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 the spring of 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 the spring of the fourth year of Qingli, Teng Zijing was demoted to govern Baling. By the next year government ran smoothly, the people were at peace and all that had fallen into neglect was restored; so he rebuilt Yueyang Tower, enlarging its old plan and carving on it the poems of Tang worthies and men of today, and asked me to write an account.

I observe that the splendour of Baling lies wholly in Dongting Lake: it holds distant mountains in its mouth and swallows the Yangtze, vast and surging, boundless, bright at dawn and dim at dusk, in ten thousand aspects. This is the great view from Yueyang Tower, and those before me have described it fully. Yet since it opens north to the Wu Gorge and reaches south to the Xiao and Xiang, exiled officials and poets gather here, and can their feelings at the sight be the same?

When the rains fall unceasing for months on end, the chill wind howls, muddy waves heave to the sky, sun and stars hide their light and the mountains vanish; when merchants cannot travel, masts topple and oars break; when dusk falls dark and tigers roar and gibbons cry: then to climb this tower is to feel the loss of one’s country and longing for home, fear of slander and dread of ridicule, desolation on every side and grief beyond bearing.

But when spring is mild and the light is clear, the waves lie still, sky and water share one blue to the horizon, gulls gather and fish swim, the orchids on the shore are lush and green; or when the long mist clears and the bright moon shines a thousand li, the floating light gleams like gold and the still reflection sinks like jade, and fishermen answer one another’s songs, what joy is greater? Then to climb this tower is to feel the heart open and the spirit lift, honour and disgrace forgotten, cup in hand in the breeze, glad beyond measure.

Ah! I have sought the hearts of the benevolent men of old, and they differed from both of these. Why? They did not rejoice in things nor grieve for themselves. High in the court, they worried for the people; far among rivers and lakes, they worried for their ruler. Advancing they worried, retiring they worried; when then were they happy? They would say: be the first in the world to worry, and the last in the world to rejoice. Alas, without such men, with whom shall I go?

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

Straight-line distances. Search nearby