Lvyang Hotel

Lvyang Hotel

Lvyang Hotel is a Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Unit and a classic red tourism site.

Lvyang Hotel is located at No. 23 Xinsheng Street (formerly known as Xingsheng Street). Xinsheng Street is only 200 meters long but was extremely bustling historically. There were more than 10 hotels and restaurants on both the north and south sides, but the most famous was this south-facing, north-opening Lvyang Hotel, hailed as Yangzhou’s “International Hotel.”

The name of Lvyang Hotel comes from the famous line by Qing Dynasty poet Wang Shizhen: “Verdant willows frame the city — that is Yangzhou.” The hotel was built in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republican era. According to research, the original Lvyang Hotel was quite small, with just two floors. In 1925, proletarian revolutionary Xiao Chunu, who was teaching at the affiliated high school of Southeast University in Nanjing, visited Yangzhou in autumn and stayed at Lvyang Hotel for two nights. Records show that in May 1925, Yun Daiying, serving as an Executive Committee member of the Communist Youth League Central Committee and Secretary of the Kuomintang Shanghai Executive Department, came to Yangzhou to the Fifth Normal School to promote and guide the revolution. After his speech, he also stayed at Lvyang Hotel. He did not leave until the third day when he crossed south to Zhenjiang. Some students from the Fifth Normal School and Eighth Middle School also visited Yun Daiying at Lvyang Hotel to listen to his insights on saving the nation.

In June 1929, after renovation, the three-story Lvyang Hotel reopened, representing the current structure of the hotel. The ground floor had a sky-lit dance hall, behind which was a celebration hall, with staircases on both sides leading upstairs. The second and third floors featured street-facing rooms with observation balconies enclosed by green iron railings, allowing guests to overlook the street scene. The top floor served as a drying terrace. Each floor had a square-shaped hallway constructed entirely of wood. There were over 100 beds in total, all iron beds, and each room was furnished with rosewood tea tables, rosewood square tables, wardrobes, and dressing tables. The entire hotel is quaint and elegant. Despite being over 80 years old, it remains in its original state, undamaged.

The famous writer Yu Dafu once stayed at Lvyang Hotel during his visit to Yangzhou. In his travelogue “Old Dreams of Yangzhou Written to Yutang,” he wrote: “After settling into the newly opened Lvyang Grand Hotel, my…

wonderful dreams of Yangzhou had already faded by more than half.” A guest room on the second floor facing north today is the very room where Yu Dafu stayed and is open for public viewing. Yu Dafu’s good friend, the so-called “Dragon Sun Literatus” Yi Junzuo, traveled to Guangling (Yangzhou) several times in the 1930s, mostly staying at Lvyang Hotel. There are written records of at least two such stays. Countless notable figures have stayed at the hotel.

In the early stages of the War of Resistance Against Japan in 1937, pilots from the 5th Squadron of the Chinese Air Force stayed at Lvyang Hotel. The 5th Squadron was originally stationed at Qingyunpu Airport in Jiangxi and was ordered to relocate to Yangzhou on August 2. At the time, the airport in the western suburbs of Yangzhou had just been built and was relatively rudimentary, with only runways and parking areas for aircraft and no living quarters, so all the pilots stayed at Lvyang Hotel in the city. In mid-August 1945, Zhou Zhihe, head of flight operations at the puppet Wang Jingwei regime’s Central Aviation School, and He Jiansheng, head of academic affairs, came to Yangzhou and also stayed at Lvyang Hotel. They secretly discussed plans for a defection flight at the hotel. On the morning of August 20 at 8 a.m., Zhou Zhihe, along with pilots Huang Zhefu, Zhao Naiqiang, Guan Xudong, and mechanics Huang Wenxing and Shen Shihuai — six men in total — took off in the puppet government’s special plane “Jianguo” (Nation-Building) from Yangzhou and flew to Yan’an. They were later personally received by central leaders including Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Zhu De.

During the Japanese occupation of Yangzhou, two major incidents occurred at Lvyang Hotel. One involved a Chinese woman who had been captured and forced to serve the Japanese military, who killed a Japanese officer at Lvyang Hotel. The other was a case where an engaged Japanese couple, disillusioned with war and unable to bear the suffering, committed suicide together at Lvyang Hotel.

After the liberation, Lvyang Hotel transitioned from private ownership to a public-private partnership, and after the reform and opening up period, it became state-owned under the management of Yangzhou Catering and Service Company, later incorporated into the Yangzhou Fuchun Catering and Service Group, and ultimately fell under the Yangtze River Group. Due to the development and expansion of Yangzhou, the construction of many modern hotels and restaurants, the improved living standards of the people, and Lvyang Hotel’s location in a narrow alley, the hotel faced significant operational challenges. Under the efforts of the new manager Xia Jihong, the hotel gradually emerged from difficulty and presented itself with a unique…

historic charm to its guests. In September 1999, Xiao Chao, the son of Lvyang Hotel’s founder Xiao Shihe, came to Yangzhou with his wife and daughter from the United States specifically for his 80th birthday. On that day, he held a reunion talk with his nephews and nieces in the hotel lobby and took commemorative photos. The classic and historic Lvyang Hotel was chosen as a filming location for the TV series “Shanghai Tycoons.” The production team of the 18-episode TV series “The Silver Shop” by Beijing Zhongbei Television Art Center also filmed scenes at Lvyang Hotel. When the series aired, it specially acknowledged “Thanks to Lvyang Hotel of Yangzhou City” at the end credits.

In 2002, the Jiangsu Provincial People’s Government designated Lvyang Hotel as a Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units