During the period of Tuoba Tao, the Taizu of the Northern Wei Dynasty, Tao Ping County was changed to Pingyao County to avoid his anonymity. Since then, Pingyao City, as the seat of county administration, has never changed after the Tang, Five Dynasties, Northern Song, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties.
In the mid-Ming Dynasty, Pingyao business began to flourish, initially forming a commercial street scale with many shops along the street.
Most of the shops are quadrangles or multi-courtyard buildings, with the front shop and the back bedroom. The pavement is mostly double-slope hard top and blue brick. Wooden doors are decorated with oil paintings, and the old-fashioned plaques, palace lanterns and Shang Sapporo of the shop are hung high. Spacious decoration, exquisite carving, rigorous layout and orderly hierarchy.
1688, Emperor Kangxi reorganized the urban buildings located in the center of this commercial street. After the transformation, the towers stand tall, dominating the whole city. Because there is a well at the southeast foot of the tower, it is said that "the water in the well is as gold as gold", so the tower is also called Jinjinglou.
Earlier, the tower played the role of managing the whole market and was the center and commanding height of Pingyao.
The tower is a pavilion with three eaves and wooden frames, with a height of 18.5 meters. The wooden structure is a distinctive routine. The ground floor is 3 rooms wide and 3 rooms deep, with an area of about 133 square meters. The plane is square, the north-south direction is a passage, and masonry abutments are built on the east and west sides to connect houses.
There is a ticket gate on the east and west sides, which is connected by a flat beam and put a bucket on it. The bucket on the flat seat is five-step, and two buckets are flat. Gladiators are attached to the corners, and the box is made of mandarin ducks.
On the second floor of the tower, there is a veranda decorated with front and rear doors, a building and a shrine. Guan Sheng in the south, Guanyin in the north and Kuixing in the north. There are many paintings hanging on the walls on both sides, telling stories related to Guan Yu.
The ceiling is installed on the roof of the tower, stepping on the eaves seven times, and the fitness department saves three times, all of which are venting. The roof is paved with yellow-green glazed tiles, and the pattern is "Xi" in the south and "Shou" in the north. Both ends and center of the back beam are replaced by iron components, which is extremely beautiful. The gate tower is a decorative building. There are 1 1 Qing Dynasty stone tablets in the downstairs and an iron clock in the upstairs.
Towering in the center of the ancient city, the tower echoes the tall buildings in the east of the city, such as Qingxuguan and Dacheng Hall, and corresponds to the flat roof of the big gray house in the city, which together form the graceful outline of the ancient city.
Cross the brick layer from the east and south, and the middle layer forms a circle along the flat corridor. You can lean against the railing and overlook the scenery of the whole city, and the roofs of garages and shops have a panoramic view, which makes people feel open-minded and poetic, as Zhao Gande, a poet in the Qing Dynasty, said:
It is surrounded by mountains in the southeast and bright in the northwest, looking up at the changing clouds and overlooking the prosperity of the city.