Guide · Three Kingdoms Trail
Looking up "Three Kingdoms near Chengdu", "Zhuge Liang's horse pastures" or "Liu Bei's tomb"? In the Three Kingdoms era this place was called Wuyang — the seat of Qianwei Commandery under Shu Han. Not a backwater: the first commandery-level city south of Chengdu. Here's what's actually documented, what's legend, and how Pengshan fits into the wider Three Kingdoms geography of Sichuan.
Pengshan was ancient Wuyang. After the Qin conquest of Shu, Wuyang county was created. In 135 BCE the Qianwei Commandery was founded; under Wang Mang (from 9 CE) the commandery administration moved to Wuyang (today's Jiangkou, Pengshan District) and stayed there until the Southern Qi period (483–493 CE). Under Shu Han, Qianwei was seated at Wuyang and governed five counties: Wuyang, Nan'an (today's Leshan), Bodao (today's Yibin), Zizhong and Niubei (today's Jianyang).
In plain terms: heading south out of Chengdu down the Min River, Wuyang was the first commandery-level city you hit. Leshan, Yibin, Ziyang and Jianyang all answered to it. So Pengshan isn't on the fringes of the story — it was the commandery capital.
Answer the obvious question first: "wooden-horse Mountain" (木马山, Muma) is not a typo. It is a genuine local name for the ridge, and in Pengshan it is treated as the original name of today's "grazing-horses Mountain" (牧马山, also Muma).
· People's Daily Online's culture channel (source: Sichuan Daily) carries a dedicated piece on exactly this: Pengshan folklore says Zhao Qiao, Lu Ban's apprentice, lost control of his wooden horse, which bolted all the way from Chengdu to Pengshan and collapsed beside Longguang Pond at Wuyang (today's Pengshan). The dust it kicked up gathered over time into a ridge, hence "wooden-horse Mountain"; as the grass improved and more people grazed horses there, it turned into today's "grazing-horses Mountain".
· The Taiping Huanyu Ji, ch. 85, records the watercourse as "Mumu River" (沐马川), and the survey Shuangliu Historic Sites notes that Mumu River is also written Mumu, Muma and Wooden-horse River — all three spellings coexist in the record, and the old Guangdu county even had a "Wooden-horse Township" (the forerunner of today's Muma towns).
· Folk sources likewise say the ridge "was called Muma Mountain in the Spring and Autumn period, and in the Three Kingdoms Zhuge Liang stationed troops and grazed as many as 5,000 horses here."
But one disagreement should be stated honestly: the Wuhou Shrine Museum's survey and Shuangliu Historic Sites list the old names of the range — Nüji, Yicheng, Yingtian, Shengdeng, Puxian, Shizi, Baita, Longhua, Wuhou and more — and "wooden-horse Mountain" is not among them. The scholarly reading is that "wooden horse" was originally a river name and the slopes took their name from the water; as a mountain name, it lives mainly in folk legend.
The most satisfying detail is where the legend ends: the Longguang Pond at Wuyang where the wooden horse collapses lies around today's Wuyi Village, Wuyang, Pengshan — the very location of the Wuyang city ruins, i.e. the Shu Han seat of Qianwei Commandery. The folk story lands exactly on the anchor of the recorded history.
The older written sources actually point to Liu Bei:
· Yuanhe Junxian Zhi (Tang), ch. 33: Ji County (today's Jitian, Shuangliu) "was originally Han Wuyang county land...the Northern Zhou named it Ji County after Emperor Xianzhu's ceremonial field."
· Shu Zhong Ming Sheng Zhi, ch. 5: "Liu Bei established a ceremonial field (jitian) here and grazed horses in the river."
· Taiping Huanyu Ji, ch. 85: "Mumu River, 125 li north of the prefecture. Liu Bei set up his ceremonial field here and grazed horses in this river, hence the common name."
