The Yueyang Tower or Watchtower is as famous as the Yellow Crane Tower and the Pavilion of Prince Teng in the southern Yangtze Riverside, China. The three ancient famous buildings are not only brilliant in architecture but also in culture. All the Chinese people are very familiar with the watchtower across the West Gate of Yueyang City, Hunan Province. It was initially built in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), and later repaired or rebuilt by a far-sighted nobleman Teng Zijing in the Sung Dynasty (960-1279). The whole building except its basic rampart was made out of wood without any metal nail. The 3-storeyed main tower is 19.72 meters in height. The roofing covered with the apple-pie-order tiles with yellow-colored glaze glittering under the sunshine. Every roofing corner with a system of beautifully carved and painted wood brackets supporting the cocktail-like roof-ridge seemingly flying from the eave.

There are 12 blocks of precious sandalwood on which Fan Zhongyan's 370-word-long lyric of writing had been carved over one-thousand years before and duplicated again in order to change some blocks of rotten wood in the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911). Most people believe that the Yueyang Watchtower has been noted for Fan Zhongyan's contribution in writing such an eternally great works.

Fan Zhongyan was born in Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province, China, in 989. His family was poor but he studied hard. He won a successful candidate in the highest imperial examination at age of 26. And also he was a military genius appointed as a secondary commander of Shaanxi frontier region in 1043. He had had great contributions to strengthening army force in reform of military management. Therefore, he was promoted to be vice chancellor (equal to the same level of vice Prime Minister) by Emperor Zhao Zhen (Sung Renzong) in 1043. At that time he used to be frank to offer some important political and economic suggestions to the emperor. He advocated improving the system for selecting official candidates in a scientific way, and developing silkworm products in agriculture, carrying out legal management and decreasing the farmers' taxes. However, all the conservative officials were against him, so all of his good ideas could not come true. On the contrary, he was suffered from being deposed from his current post. He was degraded and retained to be a magistrate or prefecture from one county to another. Finally, he was ordered to take up his local official post at Yingzhou, Anhui Province. He died on his way before arriving at the town in 1052.