Wengfeng Park, Yingzhou District

Wengfeng Park, Yingzhou District

The Wengfeng Pagoda in Wengfeng Park is located near Yingzhou Road, a major central thoroughfare in Fuyang City. Historical records indicate that due to the relatively low height of the Kuixing Tower, the literary star was not prominently visible, resulting in a lack of literary prosperity and few scholarly achievements in the area. In the 35th year of the Kangxi reign (1796), the Wengfeng Pagoda was built here to revitalize Fuyang’s literary culture. The pagoda is entirely constructed of brick, has seven stories and an octagonal shape, and stands 31.8 meters tall. Each level contains a central chamber; the first floor has a single chamber with the north entrance serving as the stairway entry, featuring a spiral staircase that extends to the top. The first, third, fifth, and seventh floors each have four arched doorways on their four sides; the second, fourth, and sixth floors each have three doorways on the south, west, and east sides. The pagoda follows a dense-eave pavilion style, with each level featuring corbelled brackets and brick-carved wooden-style dougong (bracket sets) that support the overhanging dense eaves. The top is crowned with upturned ridges and corners, and a three-tiered beaded-style sword finial, which is threaded through the spire by an iron five-pronged finial pole, giving the structure a simple yet solemn appearance. Both the Wengfeng Pagoda and the Kuixing Tower are situated in the southeast corner of the city, known as the Xun direction. The "Classic of Mountains and Seas Illustrated Commentary" states: “Where the earth lacks the Xun support, the sky lacks the Qian corner.” Fuyang’s terrain is higher in the northwest and lower in the southeast. According to the "Yingzhou Annals," feng shui scholars believed that the low and damp southeast area caused the earth’s energy to dissipate, making it difficult to produce talented individuals, and thus a pagoda was needed to stabilize the energy. The "Book of Changes · Xun" describes the Xun trigram as representing wind: “Following the wind, Xun.” The commentary explains: “Since the wind follows, nothing is unyielding.” According to Confucian scholars, Xun symbolizes the domain of literature, and the pagoda resembles the shape of an outstanding brush. Hence, it is called the “Wengfeng Pagoda” (Literary Pagoda). The Wengfeng Pagoda is not only associated with “literature” but also bears strong Taoist elements. Some of its brick carvings depict auspicious symbols such as the longevity deer, ganoderma mushrooms, dragons, and phoenixes, as well as the carp leaping through the dragon gate sought by scholars, and the yin-yang fish pattern. These provide vivid and valuable material for studying the ideological consciousness, aesthetic psychology, and historical aspects of the time. In short, this type of pagoda is what used to be referred to as a feng shui pagoda.