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Updated: May 6, 2025
Seven hundred miles of wild mountainous country, six weeks of steady travelling lay between me and Chengtu, the great western capital. The road I planned to follow would lead nearly due north at first, traversing the famous Chien-ch'ang valley after crossing the Yangtse.
It would seem as though the supply must be inexhaustible, for when Sir Alexander Hosie came this way, a generation ago, he noted the same traffic and received the same explanation. With the prohibition of the poppy, the region has for the moment little export trade, while the imports seem to consist mainly of military supplies for the Chien-ch'ang garrisons.
We were now leaving behind the close cultivation of the Chien-ch'ang; the valley grew narrower, hemmed in by higher and more barren mountains, but the wild roses made beautiful every turn. One village that we passed was quite surrounded by a hedge of roses several feet high, and all in full bloom.
The customary offering is five small wheaten loaves, called shao ping, and a pound of meat. The Wu Yüeh are stellar devils whom Yü Huang sent to be reincarnated on earth. Their names were T'ien Po-hsüeh, Tung Hung-wên, Ts'ai Wên-chü, Chao Wu-chên, and Huang Ying-tu, and they were reincarnated at Nan-ch'ang Fu, Chien-ch'ang Fu, Yen-mên Kuan, Yang Chou, and Nanking respectively.
For many years a resident of the province, and wise in the ways of the country and of the country-folk, his advice served me at every turn. Engaging the coolies was of course the matter of chief importance. On them would depend the success of the first stage of my journey, the two and a half or three weeks' trip to Ning-yüan-fu in the Chien-ch'ang valley.
In spite of complaints it would seem as though the Chien-ch'ang farmers, better than many in West China, could support the loss of that remunerative crop, for their resources, properly exploited, seem almost exhaustless. Mulberry trees are grown about every village and farmhouse, and the silk export is of considerable value to the community.
Yet his modern image may well owe its wings to the Indian rain-god Vajrapani, who in one form appears with Garuda wings. One of these is described below. Lei Kung in the Tree A certain Yeh Ch'ien-chao of Hsin Chou, when a youth, used to climb the mountain Chien-ch'ang Shan for the purpose of cutting firewood and collecting medicinal herbs.
Kerosene is now in general use where there is any lighting at all, and whereas formerly ten thousand coolies annually hurried up the valley carrying scales to Chia-ting, we now saw only a few hundred. A generation ago Chien-ch'ang was perhaps the least known part of all China to the outside world.
The Anning, the smallest of these, lies enclosed in a wilderness of tangled ranges, and its valley forms the shortest trade route between Szechuan and the Indo-Chinese peninsula. For about eight marches, north and south, it runs through a district known as Chien-ch'ang, celebrated throughout China for its fertility and the variety of its products.
At Teng-hsiang-ying, or "Strong-walled Camp," where we stopped for the night, both soldiers and Lolos were much in evidence. We were here about two thousand one hundred feet below the summit of the great pass through which the raiders in times not far past made their way into fertile Chien-ch'ang.
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