The Yuji Palace

Yuji Palace

The Yuji Palace is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Yuji Palace is located at No. 86 Xima Chang Street, Hanyang District, Wuhan, on the Yu Gong Rocks at the eastern foot of Guishan Mountain in Hanyang. It was first built during the Shaoxing era of the Southern Song Dynasty (1131–1162), and the existing structures were built in the third year of the Tongzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1864). It is an ancient architectural complex built to commemorate Yu the Great, including the Yuji Palace, the Yu Stele Pavilion, the Chaozong Pavilion, the Mountain Gate, the Chubo Pavilion, and stone inscriptions. The entire complex covers an area of 10,009 square meters.

The Yuji Palace has a courtyard-style layout, covering an area of 380 square meters, and consists of a main hall, front hall, left and right corridors, and a courtyard. The main hall is three bays wide and four bays deep, with a roof covered in small blue tiles. The Yu Stele Pavilion is 3.6 meters wide, with stone pillars and a wooden frame, supported by 16 sets of three-tiered brackets, topped with gray cylindrical tiles. In the center of the pavilion stand two Yu steles. The Chaozong Pavilion is a hexagonal pyramidal-roofed structure. It has no brackets but features green tiles and upturned eaves. The Chubo Pavilion is a fan-shaped, gable-and-hip warm pavilion with a rolled shed roof. The Jingchu Xiongfeng Stele stands 3.8 meters tall in total, with a cloud-patterned tablet top.

The newly restored Yuji Palace is one of the few representative Qing Dynasty wooden structures still extant in the Wuhan area. It covers an area of 380 square meters and consists of a main hall, front hall, left and right corridors, and a courtyard.

The main facade is a brick archway-style (four-pillar, three-story, three-gate) wall, while the other three sides are half-brick windbreak walls. The main hall is a flush-gable hall, with the front eaves decorated with ruyi-shaped half-brackets supporting the overhanging eaves. The ridge ends rise sharply, but the roof lacks water drainage slopes. The two sides of the courtyard resemble corridors, both featuring single-slope roofs. The palace’s roof is covered with small green tiles, and the eaves and ridges are adorned with drip tiles, ridge beasts, and other ornaments.

On the lower panels of the windows beside the main hall’s door, the center features a large round bead design, flanked by dragons facing each other with open mouths. Above are bats, and below are double coins—viewed horizontally, it depicts two dragons playing with a pearl; viewed vertically, it symbolizes blessings and longevity. However, the “longevity” here is not represented by stylized characters, but by a crane (symbolizing long life) inside the large bead. In addition to the crane, the bead also features a deer, plum blossoms, and branches of the wutong tree, together representing “deer, crane, and spring.” Below the central purlin in the hall is a design of a red sun in the middle, with a phoenix on each side facing each other, dancing with their long tails toward the sun—this is called “two phoenixes facing the sun.”

In March 2013, the Yuji Palace was added to the list of the seventh batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units announced by the State Council.

Jingchu Xiongfeng Stele – This stele was engraved in the 35th year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1770) by Li Ba, the Jiangnan Regional Inspector. The inscription praises the spirit of the people of Jingchu in their tenacious struggle against floods.

Chaozong Pavilion – Legend has it that Yu the Great succeeded in taming the floods here. The Book of Documents · Tribute of Yu mentions “the Yangtze and Han Rivers converging into the sea” as Yu the Great tamed the floods. The couplet on the Chaozong Pavilion reads: “The mountain range splits the rain from Wu Gorge to the west; / The river flows east, pressing down the tides at Haimen.” The origin of the Chaozong Pavilion is said to be related to Yu the Great’s success in taming the floods here, hence the phrase in the Book of Documents · Tribute of Yu: “the Yangtze and Han Rivers converging into the sea.” The couplet is truly well-written, majestic and powerful. After strolling around the park, I could no longer recall the full couplet on the eaves of the Yuji Palace, which read: “Passed his own door three times, wasting the years of Xin, Ren, Gui, and Jia; / Away from home for eight years, he pacified the rivers of the Han, Huai, and Yangtze,” but this couplet remained etched in my memory.

The Yu Stele at Qingchuan Pavilion was meticulously carved and brought here by the famous Qing Dynasty literati Mao Huijian from Mount Heng after enduring countless hardships, and was later also replicated at the Xi’an Stele Forest. The current stele is a copy from the Xi’an Stele Forest. After many twists and turns, it has finally been presented here.

Further Reading:

· Third Batch of Hubei Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units