Climb the Jiexiu Huancui Tower Bridge on the first day of the twelfth lunar month

Huancui Bridge, also known as Yuhuang Bridge, is located in Shitun Village, Hongshan Town, Jiexiu City. It is dazzling yet quiet and lonely. It quietly spans over the gurgling water and blends into this countryside, becoming an unnoticed but indispensable existence in the lives of local people. There is a stone bridge below and a wooden pavilion above. It has stone at the bottom and wood at the top, half smoke and half rain, with a unique shape and a seamless whole. It is similar to the covered bridges commonly seen in the south, but rarely seen in northern my country. According to the inscription on the bridgehead, the bridge was built in the 19th year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming Dynasty (1540) and is a semicircular arch stone bridge. It runs east-west, with a total length of 20 meters, a width of 6.1 meters, a clear span of 5.1 meters and a height of 4.5 meters. The bridge deck is paved entirely with stones. In the middle of the bridge arch lintel there is a stone-carved dragon-shaped water-drawing beast. There are railings on both sides of the bridge, and in the middle of the railings is an octagonal prism with animal heads decorated on the top. The bridge was built first, and in the fourth year of Emperor Xianfeng's reign in the Qing Dynasty (1854), a wooden bridge tower was built on the bridge. Seen from a distance, the wooden pavilion built on the bridge looks like a "fairy pavilion" flying in the air, with a unique lightness and exquisiteness. Looking from close up, the entire pavilion's wooden structure is crisscrossed and the mortise and tenon joints fit perfectly. Every joint and every beam and column demonstrates the exquisite and skilled craftsmanship of the ancient craftsmen. It has stood firm and stable as a rock for 170 years. The building has two floors. The upper floor is five rooms wide and three rooms deep, while the lower floor is nine rooms wide and five rooms deep. There is a corridor around the building, a three-eaved cross-shaped hip roof, and glazed tile curled edges. The eaves are divided into three layers. The first layer has three-step single-arch brackets, the second layer has three-step single-arch brackets, and the top layer has five-step double-arch brackets. The brackets are in the shape of Ruyi and hemp leaf. What must be mentioned here is the colored glaze decorations all over the pavilions. The colored glaze, with blue and green as the main color, appears warm and magnificent under the winter sun, as if the emerald green lake reflects the azure sky, clear and deep. The carvings on the glazed components are intricate and exquisite, with lively auspicious beasts and blooming flowers decorating the eaves and roof ridges, adding a touch of luxury and refinement to the pavilion, just like a "gorgeous dress" draped over the originally plain and elegant wooden building, elegant and luxurious.