You likely walked through it on your very first visit to Nanjing, presuming your hosts were sufficiently benevolent. For they were probably aware that as a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit today, the history of Xuanwu Gate is as interesting as the structure is impressive.
Originally named Fengrun Gate (we’ll come to that later), it was Duan Fang, Governor of Liangjiang, who had the idea for the Gate in order to facilitate Chinese and foreign guests to Nanjing to visit Xuanwu Lake.
The job of boring a hole (just the one) in this particular section of the City Wall then began.
Complete in 1908, the Gate’s opening was a significant turning point for Xuanwu Lake, in so far as it officially turned the Lake into a park in the context of modern history, becoming Wuzhou Park in the process.
Back to the names for the Gate itself. Duan had been transferred to another post and his successor as Governor was Zhang Renjun. Hailing originally from Fengrun in Hebei Province, it was decided, in a somewhat farfetched idea, to name it Fengrun Gate.
The National Government, though, had a little more common sense, and renamed Fengrun Gate as Xuanwu Gate in April, 1928.
But, as is tradition in China, calligraphy of the name was also required to be depicted above the archway. That job fell to Cai Yuanpei, then President of the Academia Sinica, in 1929. His inscription remains above the Gate to this day.
A couple of years later, it was time for some more serious excavation of the City Wall, with the boring of two additional archways as part of the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the Republic of China.
But it was still not the Xuanwu Gate we know and love today. For it lacked a tower atop.
For that, we would have to wait until as recently as 1984 and another national, official anniversary. That’s when the Nanjing Municipal People’s Government built the tower above Xuanwu Gate to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
That which we know as Xuanwu Gate was then finally complete, some 76 years after it was first conceived. Today, as a National 4A Scenic Spot, the Gate continues to grant you, your benevolent hosts and the general public, access to Xuanwu Lake, free of charge.
