Leifeng pagoda

In 977, in order to celebrate the birth of a son from his favourite concubine Huangfei, the king of Wuyue, Qian Hongchu ordered to erect a five stores octagonal pagoda at the shores southeast of the lake. However, the pagoda collapsed due to the tradition of taking “lucky” or “magic” bricks from the lower parts of a construction, which weakened the whole pagoda. Today only ruins of this once five-store high and filled with inside balconies, landings and balustrades remains. In autumn 2002 a completely new pagoda was build on the top of the original one. The old pagoda is still to be seen from the bottom floor of the new one.
In the debris of the fallen pagoda Buddhist scriptures was found telling that the pagoda was constructed by the king of Wuyue and that 84 000 volumes of Buddhist scriptures had been stored here.
This pagoda is of course one of the “Ten Scenes of the West”, and viewed at sunset from a distance across the lake looks magnificent – not without a reason the pagoda has through times been known as the Huangfei Pagoda in Evening Glow (another name is also The Brick Pagoda of West Gate).