Yellow Crane Tower

Yellow Crane Tower, located in Wuchang District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province, sits atop Snake Hill and overlooks the mighty Yangtze River, serving as a landmark of Wuhan. Initially built in the second year of Huangwu during the Wu Kingdom of the Three Kingdoms period (223 AD), by the first year of Yongtai in the Tang Dynasty (765 AD), the tower had already taken shape. However, due to frequent warfare, it was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties alone, it was destroyed seven times and reconstructed or repaired ten times. There is a saying that “when the nation prospers, so does the tower.” The last tower was built in the seventh year of Tongzhi (1868) and destroyed in the tenth year of Guangxu (1884). Today, only the bronze roof of the Yellow Crane Tower remains at the site— the sole remnant after the destruction of the Qing Dynasty’s Yellow Crane Tower.

Renovated many times over the dynasties, the current structure is designed based on the “Tongzhi Tower” of the Qing Dynasty and was rebuilt in 1985. It gained worldwide fame because of the famous poem “Yellow Crane Tower” written by Tang Dynasty poet Cui Hao after his visit.

History of Yellow Crane Tower: Built in the second year of Huangwu during the Wu Kingdom, during the Three Kingdoms period, it was initially just a “military watchtower,” used to guard the corner of Xiakou City.

1) The earliest Qing Dynasty Yellow Crane Tower was built in the thirteenth year of Shunzhi (1656), but was destroyed by fire just eight years later in the third year of Kangxi (1664), and was rebuilt that same year.

2) Throughout the Kangxi era, the tower underwent one major repair due to lightning strikes and tilting, along with two minor repairs. After standing for 72 years, it was finally rebuilt again in the first year of Qianlong (1736).

3) By the first year of Jiaqing (1796), the Yellow Crane Tower underwent another complete renovation, adding over forty stone foundations and changing from its original all-wood structure to something more solid, reportedly “so sturdy that even ten thousand oxen could not shake it.”

4) In the third year of Xianfeng (1853), the Yellow Crane Tower fell into the hands of the Taiping Army. In the sixth year of Xianfeng (1856), during fierce battles between the Taiping Army defending Wuchang and Qing forces, neither side had any sense of cultural preservation, and this tower, which had stood for 120 years through two 60-year cycles, was destroyed in the flames of war.

5) Twelve years later, after the Qing Dynasty extinguished the Taiping Rebellion and entered the “Tongzhi Restoration” amid the Self-Strengthening Movement, the last Qing-era Yellow Crane Tower was erected in 1868 amid calls for its reconstruction. This tower mobilized over a thousand craftsmen, cost more than 30,000 taels of silver, and took ten months to complete. It stood nine zhang and two chi tall (approx. 30 meters), plus a seven-chi (approx. 2.3 m) bronze roof, totaling a symbolic “nine-nine” height for longevity. However, on the night of September 22, 1884, an apprentice at a bone workshop owned by a Mr. Zhang in Wuchang knocked over an oil lamp, setting 200 riverside houses ablaze—including the Yellow Crane Tower, which was not spared.

A reconstruction attempt in the 21st year of the Republic of China (1932) did not receive a response from the Beiyang Government.

Known since ancient times as the “Foremost Scenic Wonder Under Heaven,” it is ranked among the “Three Great Scenic Spots of Wuhan” alongside Qingchuan Pavilion and Guqin Terrace, and among the “Three Famous Towers of the South” alongside Yueyang Tower in Yueyang, Hunan and Tengwang Pavilion in Nanchang, Jiangxi. It is also the foremost of the “Ten Great Scenes of Wuhan,” one of the “Four Great Ancient Towers of China,” and one of the “Ten Great Historical and Cultural Towers of China.” It is hailed as the “Foremost Tower on Earth and River.”

Wang Zhihuan’s “On the Stork Tower”:

The sun along the mountain bows;

The Yellow River seawards flows.

You will enjoy a grander sight