The origin of the ancient underwater city of Qiandao Lake and the process of its discovery.

The Qiandao Lake Underwater Ancient City includes two ancient cities: Hecheng and Shicheng. Due to the construction of the Xin'anjiang Hydropower Station reservoir, these two thousand-year-old county towns were submerged by the lake in 1959.

In 1959, in order to build the Xin'anjiang Hydropower Station, the largest water conservancy project at the time, the original Chun'an County and Sui'an County in Zhejiang Province were merged into Chun'an County. 290,000 people left their hometowns and immigrated. The two ancient cities of Hecheng, which have lasted for thousands of years, together with 27 towns, more than 1,000 villages, 300,000 acres of fertile farmland and thousands of private houses, quietly sank to the bottom of the vast blue Qiandao Lake.

The ancient city of Chun'an, also known as Hecheng, was built in 208 AD. The clusters of Hui-style mansions under the carefully crafted "Shang"-shaped porches shaped like ancient coins indicate the prosperity of this hub of Huizhou merchant trade routes on the banks of the Xin'an River. Throughout the ages, many literati and scholars have visited here. There are many famous works and cultural relics everywhere.

The history of Sui'an is later than that of Chun'an. According to records, Sui'an County was moved to the current boundary of Sui'an in the 4th year of Tang Wude (AD 621). Because it is backed by Wushi Mountain, it is also called Lion City.

Lion City has convenient water and land transportation and is an important town in western Zhejiang. Hong Xiuquan’s younger brother Hong Rengan once led the Taiping Army to garrison at the north gate. There are many places of interest in the Lion City, including ancient pagodas, archways, Yue Temple, Chenghuang Temple, Zhonglie Bridge, Five Lions Academy and other ancient buildings from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, as well as ancient tombs from past dynasties.

In the eyes of many cultural relics protection experts, the "flooding of Chun'an City" seemed quite hasty. It stands to reason that before building a reservoir, the reservoir must be "cleared", buildings must be bulldozed, garbage must be removed, and cultural relics must be relocated and protected. Historical records indicate that before the Xinanjiang Reservoir was filled with water, the local government requested that houses in two counties be bulldozed, destroyed and disinfected. Hecheng was basically destroyed. There was a slogan at that time: "Bring more new ideas and less old furniture."

The old man who moved out of the ancient city recalled, "The Lion City is far from the dam, and the people in the city did not expect that the water It arrived so quickly that there was no time to move. "Therefore, the ancient Lion City is generally considered to be basically intact.