Great Rainbow Bridge

Walking out of the newly-built northern gate and going west ahead for several hundred steps, you will see an arch-shaped stone bridge, which bestrides over the lake to the Slim West Lake Park . This is the famous Rainbow Bridge , and is also called Great Rainbow Bridge .

The bridge was first built as a wooden one in the last period of Ming Dynasty. The bridge got its name because of its red fence. The sight of the bridge is fantastic and attracts numerous poets and scholars to compose poems and organize communities here. During the Shunzhi Period, Wang Tuzhen, who came to Yangzhou to occupy the recommended official, once wrote wedges with several celebrities of Yangzhou at rainbow bridge, singing and poetizing, and left many universal-praised poems, one of which was The red bridge flies to across the water in the middle, nine songs of one word column pole are red. The at noon the painted ship went by the bridge, the fragrant shadow of human figure of dress is too in a hurry. After Wang Tuzhen, Kong Shangren, the composer of Peach blossom, and Lu Yayu, who occupied the The salt-delivering maker of Yangzhou twice, had also ever written wedges on red bridge.

Qianlong zero year (1763), the board bridge was rebuilt into a stone bridge. After 15 years, built the gloriette on the bridge, "the Red Bridge " was renamed "the Rainbow Bridge ", Emperor Qianlong visited Yangzhou , he admired the scenery of Rainbow Bridge and dedicated a poem to it. The Poem of Dream Flagrance also described the scenery in a poem. Besides many poems, there were also many famous artists, they drew a lot of opus such as The Arched Bridge Enjoys Scenery, The Arched Bridge where Spring Is Suffused, The Arched Bridge Waiting for the Moon, etc. Nowadays, the Rainbow Bridge was rebuilt in 1973, the structure of bridge was changed from one arch into three arches. The bridge was widened and lengthened. The surface of bridge was paved with Song Dynasty granite, the shape looked simple and unsophisticated and more magnificent than the former one. It was built exquisitely and its line was clearly and it was the main channel to go into each sight of the Slim West Lake .