The Wine Spring Park,
a Historical Site of the
Western Han Dynasty.
It, located 1.9km east of
the Drum Tower, covers an
area of 270.000 square meters.
It is the only garden in
style of the Han Dynasty
in the Hexi Corridor. It
has a long history of more
than 2000 years. In the
garden besides the Wine
Spring there are lakes,
hills, bridges and a group
of sculptures. The whole
garden is sheltered under
woods of tall, straight
and thick ancient trees.
There are also pavilions,
archways and temples with
carved beams and painted
rafters. It has always enjoyed
the reputation of being
lush southern-type fields
beyond the Great Wall and
a bright pearl on the Gobi
Desert. Now it is a scenery
of AAAA rated by the State
Tourism Administration.
The front gate in the south
is the main entrance. The
arch over the gateway is
built modeled on the imperial
palace gate. It has two
watchtowers on each side.
It is classical, beautiful,
elegant and imposing. There
are two inscribed boards
hang on the gate. One of
them says “bright pearl
on Gobi Desert”, the other
says “famous scenery of
spring and lake”. Above
the boards there is a relief
sculpture of a bull head,
carefully covered of granite
picked in remote place in
the Qiliang Mountains.
It is said that in late
period of the Ming Dynasty
and early period of the
Qing Dynasty, the town frequently
flooded. They said that
it was demons and ghosts
who made trouble in here
thus built two temples to
suppress the devil spirits.
One was built on the northwest
corner and the other on
the southwest corner. The
two temples and the drum
tower formed a shape of
bull head therefore the
town had a local name of
“town of crouching bull”.
The Wine Spring, a historical
site of the Western Han
Dynasty, was located in
centre of the garden. It
is said that in the Western
Han Dynasty, Huoqubing,
a young general, commanded
a mounted troop of less
than ten thousand people
to fight against Xiongnu
(the Huns) of tens of thousands,
won a decisive victory.
The Emperor was overjoyed
on hearing the news, because
things were better than
he expected. He sent a envoy
to bring him three jars
of wine to reward him. The
general though it was not
enough for everybody of
the cavalry, thus had the
wine poured into a spring
and shared it with his men
. The story spread like
wild fire. Hence the spring
was called the Wine Spring
and the place was so named
when prefecture was first
set up in here in Han Dynasty
in honor of him for his
immortal contributions to
the court.
