Shibaozhai

Shibaozhai is a twelve-story wooden pavilion built in 1819 during the Jiaqing reign of the Qing dynasty against the vertical face of Yuyin Rock, a sandstone outcrop on the north bank of the Yangtze River in Zhong County, roughly 175 kilometers downstream from central Chongqing. The pavilion was constructed to provide a stairway to a small Ming-dynasty temple, the Lingyun Pavilion, that had stood atop the isolated 30-meter rock since the 16th century but had previously been reachable only by rope and ladder; the wooden tower's cantilevered construction, built largely without nails in its original sections, allowed pilgrims to climb the rock face safely for the first time. Local legend holds that the rock itself is a stone dropped by the goddess Nuwa while repairing the sky, and the site was historically venerated as a source of blessed grain, giving it the alternate name 'Baoyin Zi,' or precious seal. When the Three Gorges Dam raised the Yangtze's water level after 2003, Shibaozhai's base would have been submerged; Chinese engineers built a 1,200-meter horseshoe-shaped protective cofferdam and levee around the site, turning the former riverside rock into an artificial island reachable only by a floating bridge, one of the most prominent heritage-preservation responses to the dam project. The pavilion's interior preserves a winding wooden staircase connecting eleven internal floors, with the original Ming-era temple structure retained at the summit alongside later Qing-dynasty additions including a bell tower and shrine halls. Curatorial presentation on site is minimal, relying on the architecture and setting itself rather than object displays, with visitor information concentrated on the building's construction history and its dramatic post-dam preservation.