Leifeng Pagoda is a five story tall tower with eight sides, located on Sunset Hill south of the West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.

[1] The original pagoda was built in 975 AD, during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, at the order of King Zhongyi (Qian Chu) of Wuyue for his favorite concubine, Consort Huang.

Suspecting the pagoda contained weapons, they burned its wooden elements, leaving only the brick skeleton, which can be seen from Ming paintings of the West Lake.

[7] At that time Lu Xun wrote two articles commenting on this event, using the pagoda to symbolize the collapse of pedantic traditional Chinese thoughts and expressing his hope for the future society.

[10] In the 13th year of the Republic of China (1924), the brick tower of the Leifeng Pagoda fell into disrepair on 25 September and only the ruins remain.

In the second year of Taiping Xingguo era of the Northern Song Dynasty (977 AD),[12] the king of Wu Yue, Qian Chu, built a 7-storey tower named Huangfei[13] Pagoda to offer Buddha's relics and pray for national peace and prosperity.

In the second year of Xuanhe in the Northern Song Dynasty (1120 AD),Leifeng Pagoda was destroyed by war and fire.

[14] During the Ming Jiajing period, the wooden eaves of the Leifeng Pagoda were destroyed by war, leaving only the reddish-brown brick tower core.

In the late Qing Dynasty, the Lei Feng Pagoda had fallen into disrepair due to its age, and the ignorant people had stolen bricks, weakening the foundation of the tower.

[15] On September 25, 1924, in the thirteenth year of the Republic of China, the Lei Feng Pagoda collapsed due to excessive brick theft and excavation, as well as nearby construction work causing vibrations at the site.

[18] In the year 1935, the Chinese architect Liang Sicheng put forward the idea of rebuilding the Leifeng Pagoda and suggested restoring it to its original state.

[11] Stylobate From 2000 to 2001, the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology conducted a clearance and excavation of the Leifeng Pagoda site.

[22] The newly reconstructed Lei Feng Pagoda is located on the original site, and was designed by Guo Daiheng and Lv Zhou of the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University.

The pagoda body is approximately 45 meters high and consists of five stories, with two hydraulic elevators and steel stairs inside.

The ground is paved with glass and beneath it lies the protective layer of the Leifeng Pagoda site (i.e. the foundation).

Xu Zhimo and Yu Pingbo, on the other hand, composed poems and essays expressing their regret from a historical and cultural perspective respectively.

[26] During excavations between 2000 and 2001, archaeologists unearthed a large number of artifacts from the tower site and the underground palace respectively, most of which are now collected and exhibited in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum.

The two fragmentary stelae, the "Record of the Creation of the Qing Yuan Repair", are of great value in interpreting the life of the Leifeng Pagoda.