Meihua Mountain Introduction

Nanjing Plum Blossom Mountain has been the main venue for the Plum Blossom Festival for nine consecutive years. It is also the only plum blossom viewing resort located in a World Heritage area in China. Among the eight major plum blossom viewing resorts in the country, whether it is based on plum blossom planting It is the leader in history, scale, quantity and variety, and is known as "the best plum mountain in the world".

According to historical records, plum blossom planting in Nanjing was already in full swing during the Six Dynasties. During the Ming Dynasty, there was a plum blossom viewing resort one mile southeast of Linggu Temple, called Meihuawu. It was a plum garden specially set up by the Ming Dynasty court, where plum blossoms were planted. There are no less than a thousand plums, and the plums produced are specially used in the Ancestral Temple to worship the emperor's ancestors. Each plum tree in the plum garden has a wooden sign with the word "imperial" written on it. Due to the harsh criminal laws of the Ming Dynasty, although there were many tourists, no one dared to climb the branches privately.

In the early 1930s, the then Prime Minister’s Cemetery Management Committee designated the Meihua Mountain area as the rose flower area of ??the Sun Yat-sen Cemetery Botanical Garden, and began to plant plums. By the eve of the Anti-Japanese War, a plum forest had formed here, and whenever the plum blossoms bloomed On this occasion, there is always an endless stream of tourists. In 1944, it was officially called Meihua Mountain.

In recent years, the scale of plum planting in Meihua Mountain has continued to expand, and new varieties have continued to appear. Today, Meihua Mountain has a plum garden area of ??more than 400 acres, forming three major plum blossom systems, five major categories, and 18 plum blossoms. Flower types, more than 230 varieties, and a total of about 15,000 plants. Among them, there are a collection of exquisite products, such as the "Palace-pink plum" with light red makeup, the "Longyou plum" with a shape like a swimming dragon, the "Green-calyx plum" with calyx like emerald, the "Jade butterfly-shaped plum" with flowers like piles of snow, the rouge The beaded "Cinnabar-shaped Plum", as well as the rare varieties "Biejiaowanshui", "Nanjing Red", etc. In addition, more than 60 varieties such as "Single-valve Jumping Branch" and "Water Red Cinnabar" have been registered internationally. As the saying goes, "Flowers are about to bloom before they are fully bloomed." When the plum blossoms are in bud and ready to bloom, it is very special to go to Meihua Mountain to "explore the flowers." When the plum blossoms are in full bloom, the blooming Meihua Mountain makes tourists immersed in the picturesque scenery.

Meihua Mountain is no longer an ordinary hill for Nanjing, but an important "cultural space". It is an important cultural space for the Nanjing Plum Blossom Festival. In 252 AD, Sun Quan, the great emperor of Wu, died of illness at the age of 71 and was buried on a high hill at the southern foot of Zhongshan Mountain. The mausoleum was called "Jiang Ling" in history, and the burial place was named "Sunlinggang", which is today's Meihua Mountain.

Sun Quan’s move set a precedent for famous emperors or politicians who established their capitals in Nanjing to use Zhongshan as their mausoleum site. That is to say, he was also the founder of Zhongshan mausoleum culture. There are no less than 10 "emperor" figures buried in Zhongshan, but only Mr. Sun Quan, Zhu Yuanzhang and Sun Yat-sen can be buried in the main peak of Zhongshan or under the east, middle and west peaks.