---
tags:
- Essay
- 成都
date: 2026-06-22
excerpt: I toured Wangjiang Pavilion on June 12, but the write-up dragged; weeks later I scraped together what details I could recall and set them down for later.
title: "Wangjiang Pavilion, Remembered"
updated: 2026-07-11 21:36:08
lang: en
i18n:
cn: /wangjiang_lou
translation: 2
---
## On the Way to Wangjiang Pavilion
After getting up today, I planned to head for Wangjiang Pavilion, which stands right on the bank of the Jinjiang River. The Jinjiang's story starts at Dujiangyan: the Min River, passing through Dujiangyan, is split into an inner and an outer channel. The outer channel is the Min's main course; the inner channel is a man-made canal system that branches off into the Baitiao and Zouma rivers and the like, then gathers into the Fu and Nan rivers, and finally forms the Jinjiang.
I took the subway to Sanguantang Station[^1], and stepping out, I was right at the intersection of Sanguantang Street and Shiniuyan Road. The Jinjiang was close at hand, its banks packed with egrets — a rough count put them near a hundred, a flock on a scale I had never seen before, quite a spectacular sight; night herons, by contrast, were only a scattered few.
The name "Sanguantang"[^2] comes from a Daoist temple built here in the Qing dynasty. Folk belief holds that "the Heavenly Official bestows blessings, the Earthly Official pardons sins, and the Water Official dispels misfortune." Floods were frequent here back then, so the locals built the Sanguan Hall to pray for blessings and quell the waters. In time, lanes formed in front of the temple gate, and the whole street came to be called "Sanguantang Street."
"Shiniuyan Road," which neighbors Sanguantang Street, likewise takes its name from an old waterworks on the Jinjiang. Here stood a fish-mouth levee, modeled on Dujiangyan, that drew river water to irrigate the farmland of the eastern suburbs. In the Southern Song, Lu You's *Records of a Journey into Shu* called it "Xiwa Weir," an important diversion works in Chengdu's eastern outskirts. When it was rebuilt in the Ming, following the tradition of using stone rhinoceroses to quell the waters[^3], several red-sandstone oxen were set along the weir and banks as water-suppressing yasheng (厌胜) charms, praying to calm the floods and protect the fields — and so the name "Shiniuyan" (Stone-Ox Weir) came down to us.
Reaching the intersection, I passed a nameless stone bridge; on the water beneath it perched quite a few egrets, perhaps cooling off, and now and then a few would beat their wings and rise, skimming low over the river to trace a clean white arc.
Once across the stone bridge, I came onto Hebin Road. As its name suggests, the road runs along the Jinjiang; a footpath had been carved out among the green belt beside it, and following the river gently westward, before long I caught sight of the New Jiuyan Bridge.
The New Jiuyan (Nine-Eye) Bridge is a nine-arch stone bridge; its nine semicircular arches are evenly proportioned and symmetrical, like a drawn bow lying across the emerald Jinjiang. The bridge body is built of large blue-gray ashlar blocks, and beneath the arches on either side run riverside walkways for pedestrians to pass through.
On the cutwater at the front of each pier crouches a stone baxia (蚣蝮)[^4], each in a different pose, some accompanied by small auspicious beasts. Egrets often alight here, and over the years the droppings have piled up considerably.
The deck carries motor traffic; on both sides are carved white-marble balustrades with square newel posts, whose caps are mostly of three kinds: stone lions, peach shapes, and treasure pearls. The lions stand on lotus pedestals, exquisitely and neatly made, with fur and facial features finely carved.
## Wangjiang Pavilion Park
Crossing the river to Wangjiang Road on the far side, I then entered the south gate of Wangjiang Pavilion Park. At the gate a mother and child were taking photos, and once inside there were two more girls photographing, looking like university students.
Stout, towering bamboo met my eyes; up close, they were all carved over with visitors' names.
I gave a stretch of the path a cursory, passing look. There were few people about, and after a while I stepped into a pavilion and sat down to read and rest. What I was reading was *You Meng Ying* (幽梦影), recommended by someone; its published form is rather unusual, with the commentary printed alongside the original text, a bit like a WeChat Moments thread.
Beside me was only a middle-aged man, likewise resting. I took off my shoes and socks, leaned against a pavilion column to rest, and gave my phone a bit of a charge. The bamboo grove teemed with birds, so I opened a recorder and taped a stretch of it.
After a long while, a young man and woman arrived; the woman wore hanfu, the man handling the photography, and they shot for about ten minutes. I had rested enough too, and went on with my visit.
The park is practically a bamboo museum, with all sorts of bamboo introduced from Yunnan and Southeast Asia, in every thickness and height.
At first it was still a quiet place — today wasn't a weekend, after all — but later, group after group of middle-school students arrived on spring outings, running through the bamboo and across the stone bridges, adding some life and noise to the grounds.
## Cultural Relics Area
After wandering the park for a good while, at a red wall I ran into two old women asking for directions. They had asked someone earlier who hadn't made it clear, so they came to ask me. They were looking for the Xue Tao historic-architecture complex, but I couldn't find it on Amap either — probably not entered in the system. On second thought, one of the women said searching for the Xue Tao statue would do too; I looked it up, found it was to the north, and pointed the way for them.
