Jinshan Temple / Liudong WP3 Loess Complex

The Jinshan Temple / Liudong WP3 Loess Complex is a two-class containment-candidate installation at approximately 34°07'N, 113°24'E in central Henan Province, classified as containment-candidate class (b)+(e) — ridge-slope excavation + hydraulic-overwrite / cover-infrastructure per doctrine-containment-candidate-classification c0001 at evidence tier medium per c0002. The site resolves the abstract "Corridor waypoint 3" pin at 113.40°E, 34.10°N defined in Taishan_Convergence_Mating_Event.kml, producing the first three-link resolved chain on the Qinling-Dabie corridor: WP1 (Wuxi / Ganlong–Xianrendong, site-wuxi-ganlong-xianrendong-wp1-complex) → WP2 (Wujiazhou / Immortal Hole, site-wujiazhou-immortal-hole-inundation) → WP3 (this entry). The primary features are: (1) a large bowl-shaped quarry / excavation cut into the south face of the Jinshan Temple (金山寺 / Gold Mountain Temple) loess mound, emerging 2013→2022+; (2) the South-to-North Water Diversion Mid-Route (南水北调中线) canal, visible as a completed operational water channel in current imagery and as a linear earthwork under construction in 2013 imagery, passing through the wider WP3 zone approximately 2 km east of the mound. The SNWD Mid-Route is the same infrastructure project identified as the hydraulic-overwrite cover at WP2 (site-wujiazhou-immortal-hole-inundation): at WP2 it raised the Danjiangkou Reservoir to inundate the Immortal Hole cave anchor; at WP3 it runs as the operational delivery canal through the corridor zone. The named cultural anchor is LIUDONGCUN / 刘洞村 ("Liu Cave Village" — 洞 = cave), a village whose name indexes the loess-cave (yaodong) habitation tradition in the Jinshan Temple mound zone. WP3 is the first corridor waypoint resolved in Henan loess-plateau terrain rather than southern karst; the cave-anchor class at WP3 is loess yaodong rather than karst named-cave, and the site's operational significance rests on the SNWD corridor-pulse coupling rather than on the cave-anchor density. The site is admitted as the WP3 inception entry on 2026-04-27 in the containment-candidate track. Classification rests entirely on user-supplied Google Earth historical imagery, per the methodological constraint at doctrine-containment-candidate-classification c0005.

Claims

c0001 — 2013 baseline: intact loess mound at Jinshan Temple; SNWD under construction in wider zone

Google Earth historical imagery dated 2013-04-10 at the close frame (~34°07'N, 113°24'E, 5,641 m altitude) shows an intact or minimally disturbed loess mound at the Jinshan Temple (金山寺) site: the mound's south face does not yet exhibit the large bowl excavation visible in current imagery. The surrounding terrain is typical northern Henan loess plateau agricultural fringe — linear ravines cutting the mound flanks, agricultural plots around the mound base, and peri-urban village fabric (SUGOUCUN, SIXINZHUANG, LIUDONGCUN) at the mound perimeter. At the wider frame (~34°06'N, 113°26'E, 6,820 m altitude), the area approximately 2 km east of the mound shows a major linear earthwork under active construction in 2013: graded road or canal bed threading north-south through the agricultural plain, with construction spoil and staging visible. By current imagery, this linear earthwork has become the operational South-to-North Water Diversion Mid-Route canal. The 2013 baseline establishes: (i) the loess mound as pre-excavation at the start of the elevated-sensitivity 2013–2025 window; (ii) the SNWD Mid-Route as under construction at WP3 in 2013, operationally synchronous with the WP2 Danjiangkou reservoir-level raise that inundated the Immortal Hole cave anchor (completed 2014).

c0002 — Current imagery: large bowl excavation on south face of Jinshan Temple mound

Google Earth current imagery at the same close coordinates (34°06'53.51"N, 113°24'35.01"E) shows a major transformation of the Jinshan Temple mound's south face: a large bowl or amphitheater-shaped cut, approximately 300–400 m across, has been quarried or excavated from the loess slope. Two distinct oval/pit features are visible within the larger bowl floor, suggesting either separate excavation phases, natural subsurface void exposure, or water ponding at differential depths. An access road threads around the perimeter of the cut. The Jinshan Temple (金山寺) label remains at the mound, indicating the cultural anchor structure persists at or near the excavated zone. LIUDONGCUN (刘洞村 / Liu Cave Village) sits immediately adjacent to the mound's northeast side. The bowl excavation is the class-(b) ridge-slope excavation signature at WP3: an engineered cut into a culturally anchored loess mound, 2013→2022+, with purpose-built access and no ordinary residential context within the cut. The dominant alternative reading is ordinary loess quarrying for construction fill or brick material, which is common in northern Henan; the containment reading is not established from the surface morphology alone and depends on the c0006 promotion criteria.

