Seeking strength through the sea has been Guangxi's pursuit for over a thousand years.
More than two thousand years ago, ancient craftsmen dug the Lingqu Canal, connecting the Yangtze River and Pearl River systems. Goods from the Central Plains traveled south along the canal waters, then set sail from the ancient port of Hepu. On this thousand-year-old waterway, Pingle is an ancient city that cannot be overlooked — starting from the Lingqu in Xing'an, following the Li River southward for 164 kilometers, it meets the Lijiang and Chajiang rivers at the Sanjiangkou in Pingle county town. Where the three rivers converge, the water volume surges and the river surface suddenly widens, forming the Guijiang, which flows southward into the Xijiang and rushes toward the sea. The Chajiang (Gongcheng River), Lijiang, and Lijiang converge at Sanjiangkou to form the thousand-year golden waterway of Guijiang, winding southward. (Photo courtesy of Pingle County Party Committee Propaganda Department) On September 16, 2026, the Pinglu Canal officially opened to navigation, turning Guangxi's pattern of connecting rivers to the sea and linking rivers and seas from a blueprint into reality; from October 12 to 15, the World Canal Conference will open in Guilin, focusing on ancient canal protection and modern canal revival. As the Lingqu and Pinglu Canal, spanning more than two thousand years of ancient and modern relay, stand on the global stage, Pingle, this thousand-year-old ancient ferry on the Guijiang, is sailing from the depths of history toward a broader deep blue.
Thousand-Year Ancient Ferry, a River of Spring Water Carrying Prosperity
Pingle's connection to the Maritime Silk Road runs far deeper than people imagine.
According to historical records, the construction of the Lingqu laid a solid foundation for the birth of the Maritime Silk Road — in 214 BC, the Lingqu was dug through, connecting the Xiangjiang and Lijiang rivers and closely linking the Central Plains with Lingnan; a century later, during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, the Maritime Silk Road was formally opened, and envoys indeed "followed the Hanshui and Xiangshui, passed through the Lingqu, and entered the Lijiang," setting sail from Hepu and other places to voyage to the Indian Ocean. And Pingle's Sanjiangkou was precisely the first distribution dock on this official sea route where Central Plains goods entered Lingnan. Since the Qin Dynasty, a "national-level sea route" centered on the Guijiang took shape: Central Plains — Xiangjiang — Lingqu — Lijiang — Guijiang — Xijiang — Beiliujiang — Nanliujiang — Hepu Port. Silk, tea, and ceramics traveled south along the Guijiang to Hepu, voyaging to Southeast Asia and even ancient Rome; overseas pearls, spices, and glassware also traveled upstream deep into the Central Plains. The Guijiang was also the official waterway for diplomatic exchanges between ancient China and Jiaozhi (called Annan after the Tang Dynasty, today's Vietnam), and Pingle's Zhaotan Post was an important station for envoys to rest, change boats, and resupply.
The reason Pingle could become the hub of this thousand-year waterway is inseparable from its long history of administrative establishment. Historical records show that Pingle was established as a county in the first year of Ganlu of Eastern Wu (256 AD), became Lezhou in the fourth year of Wude of Tang (621 AD), was renamed Zhaozhou in the eighth year of Zhenguan (634 AD), became Pingle Prefecture in the Yuan Dynasty, and continued through the Ming and Qing dynasties. In the early years of New China, Pingle was the seat of a prefecture, governing 11 counties, a rare thousand-year prefectural ancient city in the Lingnan region. The county has 29 large and small rivers, and the Guijiang water system reaches almost every township. The ancient towns of Shazi and Rongjin along the Rongjin River and Chajiang were already bustling market towns during the Tang and Song dynasties; the county town retains 22 ancient docks, tangible witnesses to the busy loading and unloading of merchant ships in those days. Cargo ships docked at Pingle's freight terminal. Photo by reporter Huang Min/ Now, standing at Pingle's old Guijiang dock, the river water is still emerald green, and the old banyan trees on the bank have gnarled, vigorous branches. Mai Sifa, a 72-year-old man, pointed at the river surface with a touch of emotion: "I started working in 1970, sailing for the Pingle County Shipping Company. Back then, from Pingle to Wuzhou was 232 kilometers, passing 361 and a half shoals, taking three days downstream and five days upstream, half a month for one trip." Mai Sifa is a witness to the rise and fall of Pingle's shipping. He recalled that in the 1970s, the Pingle County Shipping Company had more than 4,000 employees, with wooden boats, cement boats, iron-wood structure boats, and all-steel boats — a variety of vessel types. "Wuzhou was our transit port; goods from Guilin were hauled to Wuzhou, then east to Guangzhou, west to Liuzhou and Guigang. Those floating timber rafts, loading local specialties, transporting cement and steel — boats came and went on the river, and the docks were bustling." Huang Liangfeng, 70, entered the Pingle County Shipping Company as an engineer in 1970. He remembers that passenger-cargo ships from Pingle to Wuzhou had more than 20 crew members. "They stopped at 16 stations along the way, making it convenient for coastal residents to get on and off. In 1974, a boat ticket cost a few yuan, and my monthly salary was about thirty yuan — life was solid." The memories of these two elderly men bear witness to Pingle's golden years as a Guijiang shipping hub. Old docks in Pingle County in the 1960s. (Photo courtesy of Pingle County Party Committee Propaganda Department)
Canal Opens New Path, Guijiang Waterway Connects Rivers and Seas
However, as highways and railways were laid into the mountains of northern Guangxi one after another, the roar of trucks replaced the sails on the river. The Lingqu's freight and grain transport functions gradually withdrew from the stage of history, and Guijiang shipping also fell silent for a time. Although the Pingle County Shipping Company still exists, "now it mainly hauls sand, stone, and earth; other goods basically go by road," Mai Sifa said with a touch of melancholy.
