Zhenwu Pavilion

About

Zhenwu Pavilion stands in Rong County in Guangxi, southern China. Together with Yuejiang Tower, Xie Tiao Tower, and Zhenhai Tower it is counted among the Four Great Towers of Jiangnan, a grouping of historic towers that have long been regarded as masterworks of southern Chinese architectural tradition.

The earliest pavilion on the site reaches back to the eighth century, founded by Yuan Jie — a Tang-dynasty poet and official — during the years of that great cultural flowering. In 1377, near the beginning of the Ming dynasty, local officials raised a Taoist temple on the former site and named it Xuanwu Palace, after the celebrated Taoist deity Xuanwu, the dark warrior of the north.

The pavilion was enlarged in 1573 during the reign of the Wanli Emperor and renamed Zhenwu Pavilion, the name it has carried ever since. The renaming reflected the formal Ming-period substitution of 'Zhenwu' for the older 'Xuanwu' in deference to imperial naming conventions, while preserving the same Taoist deity at the heart of the precinct.

The building is a three-storey wooden structure with a gable-and-hip roof, of subtle proportion and quietly impressive scale. It rises some twenty metres high, is roughly fourteen metres wide and eleven metres deep, and preserves what is considered the largest and most magnificent timber hall surviving in Guangxi.

History

The earliest pavilion on this site dates to the eighth century under the Tang-dynasty poet and official Yuan Jie. In 1377, at the dawn of the Ming dynasty, local officials built a Taoist temple called Xuanwu Palace on the former foundation, dedicated to the deity Xuanwu. It was enlarged in 1573 during the reign of the Wanli Emperor and renamed Zhenwu Pavilion. The pavilion was listed in 1982 among the second batch of major national historical and cultural sites in Guangxi and was further recognised as a national AAAA-level scenic site in 2017.