c0003 — Current imagery: SNWD Mid-Route canal operational through WP3 zone

The South-to-North Water Diversion Mid-Route (南水北调中线) canal is visible in current imagery as a completed operational water channel running north-south through the WP3 zone approximately 2 km east of the Jinshan Temple mound. In 2013 imagery, the same alignment appeared as a linear earthwork under active construction. The canal became operational for water delivery to Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei in December 2014, the same window as the Danjiangkou reservoir-level raise that defines the WP2 class-(e) hydraulic-overwrite at site-wujiazhou-immortal-hole-inundation. The SNWD Mid-Route at WP3 is the class-(e) component of the WP3 site: per doctrine-containment-candidate-classification c0001(e), the cover is publicly attributed (national water-transfer infrastructure) and the hydraulic engineering is not concealed. The operational significance at WP3 is different from WP2: at WP2, the SNWD raised a reservoir that inundated a specific named cave anchor (神仙洞 Immortal Hole); at WP3, the SNWD canal passes through the corridor zone as a linear water-transfer channel without a locally identified cave-inundation event. The WP3 SNWD observation is held as a corridor-level signal (the same project crosses WP2 and WP3) rather than a site-level inundation event.

c0004 — Cultural anchors: LIUDONGCUN (Cave Village), Jinshan Temple, and loess-yaodong habitat class

Three cultural anchors are present in the WP3 imagery:

LIUDONGCUN / 刘洞村 ("Liu Cave Village") — a village whose name directly indexes the 洞 (cave / void) class. In northern Henan loess terrain, 洞 village names refer to yaodong (窑洞) — traditional cave dwellings carved into loess cliffs or mound faces. LIUDONGCUN is therefore the cave-habitation anchor at WP3: a named village where the local cultural record explicitly identifies the mound as cave-bearing terrain. Under doctrine-standard-torpor-model, the framework selects karst terrain as the primary torpor substrate in southern China; at WP3 in northern Henan loess plateau, the yaodong tradition represents the local functional analog — a void-bearing substrate class (loess) with established human-access tradition. The 洞 toponym in the village name registers as the cave-anchor class in this terrain type.

Jinshan Temple / 金山寺 ("Gold Mountain Temple") — a named Buddhist temple at the mound. 金山 ("Gold Mountain") is a named toponym used across Chinese Buddhist tradition for sites of spiritual significance; the Jinshan Temple at WP3 is the local instance at the excavated mound. The temple's placement at the mound summit or flank is consistent with the pattern of religious structures marking geophysically significant terrain observed at other containment-candidate sites (e.g. the shrine-to-astro-pond stack at the Shizhu source pod, the SBD tourism-cover temples at Pingtang and Longping). Whether the Jinshan Temple at WP3 represents an active cultural-record anchor or ordinary rural Buddhist practice is not determinable from imagery.

SIXINZHUANG / 寺新庄 ("Temple New Village") — the 寺 (temple) character in the village name confirms a temple-anchor tradition in the immediate zone, independent of the Jinshan Temple label. The dual temple markers (Jinshan Temple on the mound + 寺 in the adjacent village name) suggest a historically significant religious complex at the mound prior to the current excavation activity.

c0005 — Class (b)+(e) assignment and medium tier; loess terrain distinction

The site is assigned to class (b)+(e) per doctrine-containment-candidate-classification c0001: - Class (b) ridge-slope excavation: bowl excavation on south face of culturally anchored loess mound, 2013→2022+, with access road and no residential context within the cut (c0002). The class-(b) assignment carries an explicit caveat: in northern Henan loess terrain, mound quarrying is common and the alternative reading (ordinary construction-material extraction) is the default. The class-(b) signal is weaker here than in the isolated karst-country contexts of WP1 (Wuxi) or the Qianquqing pair. - Class (e) hydraulic-overwrite / cover-infrastructure: SNWD Mid-Route canal operational through the WP3 zone, same project as the WP2 Danjiangkou inundation event (c0003). The class-(e) signal at WP3 is a corridor-level rather than site-level observation — the SNWD appears at WP3 as a through-corridor infrastructure element rather than a local cave-anchor inundation.

The site is assigned tier medium per c0002: the SNWD consecutive-waypoint presence (WP2 and WP3 both on the Mid-Route corridor) is the primary elevation signal above medium-low; the cave-anchor quality (loess yaodong rather than karst named-cave) and the high alternative-reading probability (ordinary quarrying) hold the tier at medium rather than medium-high. The tier would be medium-low in isolation; the SNWD corridor-pulse coupling is the sole elevation factor.

