Hua Qing Pool in Xi’an City

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     Huaqing Pool locates east of the city of Xi’an. In the Tang dynasty, Li Shimin (Emperor Tai Zong) ordered to construct the Hot Spring Palace, and Emperor Xuan Zong had a walled palace built around Lishan Mountain in 747. It was known as the Huaqing Palace. It also had the name Huaqing Pool on account of its location on the hot springs.

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  Huaqing Pool is located at the foot of the Lishan Mountain, a branch range of the Qinling Ranges, and stands 1,256 metres high. It is covered with pines and cypresses, looking very much like a like a dark green galloping horse from a long distance. So it has the name of the Lishan Mountain (Li means a black horse).

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  The Tang dynasty Emperor Xuan Zong and his favorite concubine, Yang Gui Fei used to make their home at Frost Drifting Hall in winter days.

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        Close by the Frost Drifting Hall lies the Nine Dragon Pool. According to legend, the Central Shaanxi Plain was once stricken by a severe drought in the very remote past. Thus, by the order of the Jade Emperor (the Supreme Deity of Heaven), an old dragon came at the head of eight young ones, and made rain here. Yet when the disaster was just abating, they lowered their guard so much that it became serious again. In a fit of anger, the Jade Emperor kept the young dragons under the Jade Cause Way (玉堤), with the Morning Glow Pavilion and the Sunset Pavilion built at both ends of it respectively, to make the young dragons spout clear water all day long to meet the needs of local irrigation. Besides, he had the old dragon confined to the bottom of the Roaring Dragon Waterside Pavilion situated at the upper end of the Jade Causeway, and obliged him to exercise control over the young. 

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