The Official Prohibition Stele (Feng Xian Jin Bei)

The Official Prohibition Stele stands south of Dusong Pass in Shuangxikou Village, Dipu Town, Anji County. It was originally erected beneath a ginkgo tree in front of Panlong Nunnery. In the 1970s, when the village built an auditorium, the stele was embedded within a surrounding wall for preservation. During the construction of the Fenghuang Reservoir in 2003, the monument was relocated once more to a site roughly 300 meters south of Dusong Pass, where a four-sided pavilion was built to shelter it.

Carved and erected in the 13th year of the Jiaqing reign of the Qing Dynasty (1808 AD), the stele measures 150 centimeters tall, 70 centimeters wide and 20 centimeters thick. Its surface bears 856 intaglio Chinese characters. The inscription records an official bamboo forest protection decree issued by the Anji County Magistrate under superior orders, permanently banning the illegal digging of winter bamboo shoots and unauthorized private bamboo shoot markets via stone inscription.

According to the Tongzhi-era Records of Anji County: “Moso bamboo relies entirely on winter and spring shoots to propagate in bumper years; even minor digging prevents the formation of thriving bamboo groves and deprives local villagers of their livelihoods. Therefore, in the 16th year of the Qianlong reign (1751 AD), gentry led by Wu Hongfan, and again in the 10th year of the Jiaqing reign (1805 AD), gentry headed by Zhang Jinfu, repeatedly submitted petitions to Magistrate Liu Hong of Anji Prefecture, Prefect Deshan of Huzhou, and Judicial Commissioner Dezhang. Their appeals were repeatedly approved, and prohibitory steles were ordered to be carved in stone to perpetually enforce the ban. One such monument once stood outside the main gate of the county government to publicly display the legal restrictions.”

The stele erected at the Anji county yamen has long been lost to the passage of time and cannot be traced today, leaving only this original stone from Panlong Nunnery intact.

The inscription on the Official Prohibition Stele further documents the case relayed by the Prefect of Hangzhou under orders from the Judicial Commissioner of Zhejiang: “Villagers including Zhang Heng of Yuhang County submitted a joint petition requesting a permanent stone ban on the establishment of unlicensed winter bamboo shoot trading markets…”

The Huzhou Prefecture consolidated the two related cases and ordered prohibitory steles to be erected at border junctions of Yuhang, Lin’an, Wukang, Anji and Xiaofeng Counties to enforce the ban permanently. Most of these boundary steles across the counties have since been destroyed, with only this monument in Shuangxikou Village at the Anji-Yuhang border surviving.

For its historical value, the stele was designated one of the First Batch of County-Level Cultural Relics Protected Units in 1983.