Poems of poets of past dynasties are engraved on the stone wall of Xiangbi Rock, including a poem "To Doctor Yan in Guangxi" written by Han Yu, a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, with friends as observers in Guangxi. Although Han Yu has never been to Guilin, he has poems praising Guilin. It can be seen that in the Tang Dynasty, Guilin's landscape also became famous and desirable. Among them, the phrase "the river is a green ribbon and the mountain is like a jade hairpin" skillfully regards the winding Lijiang River as a fairy's fluttering nepotism and compares the mountain in Guilin to a jade hairpin on a woman's head. These two poems have captured the characteristics of Guilin's landscape form, and now they have become excellent sentences describing Guilin's landscape, which have been passed down through the ages and are widely known.
There is a big semicircle hole between trunk and leg of Elephant Trunk Mountain. When the moon is in the sky, it just forms a big circle with the reflection in the river, like a bright moon floating on the water, so it is called "Shuiyue Cave". Shuiyue Cave is17m long,12m high and10m wide. Jie Yuan, a writer in Tang Dynasty, carved the word "Shuiyue Cave" on Xiangbi Rock with seal script. The formation of Shuiyue Cave was created by nature. About 200 million years ago, Elephant Trunk Mountain emerged from the earth's surface, and there were many cracks in front of the mountain. Under the long-term erosion of the underground river, this big cave gradually formed. Although Guilin is full of mountains and there are holes in them, there are not many holes that can be crossed by boat, such as Shuiyue Cave. Although the area in the cave is small, it is a collection of famous works by famous poets of all ages. There are more than 50 cliff stone carvings, including 23 in Song Dynasty, 1 in Yuan Dynasty, 12 in Ming Dynasty, 14 in Qing Dynasty and 2 in Republic of China. The content includes poems, lyrics, lists, inscriptions, biographies, biographies, etc. It is a key cultural relic protection unit in Guangxi.
Shuiyue Cave is an old pier in ancient Guilin. It is said that every scientific research season, candidates from all counties will gather in Guilin to catch the exam, which is called "catching the exam". At that time, rich candidates rode horses, but those who had no money left, and more people chose to go by boat. Therefore, every year in the scientific research season in August, the Lijiang River is full of boats. In the evening, on the river, a fishing fire was lit and books made a loud sound. One day, a "xianggong" was studying in Shuiyue Cave, and a boatman wrote a couplet to test him: "Looking at the bottom of the river is like a god." "Xianggong" blurted out: "Carp breaks water". The boatman was overjoyed and said that "xianggong" must be a high school. It was the top scholar in Guilin that year.
The earliest stone carving in the cave is the inscription of "Shuiyue Cave" by Yuan Jie in Tang Dynasty. The most interesting poems are those written by Zhang Xiaoxiang and Fan Chengda in Song Dynasty. Zhang Xiaoxiang's Notes on Chaoyangge and Poems on Chaoyangge are engraved on the rock wall of Shuiyue Cave. 1 165, Zhang Xiaoxiang went to Guilin as Guangxi peace envoy and Jingjiang magistrate. [Zhang Xiaoxiang, also known as Anguo, a famous poet in the Southern Song Dynasty] has worked in Guilin for two years, and 1 167 is leaving. Because the new pavilion is located in the east of Xiangshan Mountain, it is bathed in sunshine whenever the sun rises, so Zhang Xiaoxiang named this pavilion "Chaoyang Pavilion" and renamed Shuiyue Cave "Chaoyang Cave", and inscribed "Chaoyang Pavilion" and two poems on the trunk side of Shuiyue Cave.
Six years later, Fan Chengda went to Guilin as the magistrate of Jingjiang and the ambassador of Guangxi. He pays special attention to the construction of scenic spots. He believes that the name of Shuiyue Cave has been circulated since ancient times, and there were Chaoyang Cave and Chaoyang Pavilion in the hidden mountain of Guilin, which should not be repeated. He thought it inappropriate for Zhang Xiaoxiang to change his name casually, so he changed the name of the cave to Shuiyue Cave, and wrote the inscription of Shuiyue Cave in the cave. Since then, the name of Shuiyue Cave has been preserved to this day.
In addition, the most famous poem in the cave is "Shui Yue Dong Yun" written by Chu Shi in northern Hebei in the Song Dynasty. The poem says: "There is a bright moon underwater, and the bright moon floats on the water, but the water does not go to the moon, and the water still flows when the moon goes." This poem vividly depicts the most beautiful scenery of Shuiyue Cave. On a bright moon night, people see the moon in the sky, the moon in the cave and the moon in the water, which reflect each other and give people the feeling of walking like water in the middle of the month. This is the famous Xiangshan Shuiyue. This poem is still widely circulated today.
There are more than 50 stone carvings in Shuiyue Cave, most of which were inscribed by Song people. When it comes to Song poetry, we have to mention Lu You, a patriotic poet in the Southern Song Dynasty. He especially yearns for the landscape of Guilin, but he has no chance to come. The four letters of Lu You are engraved in the hidden cave, which is an elegant and vigorous cursive script and can be called a fine stone carving in Guilin. Lu You, a native of Zhejiang, was a famous patriotic poet in the Southern Song Dynasty. Although he has been to Guilin in the future, he yearns for the landscape of Guilin very much. The poems carved on the rock wall of Shuiyue Cave are a letter and seven poems he wrote to his friend Du Sigong in Guangxi. Unfortunately, Lu You's poems are vague, and now the Guilin Cultural Relics Team is carrying out rescue restoration of such stone carvings, so it also appeals to people to protect cultural relics.
Elephant trunk cliff is also engraved with a large-scale list of "release ponds" written by Huang, a political envoy of Guangxi in Qing Dynasty. He is especially good at the big list book, and the stone carving of "Southern Tianyi Column" by Du Xiufeng in Guilin is also his work.
On the side, Mr. Ding Yaojiang, an overseas Chinese in Thailand, wrote the four characters "Xiangshan Shuiyue" with 1984.
On our upper left is engraved Ode to the Emperor of Qing Dynasty written by Ni, the magistrate of Guilin in Qing Dynasty, which is 257 cm high and 752 cm wide. It is the largest stone carving in Guilin. He criticized the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom from the standpoint of the Qing government, saying that they were "thieves" and "prostitutes".
In A.D. 1637, Xu Xiake, a geographer in the Ming Dynasty, visited Xiangshan three times in order to get the exquisite rubbings of these stone carvings.