With history and heritage, including a famous Red Army maneuver and the panda, Baoxing county offers visitors a stunning experience, Huang Zhiling and Li Ning report.
Any mention of Baoxing county in Southwest China's Sichuan province would likely remind history buffs of June 1935, when soldiers of the Red Army crossed the snow-capped Jiajin Mountain in the county during the Long March.
The Long March began in Ruijin in East China's Jiangxi province, where the Provisional Central Government of the Soviet Republic of China was established in 1931.
The central Soviet area had to be abandoned in 1934 after the Red Army failed to break through a yearlong blockade launched by Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek, who built blockhouses with machine guns to obstruct all routes out of the area.
The Red Army managed to find a way out and traveled thousands of kilometers, enduring unimaginable hardship, before arriving at the northern part of Shaanxi province to join the revolutionary base.
Visitors can admire and be inspired by "peak viewing" in Dawa Genza, Baoxing county, Sichuan province, which is home to a mountain boasting Asia's largest 360-degree viewing platform, located 3,866 meters above sea level. [PHOTO BY LIU LANYING/FOR CHINA DAILY]
Jiajin was the first snowy mountain the Red Army crossed during the Long March.
Being more than 4,000 meters above sea level, it is covered with snow all year round and the air is very thin. The weather on the mountain is constantly shifting. According to a book on the Long March published by the Party History Press, the weather could quickly change from cloudy to sunny, rain to snow, with hailstones and strong winds a constant menace.
Most of the Red Army soldiers had no experience navigating icy terrain and their footwear consisted of either cloth shoes or straw sandals, according to the book.
Despite it being June, a blizzard swept through the heights and the soldiers' thin clothing was quickly soaked. The biting cold and great difficulty in breathing wreaked havoc.
A snow-capped mountain peak seen in the Dawa Genza scenic area in Baoxing county, Sichuan province. [PHOTO BY LIU LANYING/FOR CHINA DAILY]
From the base of Jiajin to its final peak, several hundred people perished during the 40-km hike. Some who were so exhausted that they had to rest were unable to get back on their feet, Dong Biwu, a Long March veteran, told American journalist Agnes Smedley in Yan'an, northern Shaanxi, in 1937.
Despite the awe-inspiring Jiajin, the more temperate Baoxing is known to visitors as the habitat of the giant panda, one of the most iconic animals in the world. Located on the western edge of the Sichuan Plain, Baoxing is an important ecological area in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. It covers 3,114 square kilometers, 99.7 percent of which is mountainous. Three quarters of the land is in the core area for the protection of pandas.
From 1957 to 1982, China sent 24 pandas as national gifts to nine countries. Seventeen of those animals were from Baoxing.
After 1982, China no longer sent pandas as national gifts abroad, but adopted the way of cooperative research. More than 50 pandas and their descendants went abroad in this way, according to a display in the Dengchigou Catholic Church.
China's fourth panda census, the results of which were released in 2015, tallied 1,864 wild pandas as of the end of 2013. Of those, 181 were in Baoxing.
The majestic sea of clouds seen from the top of the Dawa Genza scenic spot. [PHOTO BY LIU LANYING/FOR CHINA DAILY]
In July 2006, Sichuan's giant panda habitat was included in the World Natural Heritage List of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Covering 9,245 sq km, the habitat includes Baoxing.
The giant panda species has lived on earth for around 8 million years. But the West only learned about it in 1869 thanks to a French missionary trying to convert people in China to Catholicism.
Jean Pierre Armand David (1826-1900) was born in Espelette, France. A Vincentian priest and a naturalist with an extensive knowledge of ornithology, zoology and botany, he started working in the Dengchigou Catholic Church in Baoxing in March 1869. Soon afterward, he was invited to tea at a local hunter's home where he saw the skin of a giant panda.
Suspecting it to be a new animal species, he had the hunter capture a live panda, made a specimen and mailed it to the Museum of Natural History's Henri Milne-Edwards in Paris. In 1870, Edwards published a paper declaring the panda to be a new species.
The specimen, kept at the Museum of Natural History, aroused Westerners' initial interest in the bear unique to China.
The church, where David worked and lived, is a blend of Chinese courtyard and Gothic architecture. Located deep in the mountains, it draws in visitors and is connected to David's hometown.
To mark the 100th anniversary of his death, some 40 people from Espelette led by its mayor Andre Darraidou went there for the first time in November 2000. Espelette and Baoxing established ties as sister cities.
Darraidou visited Baoxing four times before he passed away at 75 in 2019, says Sun Qian, former vice-mayor of Ya'an which administers Baoxing.
A panda quenches his thirst in the Baoxing County Giant Panda Cultural Publicity and Education Center in Sichuan. [PHOTO BY LIU LANYING/FOR CHINA DAILY]
