Nanchang wears two histories with equal pride. Here, on the Gan River, a Tang-dynasty prince raised the pavilion that young Wang Bo made immortal with one line about wild ducks and autumn water; and here, on an August morning in 1927, the uprising that founded the People's Liberation Army put this inland capital on the modern map. Between the two: a giant Ferris wheel, a lakeside park full of egrets, the boldest spicy kitchen in eastern China, and — an easy day away — the winter cranes of Poyang Lake.
