Yueyang Tower is an ancient Chinese tower in Yueyang

Yueyang

Yueyang is a prefecture-level city at the northeastern corner of Hunan province, South Central China, on the southern shores of Dongting Lake.The Yueyang metropolitan area occupies 14,896 km². and the city proper occupies 304 km²...

, Hunan

Hunan

' is a province of South-Central China, located to the south of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and south of Lake Dongting...

 Province, on the shore of Lake Dongting. Alongside the Pavilion of Prince Teng

Pavilion of Prince Teng

The Pavilion of Prince Teng or Tengwang Pavilion is a building in the north west of the city of Nanchang, in Jiangxi province, China, on the east bank of the Gan River and is one of the Four Great Towers of China. It has been destroyed and rebuilt many times over its history...

 and Yellow Crane Tower

Yellow Crane Tower

Yellow Crane Tower is a famous and historic tower, first built in the year 223 AD, the current structure however, was rebuilt in 1981. The tower stands on Sheshan , at the bank of Yangtze River in Wuchang District, Wuhan, in Hubei province of central China.-History:- Legend :There are at least two...

, it is one of the Three Great Towers of Jiangnan.

History

The history of Yueyang Tower dates from the Three Kingdoms Period, when Lu Su

Lu Su

Lu Su , style name Zijing , was a politician, militarist and diplomat serving under the warlord Sun Quan during the late Han Dynasty period of Chinese history...

, commander in chief of the forces of Wu, was sent to the area to fortify it and train the fleet there. To ease the inspection and command of ships he constructed a tower near the strategic location where Lake Dongting joins the Yangtze River

Yangtze River

The Yangtze, Yangzi or Cháng Jiāng is the longest river in Asia, and the third-longest in the world. It flows for from the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai eastward across southwest, central and eastern China before emptying into the East China Sea at Shanghai. It is also one of the...

, from which the whole of Lake Dongting was visible. This inspection tower, then called the Ba Ling Tower after the nearby city of Ba Ling, was the first incarnation of Yueyang Tower.

Literature

Like the other two great towers of Jiangnan, Yueyang Tower is famous partly due to its literary associations, namely the piece Yueyang Lou Ji (岳陽樓記), loosely translated as Memorial to Yueyang Tower, written by renowned Song

Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...

 poet Fan Zhongyan

Fan Zhongyan

Fan Zhongyan , born in Wuxian , Suzhou , was a prominent politician and literary figure in Song dynasty China. He was also a strategist and educator...

 at the invitation of his friend Teng Zijing (滕子京), who in 1044 became local governor and rebuilt the tower, and subsequent play Yueyang Tower by one of the most renown Chinese dramatists Ma Zhiyuan

Ma Zhiyuan

Ma Zhiyuan , courtesy name Dongli , was a Chinese poet and celebrated playwright, a native of Dadu during the Yuan Dynasty.Among his achievements is the development and popularizing of the new sanqu lyric form of poetry...

 in the Yuan Dynasty

Yuan Dynasty

The Yuan Dynasty , or Great Yuan Empire was a ruling dynasty founded by the Mongol leader Kublai Khan, who ruled most of present-day China, all of modern Mongolia and its surrounding areas, lasting officially from 1271 to 1368. It is considered both as a division of the Mongol Empire and as an...

era.

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