In January 1273, a single stone projectile launched by a Mongol counterweight trebuchet shattered the wooden watchtower of Xiangyang. The impact shook the earth, breaking the resolve of the defending general, Lu Wenhuan, who surrendered the city shortly after. This catastrophic event ended a six-year siege and altered the course of Chinese history.

The reconstructed Xiangyang Qiaolou stands on South Street in the Xiangcheng District of Hubei Province. Visitors meet a massive masonry platform measuring 40 meters long, 16 meters wide, and 5.4 meters high. Atop this brick-and-stone base sits a double-eaved, two-story timber superstructure. It rises 9.6 meters, spanning five bays wide and three bays deep under a hard gable roof.

The structure carries layers of human memory. In the dark passage of the archways, ten stone epitaphs belonging to the family of Wu Zetian’s chancellor, Zhang Jianzhi, are embedded directly into the walls. During the Ming Dynasty, Prefect He Yuan raised this elevated platform. Decades later, during the Jiajing era, officials installed a bronze water clock inside, giving the building its second name, Dilou Tai. The steady, rhythmic drip of water regulated the daily lives of citizens, transforming a military outpost into the city's official timekeeper.

War destroyed the Ming tower. In 1727, Qing Dynasty builders reconstructed it on the original site. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the sound of military alarms gave way to the voices of children when the tower served as a primary school. After 1949, it housed the Xiangyang Museum, protecting ancient artifacts within its thick walls.

Now protected as a provincial cultural relic, the tower remains a quiet sentinel. Visitors can touch the cold stone of the ancient epitaphs, listen to the imagined drip of the bronze clepsydra.