After that we parted. I walked toward the riverside to the south, found a lounge chair to rest a while and look at the Jinjiang, then headed north as well, only to learn that the Xue Tao Memorial Hall was walled off and charged admission — the old women had mentioned it while asking directions. Earlier, peering through the lattice windows in the red wall, I had guessed there was probably still an unexplored area on the other side; it turned out to be walled off, no wonder I couldn't find my way around into it.
Before buying a ticket, I first browsed the culture-and-creative shop next door and took a liking to a panda pen holder. One saleswoman was especially considerate: before I paid, she asked whether I'd like to open it and check first, since the pen holder came in several styles and she worried I'd get the wrong one. So I went back to the shelf, pointed out the style I wanted, and she warmly went to the storeroom to find the matching one for me — 38 yuan. Only then did I buy the 10-yuan discounted ticket and go in.
### Path Between Red Walls
Security check, through the turnstile.
Once inside, there were a scattered few people posing for check-in photos. A woman of about thirty looked like she was finishing up and about to leave; she asked me to take her picture, and she was a particular sort — she told me specifically how to compose the shot and which things to get in frame.
Passing through this little path, I saw a pavilion set atop a rockery; looking around, there were also a few mock-antique buildings and bamboo — though as for the details, I can no longer recall them clearly.
Not far from the pavilion was a pool where water lilies bloomed in red and yellow, but clinging to the pool's edge above the water were clusters of pink eggs, laid by the invasive golden apple snail — enough to drain your sanity. By the pool also stood a thousand-year-old ginkgo, propped up with poles, probably to keep it from toppling.
### Yinshi Pavilion
The ground floor of Yinshi Pavilion displays some relics. There are no stairs up to the second floor; you have to go up via the rockery beside it.
The scenery here is good, so there were three or four newlywed couples shooting wedding photos, one couple in Chinese-style dress. They'd strike a pose and hold it, making it genuinely hard for others to walk past; watching until they'd got a shot, I'd hurry around them from the side.
---
Up on the second floor, the whole level was just me and one other person; by the time I left, after lingering a good while, only two more had come. There was a friendly notice, reading:
> Popular photo spot — snap and go.
> Please don't linger!
> For assistance, call: 028-85223389
This place must have once been packed with people.
---
In the open gallery on the second floor, I truly grasped the ingenuity of the framed view in western Sichuan gardens. The entire bay has neither wall nor window sash; under the eaves runs a fret-pattern valance as a cornice ornament, and along the gallery edge a beauty's-rest railing (美人靠) encloses it — exactly like a natural picture frame. Beyond the frame, dozens of stalks of green bamboo layer into waves of deep and pale jade, and when the wind stirs the leaves, a sense of seclusion arises of its own accord.
### Chongli Pavilion
> Both splendid and lofty — truly it is named Chengdu.
>
> Zuo Si · *Rhapsody on the Shu Capital*
Chongli Pavilion, also called Wangjiang Pavilion, is the tallest structure in the park — nearly forty meters, in four stories. The name "Chongli" is drawn from the Jin-dynasty writer Zuo Si's *Rhapsody on the Shu Capital*. Its construction traces back to a fengshui pagoda that no longer exists, with an anecdote about Zhang Xianzhong folded in between.
In the late Ming, Zhang Xianzhong seized Chengdu, declared himself emperor, and founded the Great Xi. He came to believe an omen-prophecy: "The bridge is a bow, the pagoda an arrow; the drawn bow shoots into the Hall of Receiving Heaven." The bow in the prophecy was the Hongji Bridge on the Jinjiang — the old Jiuyan Bridge — which, like the New Jiuyan Bridge earlier, takes the shape of a drawn bow; the arrow was the Huilan Pagoda on the bridge's south side. The Huilan Pagoda was a fengshui pagoda built under the direction of Yu Yilong, the Sichuan Provincial Administration Commissioner, during the Ming Wanli era, meant to quell the waters and bolster the terrain's fortune. Uneasy, Zhang Xianzhong ordered the pagoda torn down and had the salvaged bricks built into a commander's platform on the same site; it's said that during the demolition a stele was unearthed, signed by Zhuge Liang, bearing a prophecy in seal script[^5].
> In the early Guangxu years, the county man Ma Changqing, finding the Huilan Pagoda fallen to ruin and the county's examination successes in decline, proposed building the Chongli Pavilion beside the well.
>
> *Huayang County Gazetteer*
After the Huilan Pagoda fell to ruin, Chengdu's "examination successes declined" and its literary fortunes waned. In the early Guangxu years, the gentryman Ma Changqing proposed building the Chongli Pavilion beside the Xue Tao Well, to "press down the river's flow and shore up the earth's veins," carrying on the fengshui intent of the Huilan Pagoda. This is also why Wenchang Dijun is enshrined upstairs. As the story goes, not long after the Chongli Pavilion was completed, Luo Chengxiang of Zizhou took first place in the imperial examination, and the pavilion's fengshui reputation spread far across Chengdu.
