Fuling

  The river Wu rises in Guizhou, and at its confluence with the Yangtze, stands the ancient town of Fuling on the south bank. Some 2,000 years ago Fuling was the political centre of the Kingdom of Ba (fourth to second centuries BC) and the site of its ancestral graves. Fuling is the connecting link in water transportation between northern Guizhou and eastern Sichuan. The town and its surrounding area are rich in such produce as grain, lacquer and tung oil, and the local specialties are hot pickled mustard tuber, Hundred-Flower sweet wine and pressed radish seeds. In 1972 archaeologists excavated graves from the Kingdom of Ba, and among the finds were ancient musical instruments.
  West of the town is the White Crane Ridge, on which are carved ancient water level marks in the form of l4 scaled fish, and many inscriptions referring to the hydrology of the river at this point. These stone fish-the oldest of which was carved in the Tang dynasty (6l8--907)--are visible only at the lowest water level, which occurs perhaps once every decade or so. Locals say that 'when the stone fish appear the harvests will be good. These stone fish will disappear at the end of 2002 once the dam is completed, never to be seen again.