Along Zhonghe Road in Shuhe Ancient Town, the earth holds the memory of a thousand-year trade route. Here, the Ancient Tea and Horse Road Museum stands within a 5,137.3-square-meter complex, the largest surviving ancient architecture in the town. At its heart is Dajue Palace, built around 1567 during the Longqing era of the Ming Dynasty by the Mu clan tusi.

Inside the quiet hall of Dajue Palace, which measures 8.25 meters wide and 9.25 meters deep under a single-eave gable-and-hip roof, the air smells of aged Pu'er tea and damp plaster. Between 1572 and 1620, the Jiangnan artist Ma Xiaoxian brushed mineral pigments onto these walls. His hand guided a rare fusion of Taoist, Chinese Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist, and local Naxi motifs. On the west and east walls, six historic murals survive. The grand figures of Manjushri and Samantabhadra Bodhisattvas span 6.76 square meters each, their gold-leaf details catching the dim mountain light. Beside them, the Eighteen Arhats and All Celestial Protector Deities watch from smaller panels, their painted robes flowing with a centuries-old grace.

The museum grounds layer history like sediment. Visitors walk past the ruins of Yuantian Pavilion and Wenchang Palace, then step into the former classrooms of the Shuhe Primary School, built between the 1920s and 1940s. In these spaces, the chatter of schoolchildren once echoed where caravans now rest in memory. More than 400 artifacts fill the exhibition halls. Worn leather-making tools from the local cobblers lie alongside heavy iron stirrups and bamboo tea baskets. These objects evoke the Naxi men who led pack horses toward the high Tibetan passes, leaving their wives to tend the hearths and farms below.

In 2013, the State Council designated this post-and-beam structure a Major National Historical and Cultural Site. Today, the museum offers free entry, inviting travelers to stand beneath the 4.16-meter-high ceiling. The faint ring of horse bells seems to linger in the cool shadow of the courtyard, connecting modern steps with the deep, rhythmic pulse of the ancient southwestern frontier.