Anshun Bridge

This guide to Anshun Bridge in Chengdu opens with Marco Polo pausing on a market-crowded wooden bridge across the Jin River in the 1300s, and follows the long run of floods that kept undoing whatever stood in its place. You'll hear how eighteenth-century officials named the rebuilt crossing Anshun, meaning safe passage, only for the river to answer back again and again, including a 1947 flood that swept the deck away and left bare stone piers standing alone for decades. It picks the story back up with a 1970s rebuild and the engineers who later decided timber decks were done for good. Look for the carved water-beast statues still set into the piers, guardians from an older bridge than the one you're standing on.