Wanshan Stone Bridge

Wanshan Stone Bridge is located east of Shiqiao Village in Changchunling Town in northern Fuyu City. Originally under the administration of Shiqiao Township, the township was incorporated into Changchunling Town in 2005. Spanning Jiajin Ditch, it is a three-arch bridge.

The bridge body is built of bluish grey and pale yellow granite. It stretches 40.1 metres long, 4.1 metres wide and 7.7 metres high. On the upper southern side of the bridge, eight Chinese characters are carved: May it endure as long as heaven and earth — Wanshan Stone Bridge. Four characters on the northern side read Virtue remembered for a hundred generations. A pair of stone lions were carved on each side of the railings. With a steady and primitive shape, the bridge embodies distinctive traditional Chinese architectural features.

Construction started in the third year of the Xuantong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1911) and was finished in 1921, the 10th year of the Republic of China. It once served as a key bridge on the northern highway of Fuyu. During the highway reconstruction in 1987, a reinforced concrete bridge was built to the north. After that, the ancient stone bridge was retired from service.

In the Qing Dynasty, numerous Mongolians moved to Shiqiao Village to open up wasteland for farming. Back then, Jiajin Ditch was only more than twenty metres wide. There used to be a large bridge crossing the ditch, but it fell into disrepair and collapsed, blocking transportation and bringing great inconvenience to local residents. Every year, carriages and horses fell off the broken bridge.

In the spring of 1911, Wu Shouren, Shi Hongfan and other members of the Changchunling Charitable Society took the initiative to raise donations for building a new stone bridge. They mobilized local monks to travel far and wide to solicit alms as far as Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei and Henan provinces. After arduous journeys, the monks raised a total of 1.47 million strings of cash. The society then sent people to Ashihada on the outskirts of Jilin City to purchase stone materials and start construction. The project was finally completed in 1921.

To commemorate this charitable undertaking and those who made contributions, the charitable society built a temple with a bell tower on the northern side of the western end of the bridge. Beneath the eaves stood two steles recording the project and four steles listing donors. Made of white marble, each stele is seven chi tall and two chi wide, decorated with carved dragons along the edges. Both sides were densely inscribed with the names of builders and donors, amounting to thousands of people. The bridge was named Wanshan, meaning a project fulfilled by the good deeds of tens of thousands of people.

The completion of Wanshan Stone Bridge greatly facilitated local travel and also gave rise to many folk tales. The most popular one is the legend of "Qiao Cheng". When the bridge was nearly finished, workers needed to set the final stone on the top arch. Yet every hewn stone they prepared was either too big or too small, leaving the craftsmen at a loss.

Just then, an elderly man with flowing white hair stepped forward. He pushed through the crowd, lifted a stone, walked over and set it firmly in place. The stone fit perfectly with the surrounding masonry, impressing all the workers. When they asked for his name, the old man replied simply "Qiao Cheng", and then vanished without a trace. Everyone believed they had met an immortal.

With the leftover donations after bridge construction, the charitable society purchased 53 hectares of land and took in more than 20 orphans. Income from farming and renting the land was used to maintain the stone bridge and fund the children’s schooling. Several years later, the orphans grew up. Some stayed to farm and start families; others joined the army and rendered meritorious service to the nation.

The stone bridge has stood for more than a century. The main structure remains intact, yet most of the stone railings and lions on the bridge were damaged and lost. In 2000, government departments and local sponsors funded restoration work and built a preservation park for Wanshan Stone Bridge. Today the ancient bridge has been restored to its original appearance.