock with a job.
In the same city · Wushan ↗A fairy with a job
The county under the peaks
Wushan is the easternmost county of Chongqing, called the gateway to eastern Chongqing, and it lies in the middle of the reservoir. It straddles both banks of the Wu Gorge, and its county seat stands where the Daning River meets the Yangtze. The ground is not gentle: relative relief is 2,606 metres, and 96 per cent of the county is mountain, with only 4 per cent hill and flat land. That is why the towns sit where they do, on the few shelves above the water, and why the county's business has always been the river first and the road second.
What the water did to the view
After the second-stage impoundment in 2003 the gorges of Wushan joined up and the lakes linked, which the county record treats as a change of character. The old county town was abandoned and submerged, and the new town was built on the hills above; it now holds more than 100,000 people, and its main work is coal from very small mines in the surrounding mountains. Visitors still come: the county says it can take more than 8,000 a day and receives over a million a year. An airport opened in August 2019.