Yueyang Tower (岳阳楼) stands on the wall of the west gate of Yueyang's ancient city, looking across Dongting Lake toward Junshan Island. A tower is recorded here from the third century, when the Wu general Lu Su is said to have reviewed his navy from one; the present structure, rebuilt in 1880 and restored to its old form in the great 1970-1984 repair, is an all-wood pavilion of three tiers of eaves, 19.42 metres high, crowned with a yellow-glazed helmet roof, the largest of its kind in China. It counts as one of the Three Great Towers of Jiangnan and is the only one of the three still in its original form, protected as a national key cultural site since 1988. What made it famous far beyond Hunan is a 360-character essay written for it in 1046; the carved wooden screen of that text fills the second floor.
Yueyang Tower is a wooden pavilion on an old city wall, but its real monument is the 360-character essay written for it in 1046. Here is the building, the essay that made it famous, and the fires and rebuildings it survived.