Shiguzhen

This guide to Shiguzhen in Lijiang starts with ferrymen rowing small rented boats across the Jinsha River on the night of April 25, 1936, when General He Long's retreating Red Army column needed to cross during the Long March. It traces why this exact bend in the river forced centuries of caravans, and even Kublai Khan's Mongol forces, through the same narrow ford. A statue near the museum behind you shows one of those boatmen, oar in hand, ferrying a soldier across.