Jingzhou Wanshou Pagoda

To stand at the foot of the Wanshou Pagoda is to look down into the earth to see the sky. This forty-meter-tall octagonal brick tower sits seven meters below the modern surface of the Jingjiang Dike, swallowed by the rising bed of the Yangtze River.

In 1548, Grand Concubine Mao directed her son, Zhu Xianjie, the seventh Prince of Liao, to build this monument. They sought to secure long life for the Jiajing Emperor and to tame the destructive floods of the river. For four years, stonemasons chiseled white marble into eight muscular soldiers to support the Sumeru pedestal, while devotees from sixteen prefectures across eight provinces baked clay bricks. These patrons stamped their names and donations into 2,347 square bricks, writing in Chinese, Manchu, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Uighur scripts.

Inside, the air turns cool and damp, insulated by the surrounding earth. Visitors descend a stone staircase to reach the original entrance, where an eight-meter-tall statue of the Receiving Buddha stands in the shadows. From there, a spiral stone staircase winds upward through the hollow core. On the fourth floor, a weathered stone tablet preserves the prince’s original dedication. Outside, eighty-seven marble Buddhas sit in niches, watching the water. In 1825, Qing dynasty workers bound the swelling exterior walls with heavy iron bands to prevent collapse.

The river kept rising. In 1952, engineers raised the dike to protect the Jianghan Plain, burying the pagoda's first level under meters of soil.At its peak, a gold-plated bronze finial, inscribed with the complete text of the Diamond Sutra, catches the river wind. Nearby, the ancient Southern Song dynasty rock jetty of Guanyinji and the 1999 Flood Control Monument stand alongside it. The sunken pagoda remains a silent sentinel, anchored in the mud, measuring five centuries of struggle against the water.