This is actually our second time here. Huanggua Mountain in Yongchuan is named after its cucumber-like appearance, not because it produces cucumbers. On the contrary, the fruit that is abundant here is pears, earning it the reputation of "Chinese Pear Village".
The first time I came here was for work-related reasons to visit and learn. At that time, I roughly understood the successful experiences in industrial development, rural revitalization, and agricultural tourism here. What shocked me the most was that this place used to be an oil extraction site, and Comrade Deng Xiaoping even inspected it.
According to the "Yongchuan County Annals" of the Qing Dynasty, Huanggua Mountain was originally called Lulong Mountain, and the mountain range extends all the way to Luzhou. Because the shape of the mountain resembles a large melon, it is also known as Wanggua Mountain. Finally, because the local pronunciation of "Wang" is similar to "Huang" (yellow), it became known as Huanggua Mountain.
The well-known Daqing Oilfield was discovered in 1959 and officially started production in 1963. As early as 1957, experimental mining was conducted here because Deng was in charge of the petroleum industry at that time and happened to be in Chongqing. Therefore, in 1958, he visited Huanggua Mountain to inspect the oil exploration team. This is also why there is a statue of Deng Xiaoping at the entrance of the Chinese Pear Village. The bad news is that large-scale oil extraction did not take place here later, but the good news is that natural gas is still abundant. The first gas pipeline laid in the entire Sichuan Basin is located on Huanggua Mountain.
Nowadays, when you come to Huanggua Mountain, you can still see traces of the past oil and gas extraction. When young people talk about Huanggua Mountain, it is probably about the homestays on the mountain and the developed parent-child picking projects. Not many people probably know about the history of Deng Xiaoping here. What Chopsticks wants to share with everyone is the lesser-known "cliff dwellings".
The name "cliff dwellings" sounds elegant, don't you think?
Originally, there was a place called Heishibao on Huanggua Mountain. It is close to the cliff but has rich vegetation. Along a small path, you can reach a cave halfway up the mountain and see a stone cave. The entrance to the cave is very narrow, I guess it is to defend against outsiders.
Entering inside, it is very spacious, and compared to the cave we visited in Beibei, Chongqing last time (refer to the article "Yanghetang: The Secret Realm of Beibei's Back Garden"), the conditions here are better. Because there is "running water" and a windowsill here! After entering from the entrance, it is pitch black, you really can't see your fingers in front of you. Since we didn't have a professional flashlight, using the flashlight on our phones was basically useless.
The cave has a total area of 700 square meters and is divided into more than a dozen rooms of different sizes according to their functions. There is a kitchen and a water tank, and you can clearly see traces of life. When we reached the deepest room in the stone house, we found that water was dripping from the top of the stone wall. The flowing water gathered at the edge of the stone wall and flowed into the "hall" along a well-carved water channel, becoming the "running water" in this cliff cave.
After solving the water source problem, it would not be a problem to live in the cave for ten days or half a month. Some rooms in the cave have no natural light, some places have narrow lookout windows, and one room even has a balcony. I jokingly called it the master bedroom. This "balcony" has a great view. Standing on the "balcony" and looking around, the surrounding environment is all in sight.
Now there is a cultural preservation monument erected here, and although there are text introductions on a cliff, they have become blurred. Later, I checked some information and found that the cave was built in the third year of the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty (1864), so it has a history of more than 150 years. At that time, due to the turbulent situation and rampant banditry, nine wealthy households in the local area pooled their resources and hired people to dig out nine rooms of different sizes from the cliff to live in within a year.
I saw a video on Bilibili before of a man from Sichuan who used an electric drill to carve out a three-bedroom and one-living room on a rock wall over a period of more than two years. You should be able to find the video by searching "Huge Ge Carves Mansion on Rock Wall" on Baidu. Looking back at Huanggua Mountain, it was quite difficult to excavate such a large area of stone houses without machinery.
Perhaps there were indeed many bandits at that time, and the whole country was very turbulent in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China.
Coming out of this cliff dwelling relic and preparing to go down the mountain, we passed through a pear orchard. The pear trees here are dwarf varieties that have been bred. You can imagine that in March, when the pear blossoms are in full bloom, the fragrance fills the air, and the people who fled the chaos and banditry in those years could not have imagined that their hometown would be so full of birdsong and flowers.
👏 Welcome to follow me and explore Sichuan and Chongqing with me!
👉 Chopsticks