Liaocheng is in Shandong, in East China.
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Shandong · City Guide
Liaocheng, a Ming Square City Inside a Lake.
Overview
Why Go
Guangyue Tower was built in 1374 at the crossroads of a square walled city, and it is one of the larger Ming timber pavilions still standing. The city around it sits inside a lake of over six square kilometres.
Linqing has the sole surviving Ming canal tax station in China, where grain barges heading for Beijing were assessed. The courtyards, the halls and the canal channel beside them are all still there.
Yanggu County holds the ridge where the novel puts Wu Song and the tiger, and the tower where he kills Ximen Qing. The book is fiction and the geography is real, which is an odd and specific pleasure.
Dong'e County is the origin of ejiao, a gelatin boiled from donkey hide that is one of the older continuously made Chinese medicinal products. It is now a large industry and the county is built around it.
See
A 1374 timber pavilion on a brick platform at the centre of the old city, climbable, with the lake visible on all four sides from the top. An hour, and go up rather than just round.
The merchants' hall on the canal bank, with a theatre stage, carved beams and gilding through the courtyards. The account books carved on the walls are worth reading. Ninety minutes.
The surviving Ming tax station at Linqing, with its halls, courtyards and the canal beside it, plus the brick pagoda and the Ming mosque in the same town. Half a day for Linqing.
More than six square kilometres of water surrounding the square old city, with boats, a shoreline path and the tower rising out of the middle. Two hours by boat or bike.
The ridge and the tower the Water Margin assigns to Wu Song, in Yanggu County, with reconstructions and a small museum. Worth it if visitors know the book. Half a day.
The burial mound of the Three Kingdoms poet, on a hill in Dong'e County with a stele and excavated finds in a small hall. Quiet and rarely visited. An hour.
On the Map
Approximate locations of the attractions above, across Liaocheng.
Eat
Donkey braised in a spiced stock and sliced cold, eaten with flatbread. Western Shandong and southern Hebei both do it, and Laowangzhai in Gaotang is the name this prefecture attaches to it.
A dark gelatin boiled from donkey hide with local well water, cut into blocks and taken dissolved or in cakes. Dong'e is the origin county and the industry there is large. Sold in graded blocks.
Chicken smoked whole over sawdust and beef braised with five spices, both sold cold by weight from old shops in the city. They were canal food, made to travel, and they still keep well.
Pears from old orchards in Guanxian, thin-skinned and very juicy, picked in September. The county has pear trees old enough that the orchards are a spring blossom destination in their own right.
Do
The interior frame is the reason to go up: heavy timber columns running the full height with the floors hung off them. From the top the square city and the lake read as one design.
The stone tablets in the courtyards list who paid for what, by name and amount. It is a merchant account book carved into a wall, and it says more about the canal than the carving does.
Linqing has the tax station, a Ming brick pagoda and a mosque from the same period, all within a short walk of the old canal line. It is the least visited good canal town in Shandong.
A path runs the whole way round Dongchang Lake with the walled city on one side and open water on the other. It takes about two hours and is flat the whole way.
When
Pear blossom in Guanxian, mild dry weather and the lake at its peak. The strongest window of the year.
Hot and humid on the plain with little shade. The tower, the guild hall and the boats are the workable options.
Pear harvest, clear cool air and the ideal light on the timber. The other good window and the quietest.
Cold, grey and windy off the plain, with the lake sometimes frozen. The canal sites are open and empty.
Explore More
Liaocheng is in Shandong, in East China.
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