Luoma Valley
Luoma Valley: About a mile and a half down from Shuirao Simen lies a valley. Legend says King Xiang Tianzi fought his final decisive battle with the government troops here, in which the Tujia army was almost entirely wiped out. After the great defeat, the Xiang army fled along the Golden Whip Stream toward Zhimata. But General Zhide had already died in battle after a defeat at Suoxi Pass, and the government troops took the opportunity to raid the Tianzi capital. King Xiang Tianzi sighed deeply...
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Luoma Valley
About one and a half li down from Shuireo Simen, there is a gorge where legend says King Xiang Tianzi fought his final decisive battle with the government troops. In this battle, the Tujia army was almost completely annihilated.
Now, after the great defeat of the Xiang army, they headed straight along the Golden Whip Stream toward Zhimata. But little did they know that General Tiger Zhide had suffered defeat at Suoxi Pass and all his troops had died in battle, and the government troops had taken advantage of the void to strike the capital of the Kingdom of Tianzi. King Xiang Tianzi heaved a long sigh: "Heaven destroys me!" He had no choice but to fight his way out. Retreating to a valley on the south side downstream of Zhimata, he prepared to take the route through Yongding Guard and head west to join the Yongshun Tusi. Unexpectedly, battle cries rose again. Yang Lafeng, Yang Jinfeng, and Yang Yinfeng had long been lying in ambush in the dense forest, attacking from two sides, determined to put the Xiang army to death. General Eight-Bu, judging it difficult to break through, said to King Xiang Tianzi: "My King, let me go fetch reinforcements!" King Xiang Tianzi nodded. "Rip!" He tore off a strip of his battle robe, cut his finger with his sword, and wrote eight blood characters on the cloth: "Brothers of all the caves, come quickly to save your king!" Eight-Bu kowtowed once, kneeling before King Xiang Tianzi, tears streaming, choking out: "Take care, Tianzi!" Then he turned and bowed to Zhici: "The burden of protecting the Tianzi is entrusted to you
now!" He immediately leaped onto his horse, hacked open a bloody path, and headed toward the Yong-Bao Tusi territory.
King Xiang Tianzi, gripping his long spear, biting his precious sword, with his curved bow at his waist, fought against thousands of troops as if entering an unpopulated land. Suddenly, King Xiang Tianzi's mount let out a long neigh, reared up on its hind legs, and a stray arrow shot right into the horse's neck and throat. King Xiang Tianzi was thrown from the horse (this place is now called "Luoma Valley" or "Fallen Horse Valley"). The horse, seeing its master safe and sound, slowly knelt down, its eyes glaring wide open, refusing to close in death!
It turned out that Yang Lafeng, seeing that every Xiang soldier fought bravely to the death, knew it would be difficult to capture King Xiang Tianzi, and wanted to avenge her sister's arrow wound. It was also that the horse understood human nature and blocked the poisoned arrow. When Lafeng saw King Xiang Tianzi fall from his horse, she let out a shout, wanting to capture him alive. Zhici spurred his horse forward, "Chop chop chop!" — with swift strokes of his blade, he cut down more than a dozen. The forty-eight tribal generals, most of them severely wounded, also gathered together at this moment to rescue King Xiang Tianzi. Xiang Zhici urged: "Father King! Break through quickly! I will protect you!" King Xiang Tianzi roared: "Get away!" With a wave of his hand, his precious sword flew with a whistle toward the enemy, and like a sword with eyes, it pierced through Yang Lafeng's neck and throat! When Yang Jinfeng saw her sister killed, she spurred her horse straight at King Xiang Tianzi. The forty-eight generals fought desperately to hold her off. Zhici rolled off his horse and knelt before his father's knees, pleading: "Father! As long as Qingyan Mountain stands and the Golden Whip Stream flows, as long as you are here, the Kingdom of Tianzi exists!" King Xiang Tianzi shed tears and said: "The uprising began at Zhimata, disaster struck at Luoma Valley. The Kingdom of Tianzi endures forever, the Tujia people will never be extinguished!" With that, he leaped onto his warhorse and led the eight hundred remnant soldiers in breaking through.
The battle-scarred Zhici, to cover his father's escape, turned back and charged into the enemy ranks, slashing left and right, charging and breaking through, fighting until the sun leaned west. Zhici thought: Father must have escaped by now? So he knelt on both knees, faced north, and cried out: "Take care, Father King! Take care, Father!" With that, he drew his sword and cut his own throat! When the forty-eight great generals saw Zhici's loyal martyrdom, they all raised their arms and cried out together: "The Kingdom of Tianzi endures forever, the Tujia people will never be
extinguished!" One by one, they repaid tooth for tooth and blood for blood, fighting the government troops again and again. At Luoma Valley, corpses piled into mountains and blood flowed into rivers. At dusk, thirty thousand government troops from all battlefields converged at Luoma Valley. The fighting entered the most brutal hand-to-hand combat, and the Tujia army, finally overwhelmed by superior numbers, had all eight thousand soldiers die in battle with not a single one escaping!
Now, General Eight-Bu, traveling day and night, brought back reinforcements and rushed to Luoma Valley, only to see corpses filling the entire valley. Upon inquiry, he learned that King Xiang Tianzi had already met his martyrdom at Shentang Bay; General Wind Xiang Zhici had given his life for the Kingdom of Tianzi; and General Leopard Zhishan had died in battle at the Three Passes Temple on the eastern front. Eight-Bu, overcome with grief, knelt facing north, crying out for King Xiang Tianzi! He personally buried Xiang Zhici's body, and from the pile of corpses found
the forty-eight generals, then dashed himself against a rock and died. The Tujia soldiers, moved by Eight-Bu's loyalty and martyrdom and his true love for General Feng, buried Eight-Bu and Zhici together. Later, to commemorate the four generals Long, Hu, Bao, and Feng of Eight-Bu, people built a Dragon-Phoenix Temple at Luoma Valley, honoring Eight-Bu as "Eight-Bu Great God" and enshrining his statue. The site still remains. The forty-eight generals later transformed into forty-eight stone peaks, standing guard at Shuireo Simen. To this day there is the legend of "the Tube of Divination Sticks, the Brush Rack, the Ten-Thousand-Year Tablet, and the Forty-Eight Great General Rocks."