The Qimu Watchtower is located in the south of Songshan Mountain in Dengfeng County, Henan Province. It is at the foot of His Majesty’s Summit of Songshan Mountain, 2 km away from the county town.
The Qimu Watchtower is the Shendao Watchtower of the Qimu Temple. The Qimu Watchtower, together with the Taishi Watchtower and the Shaoshi Watchtower are collectively called Three Watchtowers of the Han Dynasty on the Central Sacred Mountain. About 190 meters northward of the Qimu Watchtower there is a broken big stone called Qimu Stone. According to documents recorded in Huan Nan Zi written by Liu An, Dayu (the Great Yu) was sent to control the inundated flood in ancient times. He passed his home three times, but he did not visit his family. His wife waited and waited and gradually became a big stone. This stone faced north and cracked. When Emperor Wudi of the Western Han Dynasty visited Songshan Mountain, he saw this stone and then constructed the Qimu Temple. In the 2nd year (123) of the Yanguang reign of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220), Zhu Chong, an official of Yingchuan, established the Shendao Watchtower, which is also called Qimu Watchtower, in the front of the Qimu Temple. In the Han Dynasty, in order to avoid the taboo word that was pronounced qi as that in the name of Emperor Hanjing Liuqi, the Qimu Temple was for a time changed its name into the Kaimu Temple and the Kaimu Lake.
Among the Three Watchtowers of the Han Dynasty on the Central Sacred Mountain, the Qimu Temple was destructed the most seriously. Today the west watchtower is 3.17 meters high and the east watchtower 3.18 meters high. The distance between the two watchtowers is 6.8 meters. The main structure is the same as that of the Taishi Watchtower.
The roof of the watchtower is partly gone. The watchtower body is built by piling up rectangular stones. On the stones there are lengthy inscriptions in Xiaozhuan (lesser seal script). These inscriptions record the story about how the Great Yu and his father tamed floods. The powerful and elegant characters are regarded as fine works of the Han Dynasty calligraphy and are always valued by both national and international scholars who study epigraphy. The bottom of the watchtower is carved with Pray For Rain, written by Xi Dian, a senior scholar in the fourth year (175) of the Jiaping reign in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The character of this piece of writing is in Lishu (official script), but most of it has already stripped off. On all around the watchtower body there are more than sixty drawings, including feasting, outing in carriages, hundreds of plays, elephant training, cockfight, rabbit hunting, tiger chasing deer and so on.
(Source: chinaculture.org)
