Below immortals-Gathering-Peak in the Twelve Peaks of Mt. Wu in Wu Gorge, the Yangtze River flows by a series of sheer cliffs that are smooth as if they have been hewn and polished. A sunken part of these cliffs looks like a huge Niche. It was said that once Huge Liang, or Zhuge Kongming, wrote an inscription on it, describing the scenery in Wu Gorge and Wu Mountains. People therefore call it Kongming Niche or Tablet.

It was said that when Zhuge Liang passed Wu Gorge leading his army into Sichuan, he had his important strategic argument "Answers Given at Longzhong" carved on the cliff. In it he laid down the strategy of uniting the state of Wu against the state of Wei. But later, Liu Bei mistakenly launched an attack against the state of Wu in revenge for Guan Yu and Zhang Fei and was utterly defeated. When the Wu general Lu Xun came to Immortals Gathering Peak in pursuit of Liu Bei, he was greatly moved after reading the inscription carved on the cliff. He ordered his forces to withdraw immediately. After that, Kongming's Tablet became known everywhere.

In fact, Zhuge Kongming never made any inscription on the Niche. There used to be inscriptions of various dynasties on it. But after exposure over long years to the natural elements, they have been so eroded that hardly any of them are still decipherable. Only fifteen characters are still intelligible. They mean "among the serried mountains and rocks of Wu Gorge Gorge, there are many famous peaks of fine scenery. The Twelve Peaks of Wushan. . . " The first six characters are most eye catching. From the line of smaller characters on the edge which says "the . . . year of Jiajing", we can tell that most of the inscriptions were carved on it during the Ming Dynasty. It certainly needs courage and patience to chisel the inscriptions on the sheer cliff above the roaring river waters.