Nan Lou

Year of construction: 1913

Type: Genglou

Owner: Situ Kindred

Genglou was generally built with money contributed by several villages for joint defense. With decent location, it could give early warnings to the villagers in case of bandit attacks so that the villagers could take refuge in Diaolou. Nanlou in Chikan Town is such a kind of Genglou.

Morning in Chikan Town.

Facing Tanjiang River in the south and highway in the north, Nanlou played a crucial role in safeguarding the waterway and road transportation. It was 19.6 meters in height and the doors and windows were made of iron. On the sixth floor, there were enormous Western searchlights, generators, firearms, and so on.

The 7-story reinforced concrete watchtower protected local people in turbulent years. In the summer of 1945, tens of thousands of invading Japanese troops retreated in the direction of Guangzhou along Tanjiang River. To cross the river, the Japanese had to take Nanlou in the first step. On the late night of July the 16th, Japanese troops began a sneak raid. There were seven self defense militia inside Nanlou , who were aged between 18 and 38.

Nanlou withstood the atrocious attacks for seven days in a row, shaming the Japanese into anger. On the eighth day, Japanese army launched gas bombs and captured the seven militias and later tortured them to death.

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