Yehe Town

Yehe Town, about forty kilometres north of Siping, is the ancestral homeland of the Yehe Nara clan, one of the most prominent Manchu noble families of the Qing dynasty. The site has been developed as a heritage park with reconstructed traditional buildings, a museum dedicated to the clan's history, and exhibits connecting the local aristocratic lineage to the Qing court.

The connection to Empress Dowager Cixi is the main draw for most visitors, and the park makes the most of it — displays cover her rise from a minor concubine to the most powerful person in China during the twilight of the Qing. The town itself is small and the reconstruction is somewhat theatrical, but the historical substance is genuine. From Siping, buses run toward Yehe or you can hire a taxi for the day trip.

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A story
Yehe Town is famous throughout China as the birthplace of two Qing dynasty empresses — Empress Dowager Cixi, who effectively ran China for nearly fifty years from 1861 to 1908, and Empress Dowager Longyu, the last empress of the Qing. Both women were born into the Yehe Nara clan, a Manchu noble family that originated in this area. The coincidence of two such powerful women coming from the same remote corner of Jilin Province is genuinely extraordinary.

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