The turning point came from the east wind of national strategy. With the deepening advancement of national water network construction, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area development strategy, and the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, the Guijiang has ushered in a historic opportunity for waterway revival. The Xiang-Gui Canal, a national strategic project connecting the Yangtze River and Pearl River systems, is currently in the preliminary demonstration stage. Public information shows that the canal starts at Pingdao in Yongzhou City, Hunan Province, goes upstream along the Xiaoshui, the main stream of the Xiangjiang, through Lingling, Shuangpai, and Daoxian, crosses the watershed from Jiangyong County into Pingle County, Guilin City, Guangxi, with a total length of about 300 kilometers, built to inland waterway Class II standards, navigable for 2,000-ton vessels, with a designed annual throughput capacity of about 80 million tons.
Although the Xiang-Gui Canal is still under demonstration, the upgrading and transformation of the Guijiang waterway has already started. The reporter learned from relevant departments that the Guijiang waterway project began construction in November 2023, starting at the mouth of the Gongcheng River in Pingle County and ending at the Lianhua Bridge in Wuzhou City, with a total length of 211.27 kilometers, built to inland waterway Class III standards, navigable for 1,000-ton vessels, and accommodating 2,000-ton single vessels. At present, the 128.49-kilometer section from Pingle to Zhaoping Majiang has been fully completed and passed acceptance, with dredging works and reef blasting works both 100% complete.
At the same time, the upgrading of the Guijiang waterway is also creating conditions for the rise of the Pingle port area. The Guijiang is 56.4 kilometers long within Pingle, with the widest point at 300 meters and a multi-year average flow of 434 cubic meters per second, making it the largest river in Pingle. But in the past, the six ship locks along the Guijiang all had passing capacities below 300 tons, severely restricting shipping development. Now that the Guijiang waterway has been upgraded to Class III, and the Bajiangkou ship lock is being renovated to 2,000-ton standards, Pingle's water transport advantages will truly be unleashed. The Bajiangkou Hydropower Station, completed in 2006, focuses on power generation while also accommodating shipping. (Photo courtesy of Pingle County Party Committee Propaganda Department)
Relying on the improved navigation conditions brought by the waterway upgrade, the construction of the Guilin Port Pingle Port Area is advancing in parallel. According to the "Pingle Inland Port Industrial Park Plan," the Pingle Inland Port Industrial Park covers an area of 3,000 mu, with plans for 23 berths of 1,000-ton class, and an annual throughput capacity of 10 million tons. Among them, the first phase covers about 335 mu, building six 1,000-ton multi-purpose berths, with hydraulic structures designed for 2,000-ton class, and a designed annual cargo throughput capacity of 2.2 million tons. Currently, approvals for the project proposal, land use pre-examination, engineering feasibility study report, and environmental impact report have been completed.
The waterway upgrade and port construction have brought tangible changes to Pingle's logistics landscape. In the past, characteristic products from northern Guangxi such as fruits, vegetables, bamboo, and timber had to detour through the Pearl River Delta to reach the sea, taking a long time and costing much. Once the Guijiang waterway upgrade is completed, 1,000-ton vessels can transit through Pingle, enter the Xijiang, enter the Pinglu Canal, and reach the Beibu Gulf directly, greatly shortening the voyage and effectively reducing logistics costs. The Pingle Inland Port Industrial Park will focus on developing road-water intermodal transport, undertaking logistics distribution, production services, and warehousing functions for construction steel, scrap steel raw materials, marble slabs, environmentally friendly building materials, cement clinker, and cold-chain food logistics, with plans to build five major areas: port operation area, comprehensive logistics service area, cold-chain warehousing and processing area, intelligent manufacturing (shipbuilding) area, and shipping intelligence (information technology) area.
