Hongqiao Art Building

　　The Hongqiao Bridge spans the Tuo River, and the Wind and Rain Tower rises majestically and beautifully from it, creating what is essentially an overlapping scenic view. This landscape stretches through more than 600 years of history — from bottom to top, from ancient times to the present.

　　This bridge was first built in the early years of the Hongwu reign during the Ming Dynasty. The people of Fenghuang, who place great faith in feng shui, say that this bridge severed a dragon’s neck, leaving the mighty dragon’s body and head separated. The fault lies with Zhu Yuanzhang, a monk’s son born in Anhui, who trusted the slanderous advice of a yin-yang master. The master had traced a dragon vein from the Kunlun Mountains, across the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, all the way to Wuzhai Sizhen. He claimed that the imposing Nanhua Mountain standing in the southern suburbs and the jagged peak connected to it, which plunges directly into the Tuo River, were the dragon’s head he had been searching for. From this, he deduced that one day someone from this place would rise to challenge the Central Plains and that a true Son of Heaven would emerge. How could Emperor Zhu tolerate the notion that remote Fenghuang might produce a potential rival? With a stroke of his red brush, the dragon’s neck was cut, Fenghuang’s feng shui was catastrophically damaged, and no emperors would ever rise from Fenghuang again.