Retracing mountains of spirited exploration

Four hundred years ago, Xu Xiake (1587-1641), a geographer, explorer and literary scholar, spent 34 years traveling around China, covering 100,000 li (50,000 kilometers) on foot. The new illustrated book Xu Xiake's Travels to Famous Mountains was recently released at Lushan Library located at Lushan Mountain in East China's Jiangxi province.

The book, published by China National Geography Books, includes 16 chapters of Xu's travels to famous mountains, including Lushan Mountain, Huangshan Mountain, Tiantai Mountain, Songshan Mountain, and Hengshan Mountain.

The pages feature over 60 ink landscape illustrations meticulously created by artist Zeng Renzhen, who is known in the art world as Yushan, a contemporary Chinese artist and architect. Chinese writer Zhang Jiawei provides the introduction and translation, while Zhu Huirong, an expert on Xu Xiake research, offers commentary and annotations. The book also includes 17 specially drawn maps of Xu's travel routes to these famous mountains.