【Address】Situated at the crossroad of Wunsian Rd. and Sinyi St., Tainan City.
【Brief Introduction】
Dueiyuemen is a gate located in the centre of the territory outside of the Big West Gate of ancient Tainan. Its construction started in 1835 (Daoguang 15th Year of the Qing Dynasty) and completed in January, 1836. The base of the gate is composed of Laogu stones (coral reef fossils), thus, it is commonly called the Laogu Stone Urn City Wall (Urn City Wall is the common name for the territory outside the gate.) It was one of the three gates built when Tainan expanded towards the sea to the west by building outer city walls.
【History】
Located to the west, it belongs to the direction of Duei in the Eight Trigrams. Therefore it is named Dueiyuemen. It is located in a place which formed a pincer-like defence line together with Anping and Luermen, where a marketplace was situated. It was built as part of the measures taken to strengthen town defence in Taiwan from Qing Dynasty, after the Revolt of Jhang Bing (張丙) in 1832 (Daoguang 12th Year, Qing Dynasty.) It was one of the three outer city gates in the northwest of Tainan (the other two gates being Diankun and Gongchian.)
【Features】
The Gate is four meters high and has a thickness of three meters, with an archway that is three meters wide. It was built with bricks with a horizontal stone board above the archway that has the Chinese characters of Dueiyuemen inscribed, noting the date of completion (January, Daoguang 16th year or 1836.) There are base stones in the arch for placing the doors, as well as a latch hole for closing the door. The floor above the door is made of granite. There are steps inside the door base for climbing. Dueiyuemen is located at the cross-section of Wunsian Rd. and Sinyi St. The wall is preserved and was built with corral reef, bricks and mortar, with a supposed wall foundation. The corners were strengthened with granite. Now banyan trees wrap the wall with their zigzagging aerial roots.