Yueyang Tower

Overview

About

Yueyang Tower stands on the west gate of the city wall, the city behind, Dongting Lake below and Junshan Island opposite, one of the three great towers of the south: “Dongting is the water of the world, Yueyang the tower of the world”. Fan Zhongyan’s essay “On Yueyang Tower” made it famous.

The main tower has three storeys, 15 m, its weight carried on four great nanmu columns, with twelve round columns supporting the second floor and twelve catalpa eave columns raising the flying eaves; the roof is shaped like a general’s helmet. Beside it stand the Xianmei, Sanzui and Huaifu pavilions.

It was first built around AD 220, over 1,700 years ago, as the reviewing tower of Lu Su of the Three Kingdoms; it was the Baling city tower in the Northern and Southern dynasties and the South Tower in the early Tang, and took the name Yueyang Tower after Li Bai wrote of it in the mid-Tang. In 1045 Teng Zijing rebuilt it and asked his friend Fan Zhongyan for the essay that made it known everywhere. It was destroyed and rebuilt many times; the last major restoration was in 1983. Its structure is exquisite and dignified: “all timber, four columns, three storeys, flying eaves”.

The Xianmei (Immortal Plum) Pavilion to the south: when the foundations were dug for a rebuilding in the Chongzhen reign of the Ming, a slab white as jade was found with a withered plum branch of twenty-four faint blossoms, strong as if painted by an immortal; a pavilion was built to house it. The Sanzui (Thrice Drunk) Pavilion to the north recalls Lü Dongbin of the Eight Immortals, who three times wandered to Yueyang, fell in love with the scenery and got roaring drunk; a pavilion was added at the spot in 1755 and renamed in 1987.

The park gate bears the couplet “Dongting, the water of the world; Yueyang, the tower of the world”.

Inside hang couplets by famous writers of every age. Each of the first two floors has a carved screen of “On Yueyang Tower”: the first a 19th-century copy, the second written by the 18th-century master Zhang Zhao, square and vigorous, a national treasure. The third-floor screen is Du Fu’s “Climbing Yueyang Tower” in the hand of Mao Zedong, gleaming gold.

The hundred-metre stele gallery holds 134 steles of poems and calligraphy on the tower from every age and 24 recording its repairs since the Ming and Qing; the versions of the essay by the Ming painter Dong Qichang and by Zhu Yunming, one of the four talents of Wu, are treasures of the Palace Museum.

The second stamp of the 1987 set T121 “Famous Towers of China” shows Yueyang Tower.

In “On Yueyang Tower” Fan Zhongyan tells how Teng Zijing, demoted to Baling, rebuilt the tower and asked him for an account. He describes Dongting Lake in long gloomy rain, which brings exiles grief, and in clear spring weather, which brings delight, and concludes that the true gentleman is moved by neither: he is the first to worry for the world and the last to enjoy its pleasures.

In 716 Zhang Yue, demoted to prefect of Yuezhou, rebuilt the tower and often climbed it with poets, which began its fame.

Travel tips

Getting there: Yueyang East station is on the Beijing-Guangzhou high-speed line, about half an hour from Changsha and about an hour from Wuhan. It is far from the urban area, so you change to a bus or taxi to reach Yueyang Tower.

Junshan Island: it lies in the lake and can be reached by boat from the Yueyang Tower pier. The island has bamboo groves, tea gardens and the tomb of the Xiang Consorts; half a day is enough.

Time: Yueyang Tower and Junshan fill a day; allow another half day for the lake scenery.

Where to stay: Yueyang city and the area near Yueyang Tower have plenty of lodging.

Nearby

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