Guo Haiyan
? Yuexiu Mountain, with its towering green trees and numerous historical sites, is the treasure mountain of Guangzhou. There is an extraordinary 600-year-old ancient building on Yuexiu Mountain called Zhenhai Tower, also known as "Wanghai Tower" and commonly known as "Five-story Tower". During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, after the Zhenhai Tower was built, it immediately became famous throughout the city. Everyone was vying to see this unique and imposing five-story pavilion. The style of this building is like it hanging on the top of the five-story building. The name on the horizontal plaque is the same as "Zhenhai Tower", which is majestic and majestic. Foreign merchant ships coming across the ocean knew they had arrived in Guangzhou when they saw the Zhenhai Tower standing on Yuexiu Mountain from a distance.
In the Qing Dynasty, Zhenhai Tower was listed among the eight scenic spots in Yangcheng with the name of "Zhenhai Floor". After the founding of New China, in 1986, the "Yuexiu Building" was included in the Eight New Scenic Spots of Yangcheng. The pearl of Guangzhou’s historical and cultural monuments, Zhenhai Tower, has become a dazzling business card of Guangzhou and the starting point and highest point of Guangzhou’s traditional central axis. Although Zhenhai Tower only has five floors, this nearly 30-meter-high pavilion on the high Yuexiu Mountain was indeed the tallest building in Guangzhou during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It stands majestically on Xiaopanlonggang in Yuexiu Mountain with a majestic shape. Visitors go up the mountain road and look up at the Zhenhai Tower standing high among the green forests on the top of the mountain. It feels like a city wall towering into the sky. When you climb up and look around, you can have a panoramic view of the whole city. In ancient times, you could even see the rippling water of the Pearl River in the south, which was so vast that it reached the sky, which was extremely spectacular. It is true that the Pearl River is not a sea, but the Pearl River in the Ming Dynasty was still at least 1,000 meters wide and looked like a wide sea. Therefore, for a long time, the vast Pearl River was called "the sea". Guangzhou people Crossing the Pearl River has always been called "crossing the sea", and looking at the river is called "looking at the sea." This is how the word "sea" in Zhenhai Tower comes from. Naming it with the word "sea" can better reflect its majesty. Qu Dajun, one of the "Three Lingnan Masters" in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, vividly described in "Guangdong News": "The fourth floor (the four famous buildings in Guangzhou) is the highest in Zhenhai. Looking from the sea, it looks like a mirage... Hearing waves. It does not flow, and it emerges from Qingming to become independent. It is so majestic and majestic that even Huanghe and Yueyang cannot surpass it."
Zhenhai Tower was built in the 13th year of Hongwu in the early Ming Dynasty (1380). At that time, the Ming Dynasty general Zhu Liangzu, the Marquis of Yongjia, who was out of Guangdong, arrived in Guangzhou and found that the city was "low pass" and there was no moat in the north city, which was not conducive to defense. So "Shang Shu asked the three cities to be combined into one, and the northeastern foothills were opened to expand it. . So he leaned against the Yuexiu River and looked down at the Pearl River... and built the Zhenhai Tower for a spectacular view." (Huang Jie's "Reconstruction of the Zhenhai Tower") The emperor immediately responded to the report. Zhu Liangzu then unified the three eastern, western and central cities of the Song Dynasty and opened up more than 800 feet of the northern city. The city wall spanned Yuexiu Mountain and built a five-story city tower at the highest point of the city wall. It was first named "Wanghai Tower" and later named It is called "Zhenhai Tower", which means "Zhenhai Tower". Since then, the building has been renovated several times. When it was renovated in the 17th year of the Republic of China (1928), the original wooden structure inside the building was changed to a reinforced concrete structure, and the brick and stone exterior walls were basically old items from the Ming Dynasty.
? There is another folk legend. Zhu Liangzu was brave in battle, but he believed in Feng Shui. According to the "Guangdong Sword Chapter" written by Wang Linheng in the 29th year of Wanli (1601), "It is said that the city's territory originates from the northwest." The mountains are condensed here, and the king's energy is gathered here, pretending to be a tall building to suppress it." According to legend, a Feng Shui master told Zhu Liangzu that Yuexiu Mountain is surrounded by mountains and water, overlooking the vast sea, "the situation is majestic, and there is a sign of dominance." This is the place where the king can appear. Nowadays, the sea surface is covered with a "king's energy". If this "king's energy" continues to rise, the country of the Ming Dynasty will be in danger. Zhu Liangzu heard this and did not dare to neglect. He quickly compiled a memorial and sent someone to report it to the court at Xingye. Zhu Yuanzhang was convinced after reading the memorial, and immediately ordered Zhu Liangzu to build a tower on Yuexiu Mountain to suppress this "deviant person with purple clouds and yellow air". Although this is just a folk legend, it can be seen from this that the people in central Guangdong respect Zhenhai Tower. ?