· Daoguang Xinjin County Gazetteer, ch. 5: "Grazing-horses Mountain lies 15 li east of the county, joining Shuangliu above and entering Pengshan below, stretching tens of li; it is said to be where the Shu king grazed horses. Five li west of the Yangliu River below the mountain stands a Horse King temple — the old grazing ground."
So the more accurate reading: "laying out a ceremonial field and grazing horses in the river" attaches first to Liu Bei; "Zhuge Liang stationed troops and grazed horses" is the later folk version. The Wuhou Shrine Museum puts it plainly: the name is linked to Three Kingdoms figures, but "no physical remains survive today" — the Zhuge Liang statue in Shuangliu, designed by sculptor Ye Yushan, is a memorial work, not an antiquity.
What matters for a visit is the geography: the range "starts at Jinhua in Chengdu, runs through Shuangliu and Xinjin, and ends at Shuanghekou in Pengshan — over 35 km north to south." Pengshan's Shuanghekou is Jiangkou, where the Min and Fu rivers meet. And the Wuyang city ruins "join Muma Mountain on the north." One ridge stitches Shuangliu, Xinjin and Pengshan into a single Three Kingdoms trail.
Where: Lianhua Community, Jinjiang Town, Pengshan District (formerly Lianhua Village, Muma Town; in December 2019 Muma Town and Jinjiang Township merged into Jinjiang Town). It sits only a few li from Huanglongxi Ancient Town — and a good thirty li from Pengshan's county seat. Locals still recite the rhyme: "To find Liu Bei's grave, leave Xinjin by the east gate; thirty li out, search the Jinling ridge."
The record: successive editions of the Pengshan County Gazetteer state: "Forty li north of the seat, at Lianhuaba, there is an imperial tomb, and it is also said Lianhuaba had an imperial estate. The mound follows the hill; the sealed earth is shaped like an inverted basin; it is said this is Liu Bei's grave. During the Republic, a man called Liu Dongdong claiming descent from Liu Bei built a hut here to guard the tomb, saying he held the Liu family genealogy; the man died and the genealogy has never been found..." Roughly 80% of villagers are surnamed Liu, and the story has passed down for generations.
Shape and scanning: the mound is ringed by nine smaller hills that locals call "the nine petals of the lotus," with the mound itself as the "lotus heart" — a formation fengshui masters call "nine dragons turning to look back." In April 1995, Sichuan Metallurgical Geological Survey Team 605 ran a resistivity scan: a high-resistivity body 10–15 m down, "possibly a very large tomb," with a south-east oriented passage and masonry walls.
Protection: listed as "Lianhuaba Imperial Tomb," a Pengshan county protected site in November 1984, and a Meishan city-level protected site in September 2001.
Three competing theories: (1) Huiling at the Chengdu Wuhou Shrine — the version in Chen Shou's Records of the Three Kingdoms; bricks of Shu Han date were found at the edge of the mound when the shrine was planting trees. (2) Lianhuaba in Pengshan — arguing Liu Bei died in the fourth lunar month and the upstream journey from Fengjie to Chengdu took twenty-plus days, so the Chengdu tomb would only be a cenotaph. (3) Fengjie. Pengshan's heritage office says it "cannot be ruled out," but with no physical evidence, and conservation policy means no excavation — digs happen only to rescue a site under threat.
How to visit: this is a protected burial mound, not an attraction — no ticket, no guide, no car park. Two steles stand at the foot of the hill; a stone stair leads up to a grass-covered earth mound. It's a "stand and look" kind of stop, so keep expectations low. Please look and photograph only — don't climb the mound or disturb the soil. One more navigation note: the nearby "Lianhua Cemetery" is a modern commercial cemetery, a completely different thing from the Lianhuaba imperial mound.
