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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.
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.
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.