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Since Huaqing Hot Spring is located at the foot of Mt. Lishan with remains of ancient buildings such as a beacon tower of Western Zhou Dynasty and the Old Mother Hall of the Tang Dynasty, there are many legends and allusions about it. Among them, the most famous and profound one is about Misusing the Beacon Tower to Tease Vassals.

It happened in the Western Zhou Dynasty during the reign of fatuous King You. At first, he ruled his state relatively peacefully and prosperously and allied with the neighboring feoffs by using a beacon tower in case of invasion of other ethnic groups. If an incident occurred, he could light the fire on the tower as a signal, and then his allies would come to help. However, everything changed after he asked a small country, Bao, to pay the beauty Bao Si in tribute.

After Bao Si, who was extremely charming, moved into his palace, she started missing her parents a lot and never presented a single smile. To please her, the King made her the new queen and gave her plenty of largess, but she kept her long face intact and remained taciturn. In lack of another solution, a treacherous court official called Guo Shifu suggested lighting the fire on the beacon tower in order to fool the vassals of other states. King You brought his favorite queen to the beacon tower and followed Guo Shifu's advice. Upon seeing the flame licking the sky, troops of allied feoffs hurried to the tower. To their surprise, they discovered nothing more dangerous than the laughter of King You and Bao Si, so they returned to their feoffs in sulking dismay.

Seeing the happy smile of Bao Si, King You delightedly rewarded Guo Shifu with a thousand taels of gold. After that, he and his queen played with the beacon tower several times, and each time, the troops would leave disappointed. One day, the ethnic group 'Quan Rong' presented a real threat to the kingdom. The King immediately set the beacon tower on fire, but this time, the troops no longer believed him and never showed up in defence. The King was killed and his queen was captured, thus ending the Western Zhou Dynasty.

This story gave birth to the idioms 'A smile values a thousand taels of gold' and 'Misusing beacon tower to tease vassals'.

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