This is Pengshan's hardest documented link to the Three Kingdoms. The Records of the Three Kingdoms · Biography of the Former Lord records that in 220 CE Grand Mentor Xu Jing, General of Anhan Mi Zhu, and General Who Leads the Army Zhuge Liang petitioned: "More than eight hundred submissions have come from below, all speaking of auspicious omens, confirmed by charts and prophecies. Among them: a yellow dragon was seen in the Chishui at Wuyang and stayed nine days. The Xiaojing Yuanshen Qi says, 'when virtue reaches the deep springs, a yellow dragon appears,' and the dragon is the image of a ruler. In the Yi, Qian nine-five reads 'the flying dragon is in the heavens' — the prince should ascend as dragon and take the throne." The Huayang Guozhi dates it to 219: "a yellow dragon was seen in the Chishui at Wuyang for nine days; Shu took it as the Liu family's auspicious response." The Song Shu · Treatise on Omens: "A yellow dragon was seen in the Chishui of Wuyang in Qianwei and left after nine days...thereafter Liu Bei declared himself emperor in Shu."
Scholars suggest this was political theatre staged by Li Yan, then Grand Administrator of Qianwei, reading meaning into a natural phenomenon: where the muddy Chishui (today's Luxi River) meets the clear Fu River, floodwater swirls in a shape locals called "the yellow dragon crossing the clear river." Shu Han then built a Yellow Dragon Temple here and erected the Stele of the Yellow Dragon and Sweet Dew — the Li Xu records that the larger stele's side was inscribed with the names of "Li Yan of Nanyang, Grand Administrator of Qianwei; Song Yuan, Commandery Aide; Yin Hua, Magistrate of Wuyang," with about 150 Shu Han officials named across the two steles. The Ding Lu adds: "as a yellow dragon was seen in the Chishui at Wuyang for nine days, a ding was cast in the shape of a dragon and sunk into the water."
Today's Huanglongxi Ancient Town takes its name from this episode. It sits in Shuangliu, east of the middle Muma range, where the Luxi and Fu rivers meet — the river port that once let boats "go up to Chengdu and down to Nan'an (today's Leshan)." The town has turned the story into an actual sight: the "Yellow Dragon in the Water" water street and the sunken dragon ding at Dragon Pool Square.
In the third month of 225 CE Zhuge Liang led the army south against the four commanderies; they were pacified by autumn and he was back in Chengdu by the twelfth month. The Huayang Guozhi says: "In spring of the third year of Jianxing, Liang campaigned south, entering Yuesui by water from Anshang; he sent Ma Zhong against Zangke and Li Hui toward Yizhou." Research such as Yunnan's Counties Through Two Thousand Years concludes he "set out from Chengdu and followed the Min River down, passing Wuyang to reach Bodao (today's Yibin), where the army split into three columns."
So the southern expedition came down the Min from Chengdu, passed Wuyang (today's Jiangkou in Pengshan) first, and only split at Bodao. Stand at the river confluence in Jiangkou today and you're looking at the first major port the campaign fleet reached after leaving Chengdu.
Shu Han wasn't only an imported Jingzhou clique. Wuyang produced people of real weight:
· Zhang Yi (d. 264), styled Bogong, of Wuyang in Qianwei. His great-grandfather Zhang Hao was Minister of Works under the Eastern Han; his grandfather Zhang Gang was Grand Administrator of Guangling — the very "loyalty" half of Pengshan's "land of loyalty and filial piety," famous for leaving his carriage wheels buried at Luoyang's post station in 142 CE to impeach the all-powerful General-in-Chief Liang Ji. Zhang Yi rose to General of Chariots and Cavalry on the Left and Inspector of Jizhou, a pillar of late Shu Han; the saying ran "first Wang and Gou, later Zhang and Liao." He argued in open court that Shu was "a small state with a weary people" and shouldn't exhaust itself in war; after the great victory at Tao River he urged Jiang Wei to stop, and Jiang Wei snapped "adding feet to a snake" — then took him along on every campaign anyway. In 263 he surrendered with Jiang Wei at Jiange; the next year he was killed in the mutiny at Chengdu. His statue stands third in the Wuhou Shrine's gallery of generals.
