Location
Pingyao, Jinzhong, Shanxi
Pingyao Ancient City has stood for more than 2...
Pingyao Ancient City has stood for more than 2,700 years; its walls, expanded in the third year of the Hongwu reign of the Ming (1370), survive intact, making it the best-preserved county town of the Ming–Qing era in China. Draft banks, armed-escort agencies, the county yamen and the market tower still stand in their original places — under the Qing this was a financial center of China, where the Rishengchang draft bank "moved money across the realm with a single slip of paper." In 1997 the whole city was inscribed as a World Heritage Site.
The Pingyao city wall runs 6,163 meters around, its plan shaped like a turtle — the south gate as head (Yingxun Gate), the north gate as tail, and gates such as Shangdong and Shangxi for feet — the "turtle city" signifying impregnability and lasting peace. Its 72 watchtowers and 3,000 battlements are said to symbolize the 3,000 disciples and 72 sages of Confucius. Within, four great avenues, eight lesser streets and seventy-two winding lanes form an urban fabric as ordered as the Eight Trigrams.
In 1823 the Pingyao merchant Lei Lütai founded Rishengchang, China's first piaohao (draft bank), replacing the long-distance transport of silver with bills of exchange — "a paper token sent afar, ten thousand taels of silver gathered at once." At its height the city bristled with draft banks commanding the nation's finances, and the ballad "enter Pingyao and silver ingots leap to greet you" is still sung. The old Rishengchang premises are now a draft-bank museum; its anti-forgery cipher, encoded in verses of poetry, stands as an early example of applied cryptography.
平遥古城三件宝，漆器牛肉长山药。 — Three treasures of old Pingyao: lacquerware, beef, and Chinese yam.—— Pingyao folk rhyme
The Pingyao County Yamen is fully preserved, with daily reenactments of court sessions beneath the plaque "Hall of Closeness to the People"; the City God Temple, Confucian temple and Qingxu Daoist temple coexist within one city. The aromas of Pingyao beef, wantuo noodles and oat kaolaolao drift along South Street. The yearly "Pingyao China Year" with its shehuo revels, float processions and lanterns, together with the Pingyao International Film Festival (founded 2007, helmed by Jia Zhangke), keeps this ancient city alive in both past and present.