Northwest Five Provinces (regions) Golden Autumn Self-driving Tour (Eight): Ascending Yinchuan Drum Tower

On the morning of October 2, 2023, we wandered around Yanchi County for more than an hour, but couldn't find a place to have breakfast. So we had to eat the mooncakes and instant noodles we brought with us in the hotel. We set off from Yanchi at 9 am, heading for Yinchuan. The distance from Yanchi County to Yinchuan city is less than 150 kilometers, and the navigation shows it only takes an hour and a half. Thus, we continued to head west along the Qingyin Expressway, with the ancient Great Wall accompanying us all the way until we reached Yinchuan. At 10:45 am, we arrived at the entrance of the parking lot on North Drum Tower Street. The parking lot was full, so we had to park on the side of the road. My brother-in-law said he would watch the car and let us go sightseeing. The Yinchuan Drum Tower is a landmark building in Yinchuan and our main sightseeing spot. It is located at the busiest intersection of Jiefang East and West Street and Drum Tower North and South Street, hence it is also known as the 'Cross Drum Tower'. The tower is 36 meters high and covers an area of 576 square meters. It is composed of a platform, a tower, and corner buildings. The platform is square, with a side length of 24 meters and a height of 8.5 meters, built with bricks and stones. The platform has a 5-meter-wide arched door on each side, which connects with Jiefang East and West Street and Drum Tower North and South Street. There are stone carvings on the four sides of the door, with the east saying 'Welcoming Grace', the south 'Coming to Xun', the west 'Yi Shuang', and the north 'Gong Ji'. There is an arched door on each side of the east door, with the south door reading 'Kun He', which is an ear room; the north door reads 'Qian Pi'. From the north arched door, you can climb to the top of the platform along the hidden stone steps. In the center of the platform, there is a three-story building with a cross-hipped roof and double eaves, surrounded by corridors on all four sides. If you climb up to the tower, you can see the scenery of Yinchuan, but when we went there, the main door of the central tower was closed, so we couldn't go up to see. The ridge of the tower is decorated with dragon heads, with a bead in the middle, showing the situation of two dragons playing with a bead, which is quite interesting. Looking up at the Bell and Drum Tower, the eaves are flying, the building is tall and beautiful, the shape is vivid, and it is quite spectacular. The Bell and Drum Tower is also an ancient building with revolutionary commemorative significance. In 1926, during the period of cooperation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the first organization of the Chinese Communist Party in Ningxia - the CCP Ningxia Special Branch, as well as the office of the KMT County Party Department, was located in the northeast corner of the Bell and Drum Tower. On September 23, 1949, Ningxia was liberated, and on September 26, Yang Dezhi, the commander of the 19th Army of the People's Liberation Army, Li Zhimin, the political commissar, and well-known local figures in Ningxia, jointly reviewed the PLA's entry ceremony on the Bell and Drum Tower. Today, the four corner buildings on the platform have exhibitions on this history. We three adults took the children to climb the Drum Tower first, visited the four corner buildings, and took pictures of the street scenes on all four sides. Then we went to visit Ningyuan. Ningyuan is located southeast of the Drum Tower. It is a small garden with Qing Dynasty imitation ancient buildings as the main body. We entered the garden from the west gate, visited the 'Xingqing Palace', 'Qinming' Pavilion, steles, corridors and pools in the garden, and walked out of the east gate of Ningyuan, overlooking the Jade Emperor Pavilion located at the intersection of Jiefang East Road and Yuhuangge North Street. At 11:30 am, we returned to the place where we parked the car. We originally planned to go to Ningnan Street to visit another landmark building in Yinchuan - Chengtian Temple Tower, but we were worried that our car was not in the parking space and would be fined, so we didn't go.