· Yang Hong, styled Jixiu, also of Wuyang. When Liu Bei was fighting for Hanzhong he said: "Hanzhong is the throat of Yizhou, the hinge of survival; without Hanzhong there is no Shu...in this hour men must fight and women must haul supplies — what is there to hesitate about?" Zhuge Liang had him made Grand Administrator of Shu Commandery. When Huang Yuan rebelled and Chengdu was stripped of troops, Yang Hong predicted the rebel would "flee downstream by water" and simply posted men at Nan'an Gorge, where Huang Yuan was taken alive. He served his stepmother with notable devotion and died in office in 228. He began his career as a clerk under "Li Yan, Grand Administrator of Qianwei" — who was stationed right here at Wuyang.
· Yang Xi, styled Wenran, of Wuyang, who wrote the Ji Han Fu Chen Zan, a key source behind many of the Shu biographies in Chen Shou's history.
One more thread worth pulling: Pei Songzhi's commentary on the Records of the Three Kingdoms, quoting the Huayang Guozhi, notes that among Yang Xi's younger fellow-countymen was Li Mi (styled Lingbo) — author of the Chen Qing Biao, whose ancestral home is today's Longan Village, Gongyi Town. Shu Han's Wuyang and the later "Memorial on My Feelings" grew from the same soil.
On the east bank of the Min River about 4.5 km northeast of Pengshan's seat, centred on Meihua Village in Jiangkou Subdistrict, 4,580 rock-cut tombs survive across 30.4 sq km (locals often say "over 5,000"). They were listed in June 2001 as a Fifth-Batch national key protected site. Their range runs from the late Western Han down to just before the Three Kingdoms, with Eastern Han tombs dominating — which makes them the most direct evidence of how people of Shu in the Three Kingdoms era treated the dead as if still living: chambers cut into the cliff with front and rear halls, side rooms, a reception hall, a kitchen and wall cupboards, essentially a copy of a living household.
From 1941 to 1942 a joint "Sichuan–Xikang antiquities expedition" — the Academia Sinica's Institute of History and Philology, the preparatory office of the National Central Museum, and the Society for Research in Chinese Architecture — excavated here; the report, Han Dynasty Cliff Tombs at Pengshan, Sichuan, was compiled and published by the Nanjing Museum. On site is the Pengshan Han Cliff Tomb Museum (Jiangkou Cliff Tomb Museum), at 1 Shuangjiang Village, Jiangkou Subdistrict — the only stop on this trail that's a properly curated, open museum.
In 59 BCE Wang Bao's Tong Yue (a servant's contract) contains the words "buy tea at Wuyang" — the earliest recorded tea trade anywhere in the world. The Huayang Guozhi notes that "Nan'an and Wuyang both produce famous tea." The old teahouses stood around Qiaolouzi and Hengjiezi in Jiangkou.
The geography explains it: Jiangkou is where the Min and Fu rivers meet, the first great port in and out of Chengdu, exactly a day's voyage away, with the hills behind it supplying the leaf. Through the decades of Shu Han, Wuyang tea almost certainly left from these same docks.
Wuyang's assets: Shu Han's treasury ran on the Min River
One line in the Han Shu · Treatise on Geography matters here. Listing the twelve counties of Qianwei Commandery it says: "Wuyang had an Iron Office (tieguan), renamed Jicheng under Wang Mang. Nan'an had a Salt Office and an Iron Office." An Iron Office was the state bureau stationed at an iron-producing district to run the smelting works — farm tools as much as weapons. A surviving clay seal reading "Jian Salt Vice Commandant" confirms the salt-and-iron administration of Qianwei.
Shu Han carried the system forward. After taking Yizhou, Liu Bei "established the Office of Salt and Iron to weigh their profits"; Zhang Yi (Junsi) served as Commandant of Metalworking, and the Records of the Three Kingdoms note that he "managed the making of agricultural and military implements." Behind every iron tool that reached a northern front lay a supply chain running from an iron district through an Iron Office up to that commandant — and Wuyang was one of its nodes south of Chengdu.
