, and tourists were like clouds. On holidays, there is an endless stream of people climbing the building, and people compete for the view that "the cave
houses the world and the water, and Yueyang is the world's building".
Yueyang Tower is located on the west gate tower of Yueyang City, facing the misty Dongting Lake. It is a three-story wooden building, and the whole building is bolted and tenoned, without a rivet or a brick. The roof looks like the helmet of an ancient general, commonly known as the helmet top, which is a rare form in ancient Chinese architecture. The Yueyang Tower seen before the overhaul was
built in the sixth year of Tongzhi in Qing Dynasty (1867).
The predecessor of Yueyang Tower is said to be the parade platform where Lu Su, the general of Wu State, trained the water army in the Three Kingdoms period. In the 4th year of Tang Kai Yuan (716), Zhang Shuling said that it was rebuilt when he was guarding Yueyang, and it was named Yueyang Tower. In the 4th year of Song Qingli (144), Teng Zijing became a local official in Baling (Yueyang), and the Yueyang Tower was expanded in the second year, "adding
its old system and carving poems of modern Tang Xian. Fan Zhongyan has never been to Yueyang Tower. According to the situation introduced in the letter and the attached Dongting Autumn Color Map, Fan Zhongyan wrote the Yueyang Tower and sent it back to Teng Zijing. The Story of Yueyang Tower
has a full text of 364 words, full of words and expressions, especially the aphorism of "Worry about the world first, and enjoy the world later
", which is cited as the motto by later generations. It is this immortal masterpiece that makes Yueyang Tower famous
all over the world.
in the eighth year of Qing Qianlong (1743), Huangningdao, the magistrate of Yuezhou, specially invited Zhang Zhao, a minister and great calligrapher (from 1691 to
1745, the word was Tiande, whose name was Jingnan, Huating, Kangxi Jinshi, and the official from Yongzheng to the minister of punishments) to write
The Story of Yueyang Tower, and also invited a good sculptor.
Now, when you walk into the lobby on the first floor of Yueyang Tower, you can see a wooden
screen composed of 12 rosewood boards, 9.5 feet high and 12.5 feet wide, with green characters on a black background. The handwriting is vigorous and simple, quite imposing. But when you climb
to the second floor, there is a similar wooden screen in the hall, and the handwriting is flying like a dragon and a phoenix. In the same
building, why should two carved screens with the same text be embedded? Everything happens for a reason:
In the fourth year of Daoguang reign in Qing Dynasty (1824), there was a magistrate named Wu in Baling. He wanted to steal the original carved
screen of Yueyang Tower back to his hometown and take it for himself, so he asked someone to copy a screen according to the original handwriting.
to the outside world, pretend to be fascinated by the screen, copy it to save it. I'm afraid I secretly put the imitation upstairs, took off the original and moved it to the boat, starting from the water. However, god forbid, in the vast lake, the wind and waves suddenly broke out halfway, and when we reached a place with antlers < P >, the boat capsized and the carved screen was separated. Finally, it was salvaged and collected by fishermen. More than a hundred years later, in 1933, when the Yueyang Tower was renovated, the government heard the news and redeemed the screen from the people, painted it anew, returned to the old building, and installed it on the front of the hall on the second floor. That is, the carved screen on the second floor is the original Zhang Zhao, and the one on the first floor is a fake.
at this point, the original mystery is no longer a mystery. Unexpectedly, the old festival developed new skills: on October 5, 1987, Changsha Evening News published a joint article by Jin Zhong and Zhong Shan: The Mystery of Carved Screen in Yueyang Tower. The article said,
"Recently, the author found a new carved
tablet of Yueyang Tower from a miscellaneous room in Yueyang Social Welfare Institute. There are five residual plaques made of camphor wood. Except for one plaque engraved with' Zhang Zhao, the official document of Yue Zhou Shou Huang Gong Shu < P >', all the other four plaques have national paint similar to chestnut color. " The article
also said: "The words on the plaque are slightly smaller than those on the carved screen on the second floor, but the calligraphy and legal printing are even worse." And a photocopy of the rubbings of the residual plaque is attached. According to the length, width and text arrangement of the residual tablets, the author estimates that
this carved screen is about 6 feet long and 14 feet wide, and it is made up of about 34 wooden tablets.
The article said: After investigation, there were 7 pieces of residual tablets, which were originally collected by Lu Xianting-duang Road. During the ten-year turmoil, the pavilion was destroyed and people died. It happened that the former Civil Affairs Bureau of Yueyang County was building a social welfare home here, and the
remnant plaque in the old house was moved by a crazy woman in the welfare home. Soon after, the crazy woman died, and her relatives took away two remnant plaques, and her whereabouts are still unknown. The remaining five pieces have been used by a nurse as shelves for stacking shoes.
After reading this article, I think at least three questions are worth solving: 1. If the residual plaque is authentic, then the authentic status of the carved screen on the second floor of Yueyang Tower will be shaken-it is not Zhang Zhao's handwriting. 2.
If the plaque is a fake, how many fakes there are! Is it a fake in the hands of magistrate Wu? Or someone else's
fake? 3. Is the plaque a spare part for carving a screen by hand? Trial carving? Or was it a trial sculpture of
when it was copied in Wu County?
three days later, on October 9th, the author went to Yueyang for an interview, and then went to Yueyang Tower specially to ask the comrades in charge of
Institute to find out. The answer is: I heard that this happened, but I can't solve the mystery.
Zhang Zhao has an original calligraphy in the Palace Museum in Beijing, which I personally saw. Based on the existing two
carved screens and newly discovered residual plaques in Yueyang Tower, the handwriting of each plaque is compared with the handwriting of Zhang Zhao. I think it is easy for calligraphers and
handwriting experts to distinguish the authenticity. In addition, by verifying the wood age of the plaque screen as a reference, we will find out which of the three screens is true
and which is false.