In the city of Kaiping in Guangdong Province, diaolou structures (fortified towers) aren’t just popular buildings – they represent a heroic history to residents of the area. On a dark and turbulent night in 1922, over 100 armed kidnappers stormed Kaiping Middle School and took 20 hostages including both teachers and students from wealthy families. When escaping to their hideout, the bandits passed through Yingcun Village in the town of Chikan, where a night watchman atop a diaolou spotted them. He immediately rang the alarm and pointed the tower’s searchlight on the kidnappers as they frantically tried to hide. Ultimately, local militia, joining with villagers, defeated the kidnappers and rescued the hostages. The stirring tale spread quickly, even across the sea. Many Chinese people living abroad decided to return to the area and build diaolou with their savings to protect their families and hometown. Several years after the kidnapping, the diaolou count in Kaiping surpassed 3,000.

According to historians, diaolou were originally designed to combat flooding. Due to the local low terrain, residents of Kaiping were frequently afflicted by flooding until they began erecting the lofty towers. Yinglong Tower, which is considered the oldest diaolou in Kaiping, served as a sort of “Noah’s Ark” on at least two occasions when it saved locals from severe floods. In both 1884 and 1908, almost all of the houses in the village became submerged, but all the villagers survived thanks to the tower.

Eventually, people realized that the towers were also helpful in fighting against external aggressors such as the incident in 1922. Kaiping’s diaolou can be grouped into three types. The most common – watchtowers with guards – are effective for spotting invading bandits, and they can also be used as defensive forts. The second group is composed of public towers which serve as shared shelters for villagers. The rest of the diaolou are private residential towers built by individual families, which were often equipped with granaries and comfortable living conditions. Regardless of classification, all diaolou were effective in their defensive functionality. Each structure varies in terms of building materials and architectural style, but all share a few common features: small, iron-reinforced doors and windows, thick walls with peepholes, and a rooftop observation deck, able to be equipped with guns, electric generators, sirens, searchlights, stone missiles, and gongs.