Rock-salt is Sichuan's old specialty. Li Bing "drilled the salt wells of Guangdu and the various ponds," the first recorded salt wells in China; in 67 BCE the Han "opened twenty salt wells at Linqiong and Pujiang." Then, in the Western Han, well-diggers at Linqiong (today's Qionglai) struck a combustible gas — the Linqiong fire well, the earliest known natural-gas well anywhere. Yang Xiong's Shu Wang Ben Ji: "Linqiong has a fire well, five chi across and over sixty zhang deep...salt is boiled above it." The Huayang Guozhi adds the detail that matters: "Boil with well fire and one hu of brine yields five dou of salt; boil with household fire and you get almost nothing."
This is where Zhuge Liang comes in. Zhang Hua's Bowu Zhi, the earliest source linking the fire well to him, says: "people once threw bamboo and wood into it to take fire, the Chancellor Zhuge went to inspect it, and afterward the fire burned hotter still; a basin was set over the well and salt was boiled from it." Shu Han put salt under a Commandant of Salt — the first holder was Wang Lian, of whom the Records say "the revenue was considerable and a help to state finances" — with a dedicated "Salt Office" in Chengdu. The salt-boiling scene bricks unearthed at Huapaifang, Qionglai, now in the Sichuan Museum, are the physical evidence. One aside: the Linqiong that Huang Yuan's rebels burned in the third month of 223 was exactly this prize of a resource district — in civil war they were raiding for salt.
South of Dujiangyan sits a second, under-known hydraulic system. The Tongji Weir takes its headworks at the confluence of the Nan and Xi rivers with the Min south of Xinjin, and its main channel runs down the right bank through Xinjin, Pengshan and Meishan, still watering half a million mu today. It was inscribed as a World Heritage Irrigation Structure in 2022. Historically it went by a string of names: Six Water Gates, Pujiang Great Weir, Xin Weir, Yuanji Weir, Tongzi Weir.
The Commentary on the Water Classic writes of Wuyang county that it "banked the river into a great weir, opened six water gates and watered the country below" — and the Huayang Guozhi echoes it, "the Pujiang Great Weir watered the commandery below, six water gates, with a shrine to Zhu Jun." The words "below the commandery" carry weight: the land being watered is the seat of Qianwei Commandery, Wuyang. And the founding date? Song historian Li Xinchuan, in the Jianyan Yilai Xinian Yaolu: "The Tongji Weir of Meizhou was first created in the Jian'an era, watering over 340,000 mu in Xinjin, Meishan and Pengshan." Water-resources historian Xu Ming endorses that reading. Jian'an (196–220) is precisely the threshold of the Three Kingdoms — in the years Shu Han was being founded, the grainfields of Pengshan, Xinjin and Meishan had already been drinking from the Min for decades.
Now look upstream by comparison: Dujiangyan. The Commentary records that "when Zhuge Liang campaigned north, he regarded this weir as the base of agriculture and the resource of the state, and assigned 1,200 conscripts to guard it, with a Weir Office" — a dedicated weir commandant, dated by the provincial gazetteer to 227–234. In Chengdu itself, the Nine-Li Embankment against Fu River floods later became known as "Zhuge's Embankment." Dujiangyan shielded Chengdu at one end, the Tongji Weir fed Wuyang at the other; Shu Han's grain line ran straight through the middle, and Wuyang sat on it.
Three Kingdoms across Sichuan — how Pengshan fits in
Liu Bei took the throne south of Mount Wudan in 221, citing among his omens the "yellow dragon in the Chishui at Wuyang." Huiling, the tomb recorded in the Records of the Three Kingdoms, stands within today's Wuhou Shrine; Chengdu's brocade industry ran under a dedicated "Brocade Office" and was the state's main trade good against Wei and Wu. The Nine-Li Embankment and the weir-office system at Dujiangyan were the agricultural base under all of it.
