Qionglongshan / 穹窿山: hiking to historic places west of Suzhou

Arrival:

About one week earlier, Sammi and I had decided to use the long weekend around the Chinese mid autumn festival (中秋节) to climb the highest "mountain" of Suzhou, the Qionglongshan (穹窿山). From my Apartment in the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP), we took a taxi and arrived at the park entrance after about an hour. We bought the tickets in the ticket office. 

Tour description:

From the park entrance, we startet the moderate ascent. Together with many other people, we passed some springs and several beautiful small temples. I did not feel really well this day due to some stomach problems, so we stopped once in a while before we finally arrived at the main ridge after about one hour. We enjoyed the view towards Taihu (太湖), but we did actually see not too much of the lake due to the smog. Northwards, we could see the main plateau peak of the mountain (342m), which is currently closed due to reconstruction activities. From the lake view area, one can reach the Ningbang (宁邦) temple district within five minutes. The temple area is worth seeing and one can easiliy spend 1-2 hous there walking around.

After having visited the major sites of Ningbang (宁邦) temple, we headed down on the south side of the main ridge towards the Sun Wu garden (孙武园), one if not the most important historic sites of the park. 
Sun Wu (孙武), also known as Sunzi (孙子) lived around 500 BC and is known to be a general, philosopher and strategist of the so-called spring and autumn period. He is the authour of the famous book of the art of war (孙子兵法), that comprises 13 chapters. The book has influenced the history of warfare until modernity. It is supposed to be written on Qionglong mountain (穹窿山) and its 13 chapters are (see article on Wikipedia):

1. Detail Assessment and Planning (始计)
2. Waging War (作战)
3. Strategic Attack (谋攻)
4. Disposition of the Army (军形)
5. Forces (兵势)
6. Weaknesses and Strengths (虚实)
7. Military Maneuvers (军争)
8. Variations and Adaptability ( 九变)
9. Movement and Development of Troops (行军)
10. Terrain (地形)
11. The Nine Battlegrounds (九地)
12. Attacking with Fire (火攻)
13. Intelligence and Espionage (用间)

After a short rest and a visit to a small Museum, we climbed up to the ridge again. From there, we reached the entrance area of the park within half an hour.
 

Return

We were lucky and had no problem to find a taxi that brought us back to the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) within an hour.