The Great Wall of China is
famous for its gigantic scale, incredible length, long history and beautiful
architecture. Having been baptized by nature for thousands of years and
having witnessed the changes of many dynasties, the Wall is a symbol of
ancient culture and history of China and it is a man-made wonder of the
world.
The 6,300 kilometers long Great Wall winding its way westward from the bank of the Yalu River and ending at the foot of the snow covered Qilianshan Mountains and Tianshan Mountains, the Great Wall climbs mountains, cuts across pasturelands and deserts and goes through valleys, like a huge flying dragon standing in the north part of China. It is the only man-made project, which can be seen from the Moon. The Great Wall in Beijing is the first important tourist attraction for tourists. There is one saying “One who didn't climb the Great Wall was not a true man.” Visiting the Great Wall in Beijing Beijing is protected by the Taihang and Yanshan mountain ranges to its west and north. Three passes separate the Beijing and Hebei area from Mongolia and Manchuria. Gubeikou and JuyongGuan are in north of Beijing. Shanhaiguan is at the eastern coast facing Bohai Sea. The Beijing area has itself eight sites at the Great Wall for tourists, these comprising of two passes (JuyongGuan and Gubeikou) and six sections of the wall (Badaling, Mutianyu, Simatai, Jinshanling, HuanghuaCheng and Jiankou). Another two nearby Great Wall sites, Shanghaiguan and Huangyaguan can each be visited as an overnight tour from Beijing. The Great Wall was only opened to the dignitaries and tourists at Badaling till the early 1980s. In 1984, the Chinese government set up a Great Wall Restoration Committee to raise funds to restore the Great Wall as a national symbol of China under a slogan of "Love China and Rebuild the Great Wall." Supported by the news media, scholars and artists contributed works in the form of calligraphy, paintings and sculptures for decoration and for sale to raise funds. Chinese from all walks of life donated, as did foreigners. Two years later a sum of USD 2.7 million was collected for the reconstruction of the Great Wall. The Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, wrote an inscription for the slogan at the entrance of the Badaling Great Wall. A special monument was given in honor of Pakistan and other foreign contributions at the Wangjingshi (Looking to Beijing Rock), also at Badaling. On first arrival at Beijing, most tourists aspire to see the Great Wall. Many will spend half a day at the touristy and packed Badaling, the nearby Juyong Guan or the quieter Mutianyu. The more initiated will want to spend a full day hiking along some deserted and more challenging sections like Gubeikou, Simatai, Jinshanling, HuanghuaCheng and Jiankou. The wall seen at the above sites were built during the Ming Dynasty, as the Han Dynasty wall had long fallen into decay. The Eight Great Wall Sites at Beijing The eight sites of the Great Wall at Beijing, starting from the north-west clockwise, are Badaling, JuyongGuan and HuanghuaCheng, then Jiankou and Mutianyu in the north followed by Jinshanling, Gubeikou and Simatai to the north-east. A few desolated sites have been closed by the authorities to prevent further damage to the structures as well as injuries to tourists. The eight Great Wall sites in the Beijing area are described as below: Badaling (Peak to leading all Directions) sector, located at Yanqing County 70 km northwest of Beijing, is the first section of the Great Wall to be opened to tourists. There was an older and incomplete wall here during Warring States Period (476 BC - 221 BC). However, the wall we are seeing was built in 1571 and was repaired in 1957. It is considered the best preserved, being the hallmark of Ming Dynasty wall construction. It became a United Nations world cultural heritage in 1987. The section is about 5 km long with 19 watchtowers. The wall extends from peak to peak and is made of rectangular slabs, standing seven to eight meters high, six meters wide at the base and five meters wide at the ramparts, hence allowing ten soldiers or five horses to stand abreast. Along the wall are observation platforms every 500 meters and they also serve as sentry posts and storage for weapons and food. Many visitors bemoan the commercialization of Badaling. Shops and sellers abound making the visit as one of festivity. There is a cable car as well as a Great Wall museum of Chinese History and a Great Wall Circle Vision Amphitheater for 15 minute film shows. The museum has a photo gallery showing all the world’s famous personalities who came to climb and admire this man-made wonder. For those who are not physically fit, Badaling is the safest site to see the Great Wall. The left part of the Badaling wall is steeper but gives better scenery of the wall. To the east of Badaling is a 2 meter high rock said to be where Dowager Empress Cixi looked towards Beijing in reflection to her previous grand court life-style compared to her then 1900 distress in her fleeing to Xian to escape the Eight Nations Allied Army. This is the rock mentioned earlier, called “Looking to Beijing Rock”, with a monument for foreign contributors to the reconstruction of the Great Wall in the 1980s.
