Yellow
Crane Tower, located on
Snake Hill in Wuchang,
is one of the "Three
Famous Towers South of
Yangtze River (the other
two: Yueyang Tower in
Hunan and Tengwang Tower
in Jiangxi).
Legend goes that that
here used to be a
wine-shop opened by a
young man surnamed Xin.
One day, a Taoist
priest, in order to
thank the man for his
favor of free wine, drew
a magic crane on the
wall and told it to
dance on hearing claps.
Since then, thousands of
people came to see the
spectacle and the wine
shop was always full of
guests. After 10 years,
when the Taoist priest’s
revisit the wine shop,
he played the flute and
then rode on the crane
to the sky. In order to
memorize the
supernatural encounter
and the priest, the Xins
built a tower here named
Yellow Crane Tower.
According to records,
the tower was first
built in 223 A.D during
the Three Kingdoms
period (220-280). After
completion, the tower
once served as a
gathering place for
celebrities and poets to
make merry and compose
poetry. It was estimated
that up to the Tongzhi
Reign of the Qing
dynasty, as many as 300
poems about the tower
had been found in the
historical literature,
in which "Yellow Crane
Tower" wrote by Cui Hao,
a famous poet of Tang
dynasty (618-907) made
the tower well known
throughout China.
Destroyed many times in
successive dynasties,
the tower was rebuilt
time and again until 100
years ago when it was
for the last time
reduced to ashes. The
present tower is the
result of four years of
construction beginning
in 1981. The tower, 51.4
meters high, is
five-storied with yellow
tiles and red pillars,
overlapping ridges and
interlocking eaves, more
magnificent than the old
one. The ground floor of
the new is 20 meters
wide in each side and
the old tower is only 15
meters wide. Therefore
we can say that Yellow
Crane Tower has been
reconstructed instead of
being renovated.
Now, the tower has
already been regarded as
the symbol of Wuhan
city. |