Yu Hao

Yu Hao, whose name Ouyang Xiu's Retirement Notes (Guitian lu) writes with different characters, was a carpenter of the late Five Dynasties and early Song who held the post of chief builder. In early Song Kaifeng he built the timber pagoda of Kaibao Temple, the tallest in the capital; when it was finished leaning slightly to the northwest, he explained that the flat, windy capital would blow it upright within a hundred years. Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays (Mengxi bitan) tells how a wooden pagoda at Fantian Temple in Hangzhou swayed under visitors until Yu advised nailing down floorboards on every storey. The same book says a builders' manual called the Timber Classic (Mujing) was said to be his work; it is now lost. Ouyang Xiu wrote that he was the only carpenter of note since the dynasty began and that all carpenters followed his methods.