The Yueyang Tower stands at the head of Ximen City, Yueyang City, Hunan Province, close to the Dongting Lake. Since ancient times, it has been known as "the water in Dongting is all over the world, and the tower is all over the world in Yueyang". It is also known as the three famous towers in the south of the Yangtze River together with the Tengwang Pavilion in Nanchang, Jiangxi and the Yellow Crane Tower in Wuhan, Hubei. Fan Zhongyan's popular "Yueyang Tower" in the Northern Song Dynasty made Yueyang Tower famous in the world.
The existing Yueyang Tower was rebuilt in the fifth year of Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty (1879). It is located on the west wall of Yueyang, facing Dongting Lake and Junshan Mountain in the distance. The main building of Yueyang Tower is 19.42 meters high, 14.54 meters deep and 17.42 meters wide. It has three floors, four columns, cornices, helmet tops and a pure wooden structure. The entire building does not use nails or rivets, and only relies on the interconnection of wooden components. The four gold nanmu pillars in the building run straight through the roof, and are surrounded by corridors, beams, rafters, and purlins that are interlocked with each other to form a whole.
As the only ancient building among the three famous buildings that has maintained its original appearance, Yueyang Tower has a four-sloped roof with convex and concave roofs. It is the largest existing helmet-roofed building in China. It is covered with yellow glazed tiles and has high wing corners. Its unique helmet top structure reflects the wisdom of the ancient working people and the exquisite design and skills of skilled craftsmen.
The left and right sides of the front of the building are juxtaposed with the word "pin" of the building, with Sanzui Pavilion and Xianmei Pavilion as foils.
When was this famous building built and by whom? Historians have different opinions and it is difficult to determine.
Fan Zhongyan wrote in "The Story of Yueyang Tower": "In the spring of the fourth year of Qingli, Teng Zijing guarded Baling County. In the next year, the government was harmonious and all kinds of waste were prosperous. The Yueyang Tower was rebuilt, its old system was added, and the present person of Tang Xian was engraved The poem was written on it. It was written to record it. "It can be seen that the construction was completed before the Northern Song Dynasty, and Teng Zijing was doing the work of protecting cultural relics.
In the fourth year of Kaiyuan of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty (716 AD), Zhang Shuo, who can be called "Yanxu's magnanimous writer", was demoted to Yueyang and often moved to the building with literati to compose poems. Later, there were also Li Bai, Du Fu and Li Shangyin. Great poets such as Li Qunyu and Li Qunyu came one after another and wrote hundreds of beautiful poems.
The cultural relics of the past dynasties preserved in the Yueyang Tower are the most famous couplet by the poet Li Bai, "The water and the sky are one color, the wind and the moon are boundless", followed by the carved screen of "Yueyang Tower" written by the calligrapher Zhang Zhao. The carved screen is made of 12 huge pieces of rosewood. The articles, calligraphy, engraving and wood are all treasures and are known as the "Four Wonders". In addition, people regard Fan Zhongyan's notes, Teng Zijing's reconstruction of Yueyang Tower, the great calligrapher Su Shunqin's "Yueyang Tower Notes" and Shao Song's seal cutting as "the four wonders in the world", and the "Four Wonders Monument" has been erected and is still well preserved.
Zhu Mu, a native of the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote a relatively detailed book "Fangyu Shenglan" that recorded places of interest. He wrote in the book: "Yueyang Tower is in the southwest of the county, with Dongting Lake in the west and Dongting Lake on the left. Gu Junshan, I don’t know who founded it. "Yueyang Tower was famous in the Tang Dynasty, but in the Song Dynasty it was impossible to find its origin.
Then, we can only trace forward along the time axis. The "Classical Chinese Reader" compiled by Zhu Ziqing, Ye Shengtao and others calls Yueyang Tower "the first construction of the Tang Dynasty". This statement is recognized by other literary and historical books. "Selected Literary Works of the Song Dynasty" compiled by Yu Chaogang, Wang Dabo and others gives more precise information, saying that Yueyang Tower was "built when Zhang Shuo, Kaiyuan of the Tang Dynasty, was the governor of Yuezhou."
However, there is another theory circulating about the construction of Yueyang Tower, which is that the military parade platform during the Three Kingdoms period was the predecessor of Yueyang Tower. The "Chinese Famous Places Dictionary" published by Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House introduces Yueyang Tower like this: "It is said that the tower was the military parade platform where Wu general Lu Su trained the navy during the Three Kingdoms period." Yueyang City Cultural Relics Management Department is obviously more inclined to the second statement. Yueyang City The Cultural Relics Management Office compiled and published (Introduction to Yueyang Tower), which states: "It is said that the predecessor of Yueyang Tower was the military parade platform used by General Lu Su of the State of Wu during the Three Kingdoms period in China when he was training his navy at Dongting Lake. In the fourth year of Kaiyuan of the Tang Dynasty (716), in the The book ordered Zhang Shuo to be relegated to Yuezhou and build a pavilion on the west gate tower. It was first named South Tower and later named Yueyang Tower. "
Which was built by Lu Su. Or was it built by Zhang Shuo, a Tang Dynasty man? Difficult. The Classical Literature Teaching and Research Group of Tianjin Normal University put forward another point of view when compiling (Commentary on Ancient Works in Middle Schools), saying that Yueyang Tower was "according to legend that it was built in the Zhou Dynasty and has been famous throughout the world since the Tang Dynasty." This puts the construction time of Yueyang Tower into another perspective. Much in advance, and it is impossible to find out who the builder is. It is difficult to determine which of the three theories is closest to the truth. More clear historical records need to be found to solve this mystery.