Shijiazhuang became a city because two railways met here in the early twentieth century; before that the power in this part of the plain sat at Zhengding, the old seat of Zhending prefecture. The city is now the provincial capital, and its cultural depth lies in the county towns around it: Zhengding with its monastery and four pagodas, Zhao County with the Anji bridge, and the Jingxing hills where coal, limestone and kiln clay meet.
Li Chun's stone bridge over the Xiao River has stood since the Sui dynasty, its shallow arch held by twenty-eight curved ribs and pierced at both shoulders by small flood arches. The span is still walked across, and its repairs, its rediscovery in the 1930s and its place on China's tentative World Heritage list are part of the story.
At Zhengding, north of Shijiazhuang, a Sui foundation became one of the great Song temple complexes of northern China. Its Mani Hall keeps 127 bracket sets and eleventh-century frescoes, its Dabei Pavilion holds a bronze Guanyin cast in 971, and one two-storey hall was built to house a revolving library.
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Zhengding, 260 kilometres south of Beijing, was an administrative and religious centre for a thousand years. Four pagodas, each of a different shape and century, still stand among its streets, beside a Tang bell tower, a Song temple and a Confucian hall older than any other in China.
ReadA Sui stone arch over the Xiao River with four open spandrel arches in each shoulder, built in 605 and still crossing.
A Buddhist monastery founded in 586, with a Song bronze Guanyin, a rotating bookcase and a hall of enormous Buddhas.
The old prefecture town north of Shijiazhuang, with a wall line, four tall pagodas and a street grid older than the capital beside it.
