Hongqingshan National Forest Park

This guide to Hongqingshan National Forest Park outside Xi'an follows Huang Chao, a failed civil-service candidate and salt smuggler whose army marched from Shandong all the way to Chang'an and, in early eight eighty-one, took the Tang capital and proclaimed him emperor of a new state called Great Qi. It traces why he chose this ridge, just four kilometers from his new palace, as ground he could defend, and the soldiers who dug in here under what locals came to call Huang Chao's Fort. Look today for the loess cliffs, bamboo groves and cave dwellings that have replaced the fortifications.