---
The floor enshrining Wenchang Dijun is open to visitors, but the level above was under repair and closed off, leaving this trip a small regret. Then again, that's no bad thing — it gives me one more reason to visit Chengdu again. Chongli Pavilion has an upper couplet:
> Wangjiang Pavilion, gazing at the river's flow; atop Wangjiang Pavilion, gaze at the river's flow. The river flows through the ages; the pavilion stands through the ages.
The lower couplet's plaque is blank. I walked over to try to see the back — to check whether it had been hung backwards — and found it was nailed in place; an old man beside me said it's because no one has ever been able to match it.
### Xue Tao Statue and Xue Tao's Tomb
After visiting those pavilions, I continued north along the Xingmei (Apricot-Plum) Corridor.
Bamboo still covered the whole slope. What left the deepest impression were the two statues of Xue Tao, along with the poet's tomb and a memorial hall recording her life.
The bamboo grove beside Xue Tao's tomb had especially heavy bird droppings — probably hard to clean by now, too.
## Leaving
Coming out of the memorial hall, I strolled slowly along the surrounding paths. Along the way there was a dedicated running track, with good greenery on both sides; the agapanthus in the picture, for one, is quite elegant, and just nearby is Sichuan University's Wangjiang campus.
The drink I'd brought along was finished, so I ordered ahead through a group-buy deal — an iced lychee milk from ChaPanda. From the park to the shop was about 1.5 kilometers; the first half ran along the riverbank, and by the Jinjiang I also passed the site of an old wharf. On the way I came across a bird and nearly stepped right on it. I reached my hand out toward it, and it didn't dodge in the slightest; thinking it was about done for, I gently touched it twice, and it let out a thin cry. A reverse image search suggested it was probably a fledgling.
That walk was no short distance, and by the time I reached the shop to redeem the order I was a bit tired. The clerk couldn't find my pickup number; after some fuss they said it was a system glitch, without looking too closely into why. So I just went next door to Daomadan first and spent 16 yuan on a bowl of beef noodles in plain chili, and after eating doubled back to ChaPanda to reorder — a matcha vanilla and a large Tieguanyin milk jelly.
Afterward I walked to another Jiuyan Bridge, where, as ever, quite a few egrets perched by the water. Standing on the bank, I finished a video by the YouTuber Li Tianhao on the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms; my two drinks were about gone too, so I headed for the subway station to go back to school.
Back on campus, Teaching Building No. 2 had already hung up its CET-4 and CET-6 banners — the exam was tomorrow, and I was suddenly struck by how fast time flies. Perhaps it was pre-exam control: the network seemed blocked, and the Wi-Fi wouldn't work either.
[^1]: Chengdu subway station names often hide historical stories. [@Ronggui](https://xhslink.com/m/24gBrWgLFHN) has published many posts on Xiaohongshu sharing the stories behind the names, Sanguantang among them.
[^2]: The Sanguan Hall was demolished after Liberation; its former site lies roughly in the area of today's Tin Ka Ping Middle School.
[^3]: The *Chronicles of the Kings of Shu* records that Li Bing made five stone rhinoceroses to quell the waters: two placed at the prefectural office, one under the Shiqiao bridge, and two sunk in the river. To date only one large stone rhinoceros has been excavated, kept at the Chengdu Museum; the other four have yet to be found.
Du Fu's *Song of the Stone Rhinoceros* — "Have you not seen the Shu governor of Qin times, who carved stone to set up three rhino-oxen" — describes exactly these water-quelling stone rhinoceroses that once lined Chengdu's riverbanks.
[^4]: The baxia is one of the nine sons of the dragon in ancient Chinese mythology, a water-quelling divine beast: its head resembles a dragon's but is flattened, with horns on top and its body clad in dragon scales, and it loves water — also known as the water-averting beast. Its image appears often at the drainage spouts of bridges and palace buildings, such as the stone components at the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven, serving to quell water and ward off disaster; the array of baxia along the terrace balustrades of the Forbidden City can create the wonder of "a thousand dragons spouting water."
[^5]: Sources disagree on the Huilan Pagoda's number of stories — some say ten, others about seven, with a Huilan Temple later built beside it. The seal-script prophecy on the stele is traditionally given as: "Yu Yilong built the pagoda; Zhang Xianzhong tore it down. In the years of jia, yi, and bing, this land will run red with blood. The demon fortune ends in northern Sichuan, the poison spreads through eastern Sichuan. To play the flute one needs no bamboo; a single arrow pierces the chest. Recorded by Zhuge Kongming in the first year of Yanxing." See [Huilan Pagoda (ancient pagoda in Chengdu, Sichuan) — Baidu Baike](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%9B%9E%E6%BE%9C%E5%A1%94/15976174). According to Jiang Lan's "From Huilan Pagoda to Wangjiang Pavilion," in 2013 the Wuhou Shrine unearthed, beside the base of the Hall of Liu Bei, a batch of Ming-dynasty gray bricks inscribed with "Wanli year twenty," "year twenty, Huilan Pagoda," and the like; experts surmise these were bricks left over from Zhang Xianzhong's demolition of the pagoda, reused to make up a shortfall when the Wuhou Shrine was built in the early Qing.