? Zhenhai Tower is a relatively rare multi-story pavilion-style building among ancient Chinese buildings. The peculiarity of its appearance is that "the building is shaped like a tower, and the tower is shaped like a building." A building has a tower. style.
The pavilion faces south and is 28 meters high. The first floor is 31 meters wide and 16 meters deep. The gable wall is 3.9 meters thick. The walls on the first and second floors are made of red sandstone strips. The brick walls are only on the third floor and above. The use of this material adds a sense of historical depth. The whole building is rectangular, with five floors of pavilions. The outer walls are reduced layer by layer. There are five layers of compound eaves. Each layer of the eaves has raised corners. It is covered with green glazed tiles. The roof ridge is decorated with Shiwan glazed turtles. Each floor of the building has The flat seat and waist eaves look very much like a tower. The steady and dignified red wall and the reflective and dynamic green tiles form a very harmonious unity of opposites visually. The Guangzhou Museum is located in the Zhenhai Tower, which has a history of 90 years (see "Guangzhou Museum Interpreting the History of Guangzhou"). The majestic and solemn ancient building Zhenhai Tower is like a wise man who has experienced the vicissitudes of time. It leads modern people who come to explore the history through mountains and forests to walk into the beautiful historical corridor and appreciate the past and present.
For more than 600 years after the completion of Zhenhai Tower, due to wars and Due to natural and man-made reasons, it suffered repeated disasters and was abandoned several times. It has been repaired many times in history, all according to the "regulations remain the same, but the grandeur and magnificence are still enhanced" (see the inscription on the stone tablet "The Story of Zhenhai Tower" on the west side of Zhenhai Tower ). Today, the Zhenhai Tower is a nationally protected cultural relic and is carefully protected.
Since ancient times, it has been easy for literati to express their emotions when climbing up to see the famous places. It has become a Chinese literary tradition to be famous in poetry. Zhenhai Tower, a famous scenic spot in Lingnan, is the best creative material for poets. For hundreds of years, countless poets and celebrities have written about it. Among the many moving poems and couplets dedicated to Zhenhai Tower, the following couplets hanging on both sides of the "Zhenhai Tower" horizontal plaque on the top of the fifth floor are the most popular:
? Thousands of people. The dangerous building still exists, asking who picked up the Dou Moxiao, and I am arrogant about the past and the present;
? Five hundred years ago, the old lord An is here, making me lean on the railing and look at the sword, and shed tears for the hero!
? How powerful, melancholy and vigorous! The rise and fall of history and the deep emotion give people a strong appeal of "seeking tears of heroes". This couplet was written by Peng Yulin, the Minister of War in the late Qing Dynasty, who was famous for his uprightness and simplicity, and was responsible for resisting the enemy. With the heavy responsibility of foreign aggression, he stood on the Zhenhai Tower, leaning on the railing, nostalgic for the past, watching the sword hurt the present, and couldn't help but feel sympathy for each other, and wrote this couplet. Some people suspected that it was his staff Li Dihua who ghostwritten it, and most critics all lamented: "It's true." Only with the commander-in-chief's mind that "makes me lean on the railing to look at the sword" and "tears on the heroes", the nostalgia for the past and the present sighs.
? Hu, a political figure in the Republic of China who has always followed Sun Yat-sen's revolution The Han people also wrote couplets for Zhenhai Tower and hung them on the front of the fifth-floor top floor:
? From the north of Wuling Mountains, Zhuhai is best on a moonlit night;
? Looking up from the upper floor at night, the white clouds still look like Han Dynasty
During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, Tan Cui's "Chu Ting Zhu Lu" cited some aphorisms about Zhenhai Tower, such as "The earth turns and the green mountains open up the wells, and the sky turns around". The Ming Dynasty poet Liang Youyou wrote "Stars hang in the sea and trees hang in the sea, and haze in autumn breaks the mountain bells"; Chen Gongyin in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty wrote "The peaks from the north of the Five Ridges are on the ground, and the water from the south of Kyushu floats in the sky". Tan Cui is the best What I admire most is the Qilu "Zhenhai Tower" by Ou Daren, a poet of the Ming Dynasty. He said that his poem "has a majestic and majestic charm, and this chapter should be used as a masterpiece." Entering the sky.
? The Shimen leads to the Qin Fortress in the north, and the Xi River leads to the Han Palace in the south.
? The sound of pine trees on the empty threshold is deep in the deep valley, and the autumn scenery of the sky sends Zhenghong away.
? Shuonan is all the fiefdom of Yao, and I am worried about listening to Qiao Su talking about his great achievements.
? Historical celebrities who have written poems and couplets for Zhenhai Tower include Zhang Zhidong, Kang Youwei, Wang Zhaoyong, Qiu Fengjia, Qu Dajun, Huang Jie, Liao Zhongkai and others. Contemporary poets have also written excellent works for Zhenhai Tower. a lot of. More than ten years ago, the Guangzhou Museum edited and published a collection of poems about Zhenhai Tower by ancient and modern poets. It includes the outstanding works inscribed on Zhenhai Tower in the past dynasties.
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