Elephant Trunk Mountain is located on the west bank of the Li River in the southeast of Guilin City. The mountain is named because it resembles a giant elephant standing on the riverside with its nose stretched out and drinking from the sweet spring of the Li River. Elephant Trunk Hill is the representative of Guilin’s landscape and the symbol of Guilin City. Most local products in Guilin and even Guangxi are marked with Elephant Trunk Hill. Elephant Trunk Mountain is 200 meters above sea level, 55 meters above the water, 108 meters long and 100 meters wide. The mountain covers an area of ??1.3 hectares. It is composed of pure limestone deposited on the seabed 360 million years ago.
The original name of Elephant Trunk Mountain is Lishan Mountain, also known as Yishan Mountain and Shenshui Mountain, or simply Xiangshan Mountain. In 1986, Xiangshan Park was built based on Elephant Trunk Mountain. The park is dominated by Elephant Trunk Mountain, and there are also landscapes such as "Elephant Mountain and Water Moon", the antique building Yunfeng Temple, Love Island, and the Ming Dynasty Puxian Pagoda. Elephant Trunk Hill is the key attraction in Guilin. tourist attractions. Shu Shu, a doctor in the Ministry of Industry in the Qing Dynasty, wrote in "The Story of Xiangshan": The wonders of Guangdong are mountains, and the wonders of mountains in western Guangdong are rocks. The appearance of the provincial capital is even more strange. The late national leader Comrade Yang Shangkun once said: "You have to take a photo in front of Elephant Trunk Mountain before you have visited Guilin. This is a unique scenery." There is a saying: a trip to Guilin starts from Xiangshan Park.
Between the trunk and legs of the Elephant Trunk Mountain, there is an east-west hole with a tall and bright cave bottom. Traveler Xu Xiake once described it: "The flying cliff spans from the top of the mountain to the middle stream in the north. The east and west gates are high, and the Yangjiang River flows from the south of the city and merges with Li. The sky above is as bright as the moon, and the bottom is as bright as the moon inside and outside. It is called "like the moon on the mountain and water". Whenever the moon is bright and the breeze is clear, the level is like a mirror. The reflection of Shuiyue Cave is like a bright moon floating on the river, with two full moons floating side by side in the river, creating a wonderful artistic conception of "there is a bright moon at the bottom of the water, a clear moon floating on the water, and the moon does not go away when the water flows, but the water still flows after the moon has gone".
Chushuiyue Cave, climbing along the stone steps, there is a cave more than 20 meters long on the mountainside, running through the left and right caves, which looks like the eyes of an elephant. Because of its name, the scenery in the north and south caves of Xiangshan Mountain is different, and it is the best place to overlook the scenery of Guilin. A wonderful window.
On the top of the mountain is the Puxian Pagoda built in the Ming Dynasty. It is a Lama-style solid brick tower with a height of 13.6 meters. On the north side of the base, there is a side of bluestone with a flat sculpture of "Namo Puxian Bodhisattva". . From a distance, the tower looks like a sword hilt or a vase, so it is known as the sword hilt tower or the Aquarius tower. Elephant Trunk Mountain, Chuanshan Mountain and Tashan Mountain are located on both sides of the Lijiang River. The mountain shape, tower shadow and open cave form a beautiful "three mountain scenery". The Chuanshan Moon Rock and the Shuiyue Cave in the Elephant Trunk Mountain are close to each other, presenting the wonder of "Double Moon on the Li River"
Shuiyue Cave
The Shuiyue Cave is located in the Xiangbi Mountain and the Elephant Trunk Mountain. Between the legs of the elephant. About 12,000 years ago, the earth's crust rose and the Lijiang River shrank, which accelerated the development of Shuiyue Cave, forming a round hole with a length of 17 meters, a width of 9.5 meters, and a height of about 150 square meters. "Xiangshan Ji" records, "There is a stone cave, which can look at each other. It is round and long in shape, and half of it is in the Li water. The water is high and low, so the entrance of the Shuiyue Cave is also different in size." Chaoyang is also called Chaoyang Cave. But the cave is on the water, like a bright moon floating on the water, which is very vivid, so the name "Shui Yue" has been used to this day. It is a wonder of Guilin's landscape, and it is a literary poem. It's breathtaking. The poem "Shuiyue Cave" by Jibei in the Song Dynasty says: "There is a bright moon at the bottom of the water, and a bright moon floating on the water." The phrase "the water flows when the moon does not go away, but when the moon goes away, the water still flows" carefully depicts the miracle of the moon in the sky, in the cave, and under the water reflecting each other. The water moon on Xiangshan faces the moon rock through the mountain looking south, with one hanging in the sky and the other floating in the water. The water forms the unique landscape of "Double Moon on the Li River".
