Xinhe Wenbi Pagoda

Xinhe Wenbi Pagoda

Xinhe Wenbi Pagoda is a cultural relic protection unit of Wenling City.

Wenbi Pagoda is located on Jinqi Mountain within the campus of Xinhe Middle School in Dongcheng Residential Area, Xinhe Town, Wenling City, Taizhou, Zhejiang Province. The pagoda is a five-story, pavilion-style brick structure with an open interior, standing approximately 12.5 meters tall. It has a hexagonal floor plan, with the width of the body gradually decreasing from the bottom up. The entire pagoda presents a sleek and elegant outline, and is named Wenbi Pagoda (literally "Writing Brush Pagoda") because of its resemblance to a writing brush. The base of the first story has a diameter of about 1.6 meters. The pagoda door is 1.37 meters high and 0.55 meters wide. Each face of every level features one lotus-petal-shaped window or door. The north-facing side of the fifth story bears a plaque inscribed with the four Chinese characters 天开文运 ("Heaven Opens the Path of Culture"), written in regular script with a yellow background and black characters. The top of the pagoda is a hexagonal spire covered with cylindrical tiles and crowned with a gourd-shaped finial. According to the entry on Jinqi Mountain in the Jiāqìng Tàipíng Xiàn Zhì (Jiāqìng-era Gazetteer of Tàipíng County), "...the pagoda on the mountain was built by Ming Dynasty Regional Commander Zhang Dongying." Zhang Dongying refers to Zhang Yuanxun, a native of Xinhe. The Ming History · Biography of Zhang Yuanxun records: "Yuanxun rose from a low-ranking officer and fought in over a hundred battles, large and small, establishing a formidable reputation that subdued the Lingnan region." After retiring from office, he constructed this pagoda during the Wanli era. Wenbi Pagoda is one of only two ancient pagodas remaining in Wenling, making it a rare historical treasure.