Niangziguan

Niangzi Pass (), also called the Ladies' Pass, is a mountain pass west of Shijiazhuang, capital of

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

Province in North China. One of the major passages from

Shanxi Shanxi; Chinese postal romanization, formerly romanised as Shansi is a Provinces of China, province in North China. Its capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-level cities are Changzhi a ...

Province to Hebei Province across the

Taihang Mountains The Taihang Mountains () are a Chinese mountain range running down the eastern edge of the Loess Plateau in Shanxi, Henan and Hebei provinces. The range extends over from north to south and has an average elevation of ; its principal peak is ...

, it is west of Shijiazhuang, at the point where the Shitai Railway (Shijiazhuang--

Taiyuan Taiyuan; Mandarin pronunciation: (Jin Chinese, Taiyuan Jin: /tʰai˦˥ ye˩˩/) is the capital of Shanxi, China. Taiyuan is the political, economic, cultural and international exchange center of Shanxi Province. It is an industrial base foc ...

, capital of Shanxi) crosses the border between the two provinces on its way to Taiyuan. Surrounded by a maze of hills and valleys, Niangziguan Pass was famed as "the Ninth Pass on the

Great wall The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand Li (unit), ''li'' long wall") is a series of fortifications in China. They were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection agains ...

". The extant pass was built in 1542 during the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

. The pass is flanked by mountain more than 1,000 metres high. A tributary of the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

, Tao River, twists its way through the valleys below. In ancient times this provided a narrow passage for men and horses. Legend goes that during the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

, the army under the command of Princess Pingyang, daughter of Li Yuan, the first emperor and founder of the Tang dynasty, once garrisoned here. Hence, it was dubbed as the epithet "Ladies' Pass". Its defence played an important part in the Battle of Xinkou between the Chinese Nationalists and the Japanese detachment. Mountain passes of China Great Wall of China Landforms of Hebei Landforms of Shanxi {{Hebei-geo-stub