Luzhi Ancient Town

Founded in 503 under Emperor Wu of Liang, Baosheng Temple keeps nine celebrated clay arhats traditionally attributed to the Tang sculptor Yang Huizhi.

Writer and educator Ye Shengtao taught in Luzhi, and life in this water town inspired works such as his story Three or Five Pecks More.

Model for the rice shop in Ye Shengtao's fiction, the Wansheng site recreates how Republican-era water towns bought, processed and stored grain.

Shen Baihan, Luzhi's wealthiest man in the late Qing and early Republic, lived in this five-courtyard East-meets-West mansion with delicately carved towers.

The surviving Arhat sculptures at Luzhi's Baosheng Temple are treated in scholarship as Song-period works; the surviving group was designated a national key cultural relic in 1961.