Situated 25 kilometers southeast from
Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, Luzhi Town was praised as the First Town of Chinese
Watery Regions by Fei Xiaotong, vice president of the Standing Committee of the
National People's Congress. Because Lu Qiumeng, a poet named Fu Li in the Tang
Dynasty (618-907), once lived there in seclusion, it was called Songjiang Fuli
in ancient times. The town was renamed as Luzhi in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644),
after Luduan, a mysterious unicorn, which was believed to have the power of
warding off evils.
Luzhi is gifted with favorable terrain and
outstanding people. It faces the Wusong River to the north and the Chenghu Lake
to the south, and borders on Kunshan City to the east, and Suzhou to the west.
Today's Luzhi teems with lakes, rivers and bridges, luring numerous visitors
with its beautiful scenery.
Luzhi has been reputed as A Land of Bridges
for long. It is amazing to see so many famous small bridges span the
5.6-kilometer-long river course. In its prime it had 72.5 bridges, and now 41
remain extant. Large stone bridges with several arches, small stone bridges with
only one arch, wide arch bridges, narrow flat-top bridges, sister bridges and so
on. All theses bridges make Luzhi quite special as a town in watery
regions.
The famous Baosheng Temple is located in the
west of Luzhi. It is recorded that the temple was constructed in 503. Having a
history of more than 1,480 years, it is an ancient temple in areas south of the
lower reaches of the Yangtze River. With an area of over 100 mu (1 mu = 1/15
hectare), 5,000 rooms and 1,000 monks in its early days, the temple attracted a
great number of worshippers and pilgrims. Today we can still see its large scale
from the remains. Beside its large scale, the sculpture in the temple also is
also known far and wide
The tomb of Mr. Fu Li is in the west yard of
the temple, with the Douya Pond in front. The Qingfeng Pavilion stands in the
center of the pond. There are also stone bridges and ginkgos of thousands of
years old in the temple.