Bianjing Tower 边靖楼

About Bianjing Tower

Bianjing Tower (边靖楼) is the Ming-dynasty drum tower that stands on the central crossroads of the county town of Daixian (代县), Xinzhou (忻州), Shanxi, where locals simply call it the Drum Tower.

The tower was once the highest point of the walled city of Daizhou (代州). From it the view runs north toward Yanmen (雁门) and south over the Hutuo River (滹沱河), and it served as the command centre for the defence of the Three Passes; its nickname is 'First Tower of the Great Wall' (万里长城第一楼). A China Daily report, republished by the Shanxi Cultural Heritage Bureau, calls it China's largest wooden drum tower and says it stands 15 metres higher than the Jingbian Tower (靖边楼) at Shanhaiguan (山海关) and 17 metres higher than the gate tower of Jiayuguan (嘉峪关).

Lu Heng (陆亨), Marquis of Ji'an, first put up the tower in 1374 under the name Jingbian Lou (靖边楼); it was then only about 10 metres tall. After a fire in 1471 the officials Liu Chong (刘宠) and Cai Lin (蔡麟) raised the platform and rebuilt it under its present name, finishing in 1476, and it was overhauled repeatedly under the Qing. Shanxi listed it as a provincial protected site in 1954, and the State Council added it to the fifth batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level on 25 June 2001. From October 1998 the tower was taken down and reassembled piece by piece under Yang Guiting (杨贵庭), a carpenter of the Yang family builders (杨家匠). Yang told China Daily he led fifty to sixty workers for three full years. A bent and cracked main beam on the third floor was repaired rather than replaced, taken down and fitted with a steel core.

The whole structure reaches 40 metres. A platform 13 metres high, 43.3 metres east to west and 33.3 metres deep is pierced north to south by a stone-arched passage 9 metres high, and a 25.09-metre ramp climbs it on the northeast side; the stairs up the tower are steep and narrow. Above it rises the three-storey timber tower, 26.7 metres tall, seven bays wide and five deep, with galleries all round, four tiers of eaves under a hip-and-gable roof and seven kinds of bracket sets. Three giant plaques hang on it: 'Weizhen Sanguan' (威震三关, awe over the three passes) on the north face and 'Shengwen Sida' (声闻四达, heard in all four directions) on the south, both from 1733, and 'Yanmen Diyi Lou' (雁门第一楼, first tower of Yanmen) under the top south eave, from 1847. The three passes are Yanmen Pass, Ningwu Pass (宁武关) and Piantou Pass (偏头关). Beside the tower stands a Tang-dynasty dharani pillar (经幢).

What to look for

• The arched passage through the 13-metre platform and the six supporting posts inside it
• The 25.09-metre ramp on the northeast side of the platform
• The three-storey timber tower with four tiers of eaves and seven kinds of bracket sets
• The 'Weizhen Sanguan' (威震三关) plaque of 1733 on the north face
• The 'Shengwen Sida' (声闻四达) and 'Yanmen Diyi Lou' (雁门第一楼) plaques on the south face
• The Tang-dynasty dharani pillar (经幢) beside the tower

Location & getting there

Getting to Bianjing Tower

• Search for 边靖楼 with 忻州市 and 代县.