The Yuanhe Junxian Zhi: "Zhuge Liang's former residence is eight li northeast of Shuangliu county town, today called 'Getian'." In his memorial to the throne Zhuge Liang declared his assets: "eight hundred mulberry trees and fifteen qing of thin fields in Chengdu...on the day I die there will be no surplus silk inside nor profit outside, to the shame of Your Majesty." Li Bing drilled the first salt wells here at Guangdu, and Shu Han opened further small wells. The northern end of the horse-grazing range is in Shuangliu.
Iron Office farm tools and weapons, a ceremonial field and horse pastures, the Tongji Weir watering the commandery, the Wuyang tea market moving the leaf, the "yellow dragon in the Chishui" blessing Liu Bei's enthronement, and three Shu statesmen born here — Zhang Yi, Yang Hong and Yang Xi. The first stop south of Chengdu was well stocked with functions.
In 223, as Liu Bei lay dying at Yong'an, Huang Yuan, Grand Administrator of Hanjia, rebelled and burned Linqiong while Chengdu lay empty. Everyone assumed he would fall back on the south if defeated; Yang Hong alone said: "he will simply flee downstream by water...order Han and Zheng to block him at Nan'an Gorge." They did, and Huang Yuan was taken alive near Leshan. An almost forgotten rebellion that gambled on the Min River — the very waterway that runs past Wuyang.
In 225 Zhuge Liang's southern expedition "followed the Min River down, passing Wuyang to Bodao, and there split into three columns." Bodao was also the northern terminus of the Five-Chi Road running south through Zhuti (today's Zhaotong) toward Jianning (today's Qujing). The Records sum up the campaign in one line: "the military revenue that came in made the state rich." Gold, silver, cinnabar, lacquer, oxen and war horses from the south all moved north along the Min–Bodao–Five-Chi corridor.
In 263 Deng Ai smuggled his army across the Yinping track and Zhuge Zhan and his son Zhuge Shang died at Mianzhu (the Three Kingdoms Mianzhu city is at today's Huangxu, Deyang — not the modern Mianzhu). Zhang Fei held Langzhong for seven years before being murdered by his own men; Liu Bei died in the Yong'an Palace at Baidicheng in 223; that same year Jiang Wei and Zhang Yi fell back to Jiange to hold off Zhong Hui. These were Shu Han's northern and eastern lines; together with the southern line that Pengshan anchored, they form the whole map. When Shu fell in 263, Qianwei's Wuyang crossed into the Jin with it — and twenty years later a son of Wuyang, Li Mi, wrote the "Memorial on My Feelings."
· Separate legend from scholarship. "Zhuge Liang stationed troops and grazed horses" on the Muma range is a later folk tradition; the written sources attach the grazing to Liu Bei. The Lianhuaba mound said to be Liu Bei's tomb stands against Chengdu's Huiling and a Fengjie claim, none proven.
· Not everything is visitable. The Wuyang city ruins and the Lianhuaba mound are protected sites with no ticket office, car park or guide — a stele and an earth mound. What you can actually walk into is the Pengshan Han Cliff Tomb Museum and Huanglongxi Ancient Town.
· Where to meet the people: Zhang Yi's statue is third in the generals' gallery at the Chengdu Wuhou Shrine, cast in 1849; Zhuge Liang's Shuangliu home "Getian" survives only as a place name.
· Physical objects you can see: the Li Bing statue at Dujiangyan, inscribed "first year of Jianing...Dushui Yuan" (168 CE, two generations before Shu Han's weir office); the salt-boiling scene bricks from Qionglai in the Sichuan Museum; and the Han cliff tombs at Jiangkou, Pengshan.
If you come to Pengshan for its Three Kingdoms sites, the 'Pengshan of today' tastes like luwei: Gongyi Guoshi Luwei (188 Guanbao Road, Gongyi Town), a 20-year shop, braises Sweet-Skin Duck and Liangban Pork each morning.
More reading: Jiangkou Sunken Silver Museum · Pengshan history in one page