Gushan ticket price: 8 yuan
Gushan is located in the eastern suburbs of Fuzhou City, on the north bank of the Min River, about 8 kilometers away from the city center. It is the most famous scenic spot in Fuzhou City. Gushan is not very high, with the highest peak at 925 meters above sea level. However, there are many scenic spots on the mountain and the forest ravines are beautiful and fascinating. A major feature of Gushan is that there are many inscriptions on the cliffs, many of which are inscriptions by celebrities from past dynasties and have high cultural relic value. According to statistics, there are no less than 300 inscriptions on the cliffs of Gushan, and there are 109 inscriptions in the Song Dynasty. This shows that as early as the Song Dynasty, Gushan was a place where literati and dignitaries enjoyed the scenic spots. The earliest extant inscription on the east wall of Lingyuan Cave is that of Cai Xiang and others in the sixth year of Qingli in the Song Dynasty (1046). The text reads: Shao Quhua, Su Caiweng, Guo Shiji, Cai Qunmo visited Lingyuan Cave on the eighth day of Qingli Bingmengqiu** *Twenty-four characters, regular characters, 40 cm in diameter. Cai Junmo, also known as Cai Xiang, was the magistrate of Fuzhou at that time.
Cai Xiang is one of the four great calligraphers of the Song Dynasty, the other three being Su Shi, Huang Tingjian and Mi Fu. On one wall, there are three large characters engraved on the wall: "Wanggui Stone". The writing is vigorous and the characters are about 70 centimeters in diameter. They were also written by Cai Xiang. These inscriptions by Cai Xiang are considered treasures of calligraphy art. Zhu Xi, a famous Neo-Confucian scholar in the Southern Song Dynasty, also left his mark on Gushan. On the rock at the top of the mountain are engraved the four characters Tianfenghaitao, which were written by Zhu Xi. Zhu Xi also wrote the Chinese character "Shou" with a diameter of four meters and carved it on the drinking rock wall. It is a rare large character among the cliff carvings in Fujian. Gushan stone carvings date from the Northern Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty and even to the present day. They last for nearly a thousand years and are rich in content. They are written in official, Chinese, cursive and regular scripts. They are the place with the largest concentration of ancient stone carvings in Fujian and can be called the Forest of Steles in Fuzhou. It has a high reference value for studying the history and development of ancient Chinese calligraphy art. There are many scenic spots in Gushan, with more than 160 named ones.
These scenic spots are basically centered on Yongquan Temple and divided into four routes: east, west, north and south. Yongquan Temple is located on the mountainside. According to legend, it was named after a spring water gushing out of the ground in front of the temple. The plaque title of Yongquan Temple is written by Kangxi. This temple was first built in the second year of Kaiping in Houliang Dynasty (908). It was destroyed by fire twice in the Ming Dynasty and rebuilt in the seventh year of Qi tomorrow (1627). It was expanded several times during the Shunzhi and Kangxi years of the Qing Dynasty. At present, the temple basically maintains the layout of the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty and the buildings of the Ming and Qing dynasties. People who visit Gushan usually go to Yongquan Temple first, and then go to explore the secluded places. There are 25 scenic spots on the east road, including Huilong Pavilion, Lingyuan Cave, Drinking Rock, Longtou Spring, Baiyuan Gorge, Shuiyun Pavilion, Tingshui Zhai, and Manlu Pine. If you want to appreciate the inscriptions of the ancients, take the east road. Gushan's problems are mostly concentrated in the Lingyuan Cave and Drinkwater Rock areas, with almost no gaps. There are many caves in the West Road Nunnery, the most famous of which are the Eighteen Views of Bodhidharma Cave (commonly known as the Eighteen Cave).