Five Names, Several Shrines

A 2010 Hainan Daily account begins at the gate, then follows a stone path downhill for roughly two hundred metres. Along the way, the visitor encounters a gateway, Su Gong Shrine, the paired Fubo shrines, Qiongyuan garden and the main tower. This sequence is important because the complex is not a single hall with one story. Its separate buildings and garden spaces hold different memories, and the route links them without collapsing them into one identity. The account’s measured description gives an editorial structure: move through the site as a visitor would, and let each threshold introduce its own subject.

The Five Lords group named in the report comprises Li Deyu, Li Gang, Li Guang, Zhao Ding and Hu Quan, officials of the Tang and Song periods sent into exile in the south. Their stone figures stand around the building known as Hainan First Tower, whose lower plaque gives the temple its name. The memorial’s meaning lies in the shared fact of banishment and in the later act of remembering. The five shared exile, but their lives and political histories were distinct; the temple gathers their names without making them one biography.

The route includes Su Gong Shrine, associated with Su Shi, but the Five Lords are a separate group. Hai Rui is also a distinct Haikou heritage figure, named alongside the temple in the province’s city profile; he is not one of the five officials listed by the newspaper report. This distinction prevents a common editorial shortcut: treating every celebrated or exiled historical figure at a nearby site as part of one memorial. The buildings can be discussed together as a visitor complex while their identities remain clear. Place names and plaques are not decorative details; they are evidence about whom a site remembers.

The newspaper reporter describes climbing to the upper floor of Hainan First Tower and seeing the Meishe River flow nearby, with the city museum across the water. This view joins built heritage to the surrounding landscape without making the river the cause of the temple or the city. A visitor can read the complex outward: from stone path to garden, from tower to river, then across to a civic museum. The account dates to 2010, so it is best used as a record of the route and view at that time. The setting offers a grounded ending to the walk through the memorial.