As the mother river of Hangzhou and an important axis for the city’s development, the Qiantang River presents unique charms of the Wuyue landscape along a characteristic cultural road. Since ancient times it has been a favorite place for Chinese literati.

In fact, the Tang Poetry Road along the Qiantang River is such a “poetic and picturesque gallery” that it has long been regarded as “home to charming mountains and rivers”. Indeed, during the Tang dynasty (618-907), the mountains and rivers in western Zhejiang became must-visit places for over 100 poets on their “grand tour of Wuyue”, and more than 500 poems were composed.

The name of the Qiantang River derived from Tang county (now Hangzhou), which is one of the most important birthplaces of Wuyue Culture. As the mother river of not only Hangzhou, but the whole Zhejiang province, the Qiantang River can be divided into three parts as far as poetry is concerned.

First, the Xin’an River Basin, encompassing one of the most important places in Tang poetry: Yanzhou, which is located in present-day Jiande and Tonglu cities, along the upper reaches of the Qiantang River, and is endowed with beautiful high mountains and long rivers. Its beautiful landscape has given birth to China’s landscape poems, landscape essays and landscape paintings. Many masterpieces by Xie Lingyun (385-433), the pioneer of Chinese landscape poetry, are about its scenery.

In 422, 38-year-old Xie Lingyun became the prefect of Yongjia. He took a boat there up the Qiantang River past the Fuchun River and Xin’an River, and then turned to the Lanjiang River. On the trip, he wrote poems entitled “By the Fuchun River” and “Qililai”, with famous lines passed down from ancient times and recited even now:“among shallow stones water is gurgling, with the sunset illuminating the mountains.”

Fast forward to the Tang dynasty, when people had a deeper understanding of landscape aesthetics. Nature/landscape was not only the object of description. Landscape poems became an art form in which poets expressed their feelings. Many excellent poems emerged. Meng Haoran’s “Staying on the Jiande River for the Night” is one of the best known: “Mooring my boat to the misty bank, I begin to feel sad at dusk. In the wilderness the sky is touching the tree; in the clear river the moon is close to me.”

Second, the Fuchun River Basin. Although poets lavished praise on the scenery of this area, the majority took nostalgia and Yan Ziling’s moral integrity as their themes. Yan Guang (39 BC-41 AD, courtesy name Ziling) is a renowned hermit who lived in the final years of the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-25 AD) and early Eastern Han dynasty (26 AD-220 AD). He declined the invitation from Emperor Guangwu of Han (5 BC-57 AD), who also happened to be one of his best friends, to become a senior official and instead retreated to the Fuchun Mountains. Yan’s refusal to pursue money and power, despite the good chances offered him, has been later widely admired by Chinese literati.

Third, the Qiantang River Basin, where quite a number of celebrities and literary works were born, including the Han scientist Wang Chong (27-97), historian and poet Wang Guowei (1877-1927), Sun Quan (182-252), founder of the state of Eastern Wu during the Three Kingdoms period, as well as literary writer Yu Dafu (1896-1945), among many others. In fact, Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, one of the greatest Chinese paintings by Huang Gongwang (1269-1354), depicts precisely the enchanting landscape along the Qiantang River. Over generations, countless famous personalities have travelled along the river, leaving a trail of popular poems and essays.

However, the Qiantang River Poetry Road is not only a road of tourism and a road of poetry, but also a road of culture and a road of  heroism.

The cultural temperament embodied in the Qiantang River Poetry Road includes not only the effeminate beauty of “mountain flowers with rainy dampness”, but also the masculine and virile strength of “iron-clad horses supported by ten thousand armors”. On the one hand, the landscape on this road is gentle and graceful thanks to the unique geographical environment of the Jiangnan area (south of the Yangtze River). The poems are fresh and beautiful, dreamy and charming:“Tonight I stay in the city of plum flowers, dreaming in a boat full of fragrant mist”. On the other hand, historical figures and events have steeled the landscape. For example, there is the Hai Rui Temple in the Thousand Island Lake, built in memory of Hai Rui (1514-1587) who dared to criticize the emperor. There is the Liuhe Pagoda on the bank of the Qiantang River. Under the auspices of Qian Hongchu (929-988), King of Wuyue Kingdom (907-978), it was built to suppress the river’s damaging tidal bore, like a general guarding the bank of the river. The blend of hardness and softness and the interlacing of history and nature make the stories of the Qiantang River Poetry Road so compelling.

The unique landscape along the Qiantang River Poetry Road can be an ideal starting point or an ideal ending point: people with high ambitions go out from here to embrace the world; people with noble ideals come to the place as well to become hermits and live a happy and unconstrained life. The trio of Sun Quan and his father Sun Jian (155-191) and brother Sun Ce (175-200) is considered a typical case of the former. They started out in the present-day Longmen Ancient Town in Hangzhou and gradually established a formidable kingdom. In contrast, the story of Yan Ziling, the Han dynasty hermit who chose mountains and rivers over privileges and riches and the very embodiment of moral integrity, is often cited as a prime example of the latter. Indeed, instead of clashing with each other, here, the pursuit of an official career in the government and living as a recluse seem to work in perfect concert, lending a touch of romanticism to the Qiantang River Poetry Road.

The most touching part of the Qiantang River Poetry Road lies perhaps in the hidden heroism. Be it locals who were born and raised in this area or sojourners who happened to stay here temporarily, there is no shortage of heroes who care about this piece of land and work for the wellbeing of the people. 

Legend has it that Qian Liu (852-932), the founder of Wuyue Kingdom, was concerned about the river’s bursting dyke and decided to shoot the tide, fighting against a tide that sounded like “hundreds of thousands of soldiers in midnight”. Although the legend cannot be authenticated, it is more than enough to show Qian Liu’s heroic spirit. At the end of the Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), Xie Ao (1249-1295) honored Wen Tianxiang (1236-1283) in tears at the Yan Ziling Angling Platform, writng a “soul-summoning” song for him: “O soul, where art thou travelling in the morning? Do not come back to the border fortifications at dusk... for there would be no food for thee.” An ardent patriot, Wen valiantly resisted the Mongol invaders, and refused to surrender despite being captured and tortured. Even in his twilight years, Xie was still organizing patriotic poet societies in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The Qing poet Xu Ye (1611-1683) praised Xie as “living as a displaced believer in Wen Tianxian, and dying as a lonely neighbor of Yan Ziling”.

More recently, Yu Dafu, who was born along the banks of the Fuchun River, persisted in his efforts fighting against the Japanese aggressors, but he was eventually murdered by the Japanese on Sumatra Island. His brother Yu Hua was also killed by the Japanese puppets in Shanghai, and his mother starved to death in a cave because she refused Japanese army’s food. This dignified heroic spirit spans ancient and modern times, injecting “flesh and blood” into the Qiantang River Poetry Road.