The path of industrial upgrading is already clear. In the industrial sector, Pingle will upgrade its advanced metallurgical materials industry, elevate its new building materials industry, transform its bamboo and wood home furnishing industry, and cultivate its shipbuilding industry. In the agricultural sector, relying on the "one belt, three zones, multiple parks" modern facility agriculture pattern, the county's persimmon planting area has exceeded 180,000 mu, with annual fresh fruit output reaching more than 600,000 tons and the entire industry chain output value exceeding 6 billion yuan. It has built the country's first AI intelligent factory, and "Pingle Dried Persimmon" and "Pingle Ice Persimmon" have been included in the national list of famous, special, excellent, and new agricultural products.
Water sports are also quietly emerging. Pingle has the unique water area of "the last 18 kilometers of the Li River," known as "one-meter Li River," with a wide river channel and gentle currents, providing a natural arena for water sports. In recent years, dragon boat races, rowing masters regattas, and paddleboard races have emerged here, and the Guangxi Water Sports Training Base and Water Sports Grading Center have successively settled here. In July 2025, the "Swim Guangxi · Swim the Li River" event was held in Pingle, with more than 3,000 swimmers from 14 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) and the Macao Special Administrative Region swimming in the Li River. The China Guilin Pingle Rowing Masters Regatta was rated as a national-level sports tourism boutique event, and Pingle's "all-region ecological sports" pilot construction was included in Guangxi's key content for building a national pilot zone for high-quality sports development reform and innovation in the new era. Water sports are becoming the most beautiful dynamic名片 of this thousand-year-old city. In recent years, Pingle has used water as a medium to promote cultural and tourism development. (Photo courtesy of Pingle County Party Committee Propaganda Department)
Seeking Strength Through the Sea, Thousand-Year Ancient City Embarks on a New Journey
Standing at Pingle's Sanjiangkou and looking into the distance, the Guijiang's emerald waters flow leisurely, with green mountains on both banks like painted eyebrows. On the river, cargo ships slowly pass by, cutting one water trail after another. "I've been sailing for over 40 years, from wooden sailboats to motorized boats, from cargo ships to tourist boats, watching Guijiang shipping rise and fall," said Mai Sifa. "Now the Pinglu Canal is open to navigation, the Guijiang waterway has been upgraded, and the Xiang-Gui Canal is also being demonstrated and advanced. I believe Pingle's shipping will prosper again."
Indeed. Pingle's pace toward the sea is accelerating. At the Seventh Party Congress of the city, the Pingle County delegation explicitly proposed: integrate into the overall situation of the seaward economy, push for the Xiang-Gui Canal to be included in national planning, urge the early start of the Bajiangkou ship lock expansion, and plan the construction of the Pingle Inland Port Industrial Park, demonstrating Pingle's responsibility for Guilin to strengthen its seaward industry and build a world-class tourism city. The government work report of the First Session of the 18th Pingle County People's Congress further clarified that in the next five years, it is necessary to "strengthen the development of hub economy, accelerate the construction of a modern transportation system connecting water and land, fully integrate into the Greater Bay Area and the Xijiang Economic Belt, and make the seaward economy and port industry new growth poles driving the county's economy," and proposed accelerating the construction of the first phase of the Zhuzizhou Operation Terminal of the Guilin Port Pingle Port Area, strengthening water-land intermodal transport functions, and vigorously developing bulk cargo logistics distribution, production services, warehousing and distribution, and other business formats. The report of the 15th Pingle County Party Congress also listed "building a seaward industry system" as an important part of accelerating the construction of a modern industrial system, explicitly stating "actively integrate into the overall situation of the region's seaward economic development and accelerate the construction of the Pingle Inland Port Industrial Park."
A river of emerald water flows through ancient and modern times, and a thousand-mile thoroughfare opens a new journey. From the Lingqu to the Pinglu Canal, from the ancient Guijiang ferry to the new port city, Guilin is using water as its vein and the port as its engine, fully integrating into Guangxi's new pattern of seaward economy. Pingle's waterway upgrade, port rise, and industry toward the sea are vivid footnotes to Guilin's leveraging of its thousand-year cultural heritage to embrace the seaward economy. Seeking strength through the sea is Guangxi's pursuit spanning a thousand years; river-sea linkage is the only way for Guilin to build a world-class tourism city and strengthen its seaward industry. The thousand-year ancient ferry is sailing toward a broader deep blue; the thousand-year Guilin is embracing the ocean with a more open posture.
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