The Chaoyang Pavilion was built in the cave in the Song Dynasty. There are more than 50 cliff stone carvings including Fan Chengda's "Fu Shuiyue Cave Inscription" and Lu You's poem manuscripts.
Chaoyang Pavilion
Chaoyang Pavilion was first built in Shuiyue Cave in Xiangbi Mountain. In the Song Dynasty, the pavilion had long been abandoned, but more than 800 years ago, a back-to-back legal battle between two former local governors of Guizhou around the naming of Shuiyue Cave has become an eternity for people who visit here. It turns out that in the second year of Qiandao in the Southern Song Dynasty (AD 1166), Zhang Xiaoxiang visited Shuiyue Cave and did not return until late. He visited again soon and happily wrote a poem and preface. The name has been changed to "Chaoyang", and the "Poetry Preface to Chaoyang Pavilion" describing the incident should be placed on the north wall of Shuiyue Cave. Later, Fan Cheng, the Great Lord Gui, had different opinions and restored the original name, writing "Fu Shui". "Moon Cave Inscription" is engraved on the south wall of the cave.
Elephant Trunk Rock
Elephant Trunk Rock is adjacent to Shuiyue Cave, because the Elephant Trunk is located behind the Elephant Trunk Mountain. It is named after its location. The rock is 1.9 meters high, 3.3 meters wide, about 13.5 meters long, and covers an area of ??44.5 square meters.
Yankou faces the river, faces east, and is closed in a strip shape. It is a cool place with a good view of the river. Mao Binquan, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, once read "The Book of Changes" here. Later generations carved the three characters "Reading Rock" at the mouth of the rock, and called this rock "Dianyi Mountain Window". It was renovated in the middle of the first spring month of Wanli Ding Chou (1577), and there is a stone inscription with the title "People from Binquan Mountain dug this cave deep". The Ming Dynasty poet Zhang Xiang's poem "Visiting Maobinquan and Pointing at the Yi Mountain Window" includes the sentences "Thousands of hectares of water light the cave house" and "The mountain window is silent and watching the Book of Changes". For details, see the stone carvings on the cliffs of Shuiyue Cave.
Elephant Eye Rock
Elephant Eye Rock is located on the north and south sides of the mountainside of Elephant Trunk Mountain, connected with each other. It is about 2 meters high, 5 to 10 meters wide, 52.8 meters long, and has an oblong shape. The area is approximately 274 square meters. Elephant Eye Rock was originally a short ancient underground river channel, which was formed earlier than Shuiyue Cave. It was named because it happened to be located at Elephant Eye. From the entrance of the Antarctic Cave at the southern foot of Xiangshan Mountain, you can climb to the South Eye along the stone steps. After leaving Elephant Eye Rock, the winding road can reach the top of the mountain. The northern eye is steep and steep, with no obstacles to reach. The north and south caves of Elephant Eye Rock are a pair of wonderful windows overlooking the scenery. Looking from the left eye, the towering Lijiang Hotel is very close at hand, the city's buildings and markets are lined up in rows, and half of the city's mountain bar is clearly visible; looking from the right eye, the shadow of the river's sails flickers between Zizhou, Tashan, and Chuanshan.
Yunya Pavilion
Yunya Pavilion is a garden building of the Song Dynasty. Zhang Mingfeng's "Gui Gu" of the Ming Dynasty records: "Therefore, when the Song Dynasty was punished, Gong Xinru built a jingshe under the south wall to live in, called Yunya Xuan. The Xuan has been abandoned for a long time." According to Fang Xinru's "Ti Yunya Xuan" and Shao Yiren's work on Fang The description of the "Guyunya Pavilion" was built before the poem was engraved. It is unclear when Yunyaxuan was built. There is a line in Fang Xiru's poem "You don't need to explore with a stick and quinoa, the forest ravine is hiding the city. Zeng Zunyue Cave, on the Qianyan Rocks, there is a strange section of Yunya." It is credible to say that Yunyaxuan was built at the foot of Xiangshan Mountain.