In 1436, Prince Zhu Zhanshan fled the damp heat of Changsha to establish his court in the dry, strategic stronghold of Xiangyang. By 1440, stonemasons completed his palace's grandest statement: a monumental screen wall built of deep green siltstone and bordered with cold white marble. This 926-ton structure stands as China's largest surviving stone-carved dragon wall, a masterpiece of mortise-and-tenon masonry that mimics timber under a heavy hip-and-gable roof.

The wall is a physical record of survival. In 1641, the rebel leader Zhang Xianzhong stormed the city and executed the reigning prince. The following year, another rebel, Li Zicheng, established his short-lived Da Shun regime inside the mansion. When Li's army retreated in 1643, they set fire to the palace. The wooden halls burned to ash. This stone screen survived the fire, its green surface blackened by soot.

Ninety-nine dragons populate the stone. The central panel features two massive, five-meter-long beasts carved in high relief, their bodies twisting through stone waves and clouds toward a central jade fire-pearl. Smaller dragons, some measuring a few inches long, populate the white marble borders. Local folklore speaks of a clever woodcutter who used thick smoke from burning firewood to blind the stone dragons, allowing him to steal the central pearl and leaving the empty socket visible today.

Over the centuries, the massive weight of the wall caused it to sink and tilt southward. In 1992, engineers stabilized the structure, correcting its lean and integrating it into the rebuilt palace grounds. Visitors can still touch the cool, moss-colored siltstone and trace the deep chisel marks left by fifteenth-century carvers. The wall remains a quiet witness to the rise and fall of dynasties, its stone dragons frozen in an eternal chase.