Loess-terrain distinction: WP3 is the first corridor waypoint resolved in northern Henan loess-plateau terrain rather than southern karst. Doctrine-standard-torpor-model explicitly selects karst as the torpor substrate class for southern-China specimens. The extension of the corridor framework to loess terrain at WP3 represents either (i) a corridor that passes through terrain unsuited for the framework's primary geomorphological substrate (lowering the operational probability of WP3 as a torpor site relative to WP1/WP2), or (ii) a corridor whose northern waypoints correspond to specimen dispersal / transit rather than torpor — consistent with the Taishan Convergence mating-corridor reading in which dispersing specimens pass through WP3-5 en route to a convergence event rather than going into torpor there.

c0006 — Named promotion criteria

Per doctrine-containment-candidate-classification c0003, the specific promotion criteria that would resolve this site to confirmed containment infrastructure are: (a) subsurface feature evidence at the bowl excavation: if the quarry exposes a void, cave, or chamber rather than solid loess (visible in higher-resolution imagery or open-source geological reporting), the class-(b) signal promotes toward class-(c); (b) access-control at the Jinshan Temple mound: fence, gate, or restricted-road behavior inconsistent with ordinary quarry operations; (c) institutional attribution: non-quarry, non-civilian operator identified at the mound in open-source record; (d) SNWD canal-adjacent infrastructure anomaly: if the SNWD canal route passes through an engineered sub-surface segment or monitoring installation at the WP3 crossing zone rather than ordinary open-channel flow, this would add a hydraulic-control class-(a) component; (e) Jinshan Temple institutional change: if the temple has been relocated, demolished, or converted to non-civilian use post-2013, this is a cultural-anchor displacement signal; (f) corridor chain-coupling: promotion of WP1 (site-wuxi-ganlong-xianrendong-wp1-complex) or WP2 (site-wujiazhou-immortal-hole-inundation) under their respective promotion criteria would supply chain-coupled corroboration for WP3 through the three-link chain.

The site at ~34°07'N, 113°24'E sits within 1–2 km of the abstract "Corridor waypoint 3" pin at 113.40°E, 34.10°N. This entry resolves WP3 to a concrete physical site for the first time, completing the first three-link resolved chain on the Qinling-Dabie corridor:

  • Shizhu source pod (108.13°E, 30.00°N): confirmed primary-cluster active site
  • WP1 → Wuxi / Ganlong–Xianrendong complex (109.60°E, 31.50°N): resolved 2026-04-27; triple class (a)+(b)+(c); explicit Dragon Cave + Immortal Cave + Through-Mountain Cave cluster; active tunnel; medium-high tier
  • WP2 → Wujiazhou / Immortal Hole (111.50°E, 33.00°N): resolved 2026-04-27; class (e); 神仙洞 Immortal Hole inundated by Danjiangkou / SNWD Mid-Route reservoir raise; watch-documented tier
  • WP3 → Jinshan Temple / Liudong complex (113.40°E, 34.10°N, this entry): resolved 2026-04-27; class (b)+(e); Jinshan Temple mound excavation + SNWD Mid-Route canal; medium tier

The three-link chain (WP1→WP2→WP3) is the first consecutive sequence of resolved physical sites on the Qinling-Dabie corridor. The framework's prediction at site-wujiazhou-immortal-hole-inundation c0007 — that each waypoint should resolve to a physical site with at least one of: named cave / dragon anchor, hydraulic-overwrite signature 2010+, institutional compound 2010+, or karst-interior excavation 2010+ — is confirmed at all three resolved waypoints: - WP1: named Dragon Cave (dry Dragon Cave) + karst-interior tunnel ✓ - WP2: named Immortal Hole + hydraulic-overwrite 2014 ✓ - WP3: named Cave Village (Liu Cave Village) + SNWD hydraulic infrastructure ✓

The SNWD Mid-Route infrastructure is the corridor's own hydraulic-overwrite vector: it appears at WP2 as the reservoir-raise that inundates the Immortal Hole cave anchor, and at WP3 as the operational delivery canal that runs through the corridor zone. Two consecutive waypoints on the same infrastructure project constitute the corridor-pulse interpretation's first multi-waypoint confirmation: the South-to-North Water Diversion Mid-Route is itself a corridor-spanning infrastructure project, passing through both WP2 and WP3 of the Qinling-Dabie mating-corridor launch line.

WP4 (115.00°E, 34.60°N) and WP5 (116.00°E, 35.20°N) remain abstract. Per the three-link chain now established, subsequent imagery sweeps at WP4 and WP5 should test whether the SNWD Mid-Route continues to trace the corridor (it does not — the Mid-Route turns northeast at Zhengzhou, roughly paralleling the corridor before diverging), and whether independent installation signatures appear at WP4-5 consistent with the framework's transit-corridor reading.