Meritorious tower

Meritorious tower

Gongchen tower, located at the top of Gongchen mountain in Jincheng Town, Lin'an City, Zhejiang Province, is named after the mountain. The specific location is one kilometer near Lin'an bus station. It was first built in the first year of Liang Zhenming (915) after the Five Dynasties and was repaired in 1982.

Layout structure

Gongchen tower is located at the top of Gongchen mountain, one kilometer southeast of Lin'an Town, with an altitude of 157.7 meters.

In the east there is the tomb of Qianqian, in the north there is Shijingshan, and in the south there is the site of Qianqian's former residence. The pagoda, named after the mountain, was first built in the first year of Liang Zhenming (915) after the Five Dynasties and rebuilt in 1982.

Gongchen tower is a brick imitation wooden pavilion, with a square plane and a height of 25.3 meters. It is composed of a base, a tower body and a tower brake. The base is built directly on the rock, with a side length of 5.36 meters and a height of 0.44 meters. The original underground palace in the center is carved with stone, 70 cm long, 50 cm wide and 108 cm deep. It was stolen in the early years. The tower has five floors and is 22.06 meters high. In the middle of each floor, there is a door opening, with the corner leaning against column, column, floor, waist string, appendix and forehead hidden. The eaves are stacked on each floor, and flat seats are set on the second and third floors. The wall of the tower is 126cm thick (bottom layer), and niches and eight caissons are set on both sides of the first to fourth floor gateways. There are four slopes on the top of the tower, with a cast iron tower brake, 2.62 meters high. The log brake rod, 5.6 meters long, is supported by the upper and lower cross beams, and the beam end is inserted into the inner wall corner. The current situation inside the tower is straight from top to bottom. When the tower was repaired in 1982, mortise holes were found inside and outside the tower, and there were burned wood structural remains, which indicates the original practice of wood structure inside and outside the tower.

Excavation period

In 2009, Wang Hong, the mayor of Lin'an City, took other people to dig the treasure under the hero tower.

The origin of history

Qian, the king of Wu and Yue in the Five Dynasties, believed in Buddhism and Daxing pagodas.

Zhu YIZUN said in the collection of exposed Book pavilions: "the construction of temples and pagodas, Wu Yue Wu Su times the nine kingdoms." The Gongchen pagoda, built on the Gongchen mountain in Lin'an, Qian Liu's hometown, is the earliest existing Wuyue pagoda. Gongchen mountain, formerly known as Daguan mountain, is a place where Qian liu'er often plays. After Qian Liu made his fortune, Emperor Zhaozong of Tang Dynasty became an official of Jin Jue. He was rewarded with a lot of rewards, and issued an imperial edict to change Daguan mountain into Gongchen mountain.

After the Five Dynasties, in 915, qianliushe Gongchen hall built Gongchen temple. The tower of meritorious officials should also be built at this time. The tower is a brick cylinder structure with a square plane. It is divided into five layers, with a height of 25.12 meters. The facade is divided layer by layer from bottom to top. There is no tower core column, and the outline is gentle. The columns of each layer of the brick tower body are also made of bricks. The square columns attached to the protruding half of the wall are called leaning columns, the flat columns are shuttle shaped, and the columns beside the four side door openings are called pillar.

Related allusions

The door opening of the tower is generally called the pot door. The meaning of "pot" was originally the alley in the palace, which extended to the meaning of noble people coming in and out.

The pagoda is the place for Buddha, and the entrance and exit of Buddha is of course very noble, so it is called the pot gate. The fourth passage was built with caisson, which was quite popular in Song Dynasty. The eaves and seats of the pagoda are made of flat bricks, and the eaves are shallow. The buttressed arches of the eaves and the base are all made of brick. The jumping members should be made of wood, which has been destroyed, but there are remnants of holes. Each layer of the flat column is paved with a column head, and the bottom layer is paved with a patch. The buttress arch is made of heavy arch. Judging from the remains of the remnant cave, it is five paved. In order to strengthen the integrity of the tower, many wooden bars are placed in the wall of the tower, which is widely used in the construction of brick towers.

Great significance

On the top of the tower are covered bowls, precious bottles and brake rods made of pig iron. Judging from the architectural traces left behind, Gongchen tower is the earliest example of the existing brick tower with overlapping brick eaves to the brick wood mixed structure, and the use of wooden tower eaves and flat seats.

It inherits the style of Tang tower and has innovation and development. It can be said to be a link between the past and the future, and its development context is quite clear in this tower.

Address: 1 km southeast of Lin'an Town, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province

Longitude: 119.73677234442

Latitude: 30.227256118982

Tel: 0571-63631745

Ticket information: 10 yuan

Opening hours: 7:00 to 17:00

Chinese PinYin : Gong Chen Ta