But the Tatu Mountains and their red soil aren't the be-all and end-all of the lives of the residents of Lungching, as Lin notes-at around the turn of the 20th century, before the mouth of the Tatu River had silted up, there was a port there by the name of Tukechueh, which was the only major cargo port in central Taiwan for a time during the Qing dynasty.
維繫龍井居民命脈的還不止是這座紅土壘壘的大肚山，林松範指出，一百年前，鄉內的大肚溪出海口未淤淺前，名為「塗葛堀」的港口港寬水深，一度是清朝時期台灣中部唯一的物資集散良港。