The geology is unusual and worth saying plainly. Wugong's structure is a granitic core with peak-and-cliff landforms, which means the range was once an island standing in what is now the Hunan-Jiangxi sea before the water withdrew. The main peak, Baihe or Golden Summit, stands at 1,918.3 metres. Around it sit a national geopark of some 378 square kilometres and a national forest park of some 260. The rock is why the meadows above the tree line exist at all.
From the journal
A granite mountain and the name it was given
Wugong is the granite range behind Pingxiang, and its name comes down to a ruler crediting the mountain's spirits.
In the same city · Pingxiang ↗An island that became a mountain
Why the mountain is called Wugong
Ming gazetteers, including the Wugong Mountain Gazetteer and the Record of Famous Mountains under Heaven, tie the name to Daoist legend, and the writing of the name has varied with local pronunciation: Lu Xiao and Luo Xiao are near-homophones that both point at the great cave west of the summit, now Luo Xiao Cave. The story says that Chen Wu, the emperor who founded the Chen dynasty and made his claim to power on the strength of mountain spirits, ordered the name Wugong to be given in gratitude, and from then the mountain carried it.
The site beside the summit
The ritual site near the Golden Summit is listed as a protected cultural relic of Jiangxi Province, and the mountain is a national AAAAA scenic area and a Daoist sacred mountain in its own right. To stand at the top is to be in a place with two histories at once: a granite landscape whose springs and meadows were long used, and a religious name written into the mountainside in the Ming. The Pingxiang plain and the city below are the other half of the view, and the reason the mountain and the mining town belong in the same story.
