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TopLiterati Outings And The Aesthetic Of Productive Landscapes
Linfen’s most popular destination for spring outings was the Dragon Son Temple marking the site of the Dragon Son Springs at the foot of Mount Ping, a foothill of the Guye Mountains – a celebrated water resource, feeder of a large irrigation system, and efficient site for rain prayers. The earliest extant description of the place is by Mao Hui毛麾, a jinshi [i.e. graduate of the highest imperial examinations] of 1176. He describes how in Song times (960-1279) the spring water irrigated several hundred qing [1 qing roughly equals 6.67 ha] of land, powered more than one hundred mills, and formed Lake Ping further down east (Xing, ed., 1696, j.9:11b-12b). Since that time at least playful outings to the temple area as well as to Lake Ping were commemorated in countless poems. In one poem visitors from the capital are mentioned who in their praise of the site went as far as comparing it favorably to Hangzhou’s famous West Lake (Xing, ed., 1696, j.9:68a). But the Dragon Son Springs area was by far not only a place for the occasional elite visitor. Much more important was its extraordinary fertility that was such that it was described as a place where “the farmers enjoy the gods” (Xing, ed., 1696, j.9:69a). Thanks to the springs that were hot springs (maintaining an average temperature of 18 degrees Celsius even in winter), cucumbers, bamboo shoots and a couple of other crops ripened earlier than elsewhere, and garlic shoots (韮芽) were a special produce of the area (Liu, ed., 1933, j.2:43a).