Real locations in wuxia books

When Jin Yong wrote the novel, probably he just imagined one of the islets in Zhejiang coastal but didn't specify where, and also there's no real Taohua Island at that time. But his novel popularity, the Zhejiang government dedicated one island to be Taohua Island, and erected a monument of Jin Yong's Taohua Island. Same thing with the Shaanxi Govt. did in Huashan peak.

I hope to put all speculations on Taohua Island to rest. 

According to Baidu, Jin Yong once said this:

“我是第一次到普陀，《射雕英雄传》写于1957年至1959年，那时并没有到过桃花岛。我是从地理书上看到东海有那么一个岛，因为我是浙江人，写《射雕英雄传》书时需要一个海上的岛，有一点浪漫情调的，不能离大陆太近，也不能太远，桃花岛的位置很适当，面积不小，南宋时期罕有人迹，十分适合给书中黄药师啦、黄蓉啦、周伯通啦设立一个活动的天地，书中宋朝时有桃花岛的情况，跟现在的情况也不尽相同。如果人们要证实《射雕英雄传》书中的东海桃花岛的原型是不是舟山群岛中的桃花岛，我说是的。”

In other words, it was based on the present Taohua Island. However, I do not know if the name has always been Taohua Island.

Currently known as Miao Ying Temple

zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A6%99%E5%BA%94%E5%AF%BA

Interesting fact, the temple (besides the white pagoda), was burnt down after a lightning strike in 1368, the last year of the Yuan Dynasty.

Well, sounds like a cover up of some incident...

Tomb of the living Dead




Living-Dead Tomb: Located in the Chengdao Palace, it is a tomb dug and named by Wang Chongyang himself and he lived there for seven years. After seven years of life in the Living-Dead Tomb, Wang brought himself to light again. He decided to pursue his dream in a personal manner. Actually, the tomb we can see today has an underground room. It has been blocked out of concern for tourists’ safety.

What we can tell you is that the tomb of the living dead is real! It is 40 kilometers southwest of Xi’an City in Chongyang Chengdao palace, today’s Zuan Town, Yuyi District, Xi’an City, about 4 to 5 kilometers away from the well-known Chongyang palace.

At that time, Chongyang palace was very popular. There used to be more than 5000 beautiful halls and nearly all the Taoists lived here. It was the largest Taoist temple in China at that time. Although the

Chengdao palace was not as prosperous as Chongyang palace, its scale was not small. Now there are only a few messy tombs left, which looks very desolate The tombstone of “Tomb of the living dead” erected in front of the palace is still telling the prosperous scene of that year

Why not dig the tomb of the living dead

It must be asked by some readers here. Since the tomb of the living dead is real, why haven’t you ever heard of the news that archaeologists have dug the tomb? I’ll tell you here, in fact, archaeologists have dug it.

At that time, experts opened the tomb path and found that there was a basement, that is, the tomb, but it seemed to be too deep to know what was going to be in it.

for the protection of the archaeological team and for the protection of cultural relics, experts decided not to excavate temporarily until later when the archaeological technology was advanced

What’s in the tomb of the living dead

Although archaeologists didn’t dig the tomb of the living dead, we might as well imagine what would be in the tomb? Yang Guo, Xiao Longnv and so on. After all, they are all fictions.

and even Lin Chaoying, who wagered with Wang Chongyang, have no such person in history However, Wang Chongyang, founder of Quanzhen sect, is a real person in history, but he is not buried here.

therefore, some disciples of Quanzhen religion, some books and cultural relics of Quanzhen religion may be buried in the tomb of the living dead.

As for whether or not there will be a virtuous living dead in the tomb, it is up to archaeologists to excavate in the future

Besides that stone monument, there's also another monument that explains about Jin Yong and Huashan Lun Jian. The monument is shaped like a book, located not far from that point. If I have time, I will dig out my old pic and posted it here.