Sichuan Cave Fortress (999 AD)
Location approximate. The film gives only the province, so the pin sits on Luzhou, the creator's base; the site may be anywhere in Sichuan. A three-storey fortress cut into solid rock, entered through a single stone door of about 400 kg that still swings by hand, opening onto interconnected chambers, concealed passages and enough of them to get lost in. The date given on film is precise — carved in 999 AD, which puts it in the early Northern Song — and the local guide's account is the only source for it. The walls inside are black with soot, which the film reads as evidence of a fire attack, a siege rather than a hearth. Another Chinese channel appears to cover the same fortress, giving the same 999 date and the same hand-pushed stone door, and calls it 青龙寨, Qinglong Zhai; no authoritative source or coordinate was found under that name, so the atlas does not assert it.
Open in the Atlas map →Walkthrough videos (1)
999 AD Carved: Sichuan's Thousand-Year-Old Mysterious Palace · Luzhou Abo