Emperor Wu of Han massed 300,000 troops around Mayi in 133 BCE to ambush the Xiongnu, who learned of it and withdrew; today a wooden pagoda built in 1056 at Yingxian, in Shuozhou, still carries bullet holes from 1926.
汉武帝公元前一三三年在马邑周围集结了三十万大军,想伏击匈奴,匈奴得知后撤走了;如今,朔州应县一座建于一零五六年的木塔上,仍留着一九二六年的弹孔。
Shuozhou is the northern Shanxi city of Mayi, a Liao wooden pagoda and the Great Wall pass at Guangwu.
朔州是晋北的城市,有马邑、辽代木塔和广武长城关隘。
Mayi and the Frontier
马邑与边关
The ambush at Mayi is the usual starting point for Shuozhou’s frontier story, and the city still uses the name for a museum and a culture season.
马邑之谋是朔州边关故事通常的起点,这座城市至今仍用这个名字命名博物馆和文化旅游季。
Shuozhou had a resident population of 1.5678 million at the end of 2024, according to the Shuozhou Municipal Bureau of Statistics.
据朔州市统计局介绍,二零二四年末,朔州常住人口为一百五十六万七千八百人。
The Paper presents the failed plot at Mayi as the start of nearly a century of Han–Xiongnu warfare, adding that the Xiongnu ruler learned of the plan and withdrew beyond the frontier. According to People’s Daily of 8 August 2025, the Mayi Museum’s collection is being digitised and Shuocheng District holds a Mayi Culture and Tourism Season.
澎湃新闻把马邑这场落空的计谋看作近百年汉匈战争的开端,并写到匈奴单于得知计划后撤到了塞外。据《人民日报》二零二五年八月八日报道,马邑博物馆正在推进馆藏文物数字化工作,朔城区举办马邑文化旅游季。
The same People’s Daily report places Guangwu in Shanyin County on the Yanmen Pass, a long-standing military stronghold with old and new Guangwu cities, beacon towers, the Ming Great Wall and Han tomb groups. A ¥332 million project protects the tombs and the old city, and Guangwu was named a national ski tourism destination in 2024, drawing 66,000 visits in the 2024–2025 ski season.
《人民日报》的同一篇报道说,广武位于山阴县雁门关一线,自古是军事重地,有新旧广武城、烽火台、明长城和汉墓群。一个总投资三亿三千二百万元的项目正在保护汉墓和古城,广武二零二四年入选国家级滑雪旅游目的地,二零二四至二零二五年雪季接待游客六万六千人次。
Chongfu Temple in Shuocheng District has “five unique features”, with its plaques, murals, statue halos, carved window lattices and glazed ridge ornaments all original Jin-dynasty pieces, according to the same report.
该报道还说,朔城区的崇福寺有”五绝”,匾额、壁画、佛像背光、雕花窗棂和琉璃脊饰都是金代原物。
The Tower of Brackets
斗拱之塔
The Yingxian wooden pagoda, formally the Shijia Pagoda of Fogong Temple, was begun in 1056, the second year of the Qingning era of the Liao dynasty, and stands 67.31 metres tall, according to Beijing News. It has five storeys outside and nine levels inside, five lit and four hidden. The whole is held together by mortise-and-tenon joints, according to the same report.
据新京报介绍,应县木塔正式名称为佛宫寺释迦塔,始建于辽清宁二年,即一零五六年,高六十七点三一米。塔外观五层,内部实为九层,其中明五层、暗四层。该报道说,整座塔以榫卯结构连接。
People’s Daily calls it the tallest and oldest surviving all-wood pavilion-style building in the world, and its 54 types of bracket sets earned it the nickname “bracket-set museum”.
《人民日报》称它是世界现存最高最古老的纯木结构楼阁式建筑,塔上有五十四种斗拱,因此得名”斗拱博物馆”。
Liang Sicheng and Mo Zongjiang surveyed the pagoda in 1933, and their report, published in 1935, was later lost and found again at the Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage, according to Tsinghua University’s news site. In March 2026 a social-media post claimed the tower would be fully dismantled for repair, and the authorities denied it, saying they are monitoring deformation, surveying and building information models and carrying out localised reinforcement, according to The Paper of 29 July 2026.
据清华大学新闻网介绍,梁思成和莫宗江一九三三年测绘了这座塔,两人一九三五年发表的报告后来遗失,又在中国文化遗产研究院找到。据澎湃新闻二零二六年七月二十九日报道,二零二六年三月有自媒体称木塔将整体落架维修,有关部门否认,表示正在监测变形、测绘并建立建筑信息模型,同时进行局部加固。
Getting There
前往朔州
The Jining–Datong–Yuanping high-speed railway, 309 kilometres long with nine stops, opened on 31 December 2024 and passes through Datong, Shuozhou and Xinzhou, cutting the journey from Hohhot to Taiyuan to about 3 hours 12 minutes from about 5 hours, according to China Daily of 2 January 2025.
据《中国日报》二零二五年一月二日报道,全长三百零九公里、设九站的集大原高铁二零二四年十二月三十一日开通,途经大同、朔州和忻州,呼和浩特到太原的行程由约五小时缩短到约三小时十二分钟。
Long before any railway reached it, the pagoda had been in the line of fire. According to The Paper, the armies of Feng Yuxiang and Yan Xishan shelled it more than 200 times in 1926, and Tsinghua’s Wang Nan says bullet holes are visible, especially on the hidden levels.
早在铁路通到这里之前,木塔就曾身处炮火之中。据澎湃新闻介绍,一九二六年冯玉祥和阎锡山的部队炮击木塔二百多次;清华大学的王南说,塔上的弹孔清晰可见,暗层里尤其多。
