Yueyao (Porcelain Kilns of the Kingdom Yue) Ruins at Shanglin Lake, situated at Shanglin Lake, Cixi City, is a key national cultural relics preservation site. The celadon/wares manufactured in the kilns have been famous for their fine quality and brilliant glaze. In praise of these artistic works, Lu Guimeng, a famous poet of Tang Dynasty wrote: “In the chilly autumn in September, thousands of porcelain wares as green as peaks appear from the kilns.” Shanglin Lake Area is one of the birthplaces of China’s celadon and over 100 relics of ancient kilns from Han Dynasty to Song Dynasty have been found. During the Jin, Tang and the five dynasties, the kilns of the Shanglin Lake began to manufacture porcelains of more varieties and the quality became the best of the ten best-known kilns of China. There, the imperial governments set up “gongyao” (imperial kilns), producing “Mi’se” (secret color) porcelain wares for excessive imperial use. Ningbo used to be one of the starting ports of the ancient “Silk Road” and “Porcelain Road.” Since the Tang Dynasty, celadon/wares started to be exported to more than twenty countries as far as Asia and Africa via Ningbo Port, around the Malaysia Peninsula, through the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea. The green porcelains made in Yueyao at Shanglin Lake have been found in some ancient ports and forts in India, Iran, Egypt, Japan and Korea.

With its attractive scenery of mountains and rivers, the Shanglin Lake area is worthy of a place for enjoying the scenery and meditating the ancient.