Juyong Guan (Common Dwelling Pass), 10 km before Badaling, is the sector I like best because of its historical significance. Juyong Pass guards a 100 meter wide 20 km long and deep gully 60 km northwest of Beijing on the same railway line just before Badaling. Juyong Pass was also said to have been used in the Qin Dynasty when the First Emperor, Qin shihuangdi started the Great Wall. The surrounding the valley area was considered one of the Eight Sceneries of Yanjing (ancient name for Beijing) during the Jin Dynasty (AD 1115-1234). In autumn the valley is colored red by the maple leaves. Juyong Pass has a architecturally unique marbled Cloud Terrace (Yuntai) complex built in 1345AD, with a semi-hexagonal arched gateway through it. The ceiling and walls of the terrace have interesting Buddhist inscriptions and carvings, one called “A Record of Charitable and Pious Pagoda Building” featuring six languages (Sanskrit, Tibetan, Mongolian, Western Xia, Uighur and Han). Three stone pagodas atop the Cloud Terrace were built by the last Yuan Emperor, but were soon burnt down with the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368. Hence, the Cloud Terrace supporting the three white pagodas and built across a street was also called "Crossing Street Tower" (Guojieta). A temple called TaiAn Si (Great Peace Temple) was built to replace the pagodas, but was accidentally burnt down in 1702. At the Juyong area is a Northern Song Dynasty temple honoring five heroes of great strength who helped to dig the gully. A tomb of the Eastern Han period (25-221) unearthed in Inner Mongolia showed a wall painting of a noble on horseback at Juyong Pass, showing Juyongguan as a wooden bridge-like structure with the word “JuyongGuan”. The name of Juyong Pass is interesting because the character Yong indicated a common and inferior status, hence Juyong means common dwelling, a name not complimentary to its status of protecting the Ming and Qing Imperial capital. It is believed that the name was given during the much earlier Qin Dynasty when this Great Wall site had plain dwellings for numerous conscripted labourers building the wall. At that time Yanjing (Old Beijing) was not considered as important as the Qin capital at Xianyang. In A.D. 916 Beijing became the capital of the Khitan tribe, which called itself the Liao Kingdom. In 1122, the Nuchens attacked Beijing through the Juyong Pass. To the invaders’ good luck, there was a landslide at the pass which killed many defenders, allowing the Nuchens to overwhelm them and to take Beijing, which became the capital of the Nuchens under the Jin Dynasty. The Liao Empress had to escape to the north from Beijing via the Gubeikou Pass. In 1213, the Mongol leader, Genghis Khan, attempted an attack on Beijing, but was repulsed by the Jin defenders at Juyongguan, who poured molten iron on the gate of the fortress. However, Genghis Khan had a general called Tsabar, who was his emissary to the Jin capital and who knew about a little used path to bypass the Juyong Pass. Using this path at night, the Mongol horsemen in a single file broke through and surprised the Juyong Pass defenders from the rear. With the retreat of the Mongols in 1368, Ming General Xuda quickly secured the Juyong Pass and started reconstruction of the wall to prevent further Mongol attacks. He built four defensive walls, two circular and two straight across the pass with an extra wall at Gubeikou. The Ming wall construction at Beijing lasted from 1368 till 1582. In 1449, the 20 year old Ming Emperor was gullible enough to allow his eunuch tutor, Wang Zhen , to plan an attack on the Mongols, with the Emperor in lead. The corrupt eunuch’s plan was actually to divert the Emperor to visit his own nearby native village rather than to go to battle. Without any military experience, the glory seeking eunuch caused a military disaster ending with two Ming Emperors contending for the throne. Half a million Ming troops with the Emperor passed through Juyong Pass to an ignominious defeat at the battle of Tumupu, where the Emperor was himself captured by the Mongol leader Esen , but he was later released to cause conflict between the captured Emperor and his newly installed successor. The Zhengtong Emperor was re-instated by his supporters as the TianShun Emperor in a coup in 1457. Again in 1549, another Mongol leader, Altan Khan, attacked Beijing but knowing the difficulty of going through Juyong Pass, he opted instead to go further east and broke through the Gubeikou Pass and then took Juyong Pass from the rear. Advancing up to the gates of Beijing he laid waste the suburbs before retreating north. Towards the end of the Ming Dynasty, the peasant rebel leader, Li Zicheng, attacked Juyong Pass in 1644. Dissatisfied with the Ming Court corruption, the military surrendered to the rebel forces and allowed Li Zicheng to capture Beijing, precipitating the suicide of the last Ming Emperor at Coal Hill, now called Beijing's Jingshan Park, just outside the Forbidden City. Mutianyu Great Wall, located at Huairou 79 km northeast of Beijing, joins the Juyong Pass in the west and Gubeikou in the east. Though only 20 km long it has 22 beacon towers and was opened to tourists on May Day in 1986, the second Great Wall site opened to tourists after Badaling. For those weary of walking they can have access to a cable car, with excellent views at the top. There was an earlier wall built 1400 years ago, but the present wall was built during the Ming Dynasty by General Xu Da under the order of Ming founder, Zhu Yuanzhang. It was further strengthened by General Qi Jiguang in 1568. In 1988, the Henkel Company of Germany donated US$300,000 to restore Mutianyu. There is a tower complex of three inter-connected towers capable of withstanding a strong attack. The other interesting feature unique to Mutