Entity
Qingsuo Tianqu Bridgehead
Dalibai, Yunnan, China
In the year 225, soldiers facing the rushing Miju River twisted wild green reeds into thick ropes to build a temporary crossing. This act of survival gave Qingsuo Village, located in Dali, Yunnan Province, its name. This ancient crossing survives as a monument of stone and memory.
In 1487, builders replaced the reed bridge with a grand three-arch stone structure, naming it Tianqu Bridge, the Heavenly Thoroughfare. They fitted massive stone slabs to span thirty meters, carving delicate cloud motifs into the blue-stone railings. Over five centuries, horses carrying coal from Dengchuan and traders traveling between Yongsheng, Heqing, and Dali wore deep, smooth hollows into the stone pavement.
At the bridgehead stands the Gongbing Stele, erected in 1600. This upright stone tablet, measuring 1.6 meters high and 0.6 meters wide, preserves a local rebellion. On the front, twenty-eight lines of regular script detail a bitter dispute between local archers and their commanding officers. On the reverse, the stone carver chiseled the names of thirty-three individual archers, fossilizing their defiance. Nearby, a stone monument carved in 1916 by the local scholar Yang Qiong marks the site as the crossing point of Zhuge Liang's southern campaign.
Here, the Miju River and the Yongan Jiang run parallel, separated by less than ten meters of land. Every year, on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, the local Bai people gather for the River Lantern Festival. They drape colorful ritual offerings across the stone railings, burn incense, and release handmade paper lanterns into the dark water. The flickering lights float past the ancient stone arches, connecting the modern village to the soldiers, traders, and rebels who shaped this crossing.