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After the Mutan Village Incident in 1874, Shen Baozhen, an imperial envoy of the Qing Dynasty in charge of Taiwan defense affairs and foreign relations of China, practiced “reasoning with military power” to cease from strife while actively handling Taiwan defense affairs. In addition to comforting the indigenous people of Taiwan and building trails and roads, Shen suggested using Houdong located south of Checheng for county governance, and named it Hengchun County. The establishment of Hengchun City was one of the key measures taken by Shen Bao-Zhen in the later years of his handling Taiwan defense affairs. In 1875, Liu Ao, a garrison officer for military affairs in Taiwan, supervised the establishment of Hengchun City and the project was completed in 1879. The selection of the city location was greatly influenced by Liu Ao’s Fengshui philosophy. To the newly built city, Santai Mountain in the northeast was the central mountain, known as Yuanwu (or Xuewu, the Lord of the Mysterious Heavens), Longluan Mountain in the south symbolizes the Azure Dragon(qinglong) on the left, Hutou Mountain in the northeast symbolizes the White Tiger (baihu) on the right, Xiping Mountain in the southwest of the city symbolizes the Vermilion Bird (zhuque) in the front, and Guei Mountain in the northwest of the city serves as a barrier, protecting the city from the winds and gathering concentration of Qi in terms of Chinese Fengshui. The city walls were built with rammed earth of a “tri-mortar-mixture” along with four gates. Except for South Gate which is also known as Mingdu Gate, the others are simply referred to as East Gate, West Gate and North Gate. A horizontal granite tablet on top of each gate is inscribed with “Built in the 9th month of the first year of Emperor Guangxu.” For defense purposes there are battlements and gate towers on the city walls along with four forts and eight troop cabins. Outside of each gate is a moat with a bridge over it. Currently, part of the rammed earth walls is still preserved. Henchun Old City is the only existing old city in Taiwan where all four gates of its walls are intact.