Yongning Temple Stele

The Yongning Temple Stele (Chinese: 永寧寺碑) is a stele erected by the Chinese Ming dynasty in 1413 with a trilingual inscription to commemorate the founding of the Yongning Temple (永寧寺) in the Nurgan outpost, near the mouth of the Amur River, by the eunuch Yishiha.

In 1412, in response to these raids the Yongle Emperor commanded the eunuch Yishiha, a Haixi Jurchen by origin, to lead an expedition to pacify the region.

The following year Yishiha set off with a fleet of twenty-five ships and a thousand soldiers, as well as architects and craftsmen.

The stele is 179 × 83 × 42 cm in dimensions,[4] and is inscribed on the front with an inscription in Chinese which extols the Yongle Emperor and recounts Yishiha's expedition.

[6] The earliest record of this stele was probably in book published in 1639 by a Chinese scholar called Yang Bin, but a rubbing of the actual inscription was not published until 1887 after a Qing official called Cao Tingjie made a journey along the Amur River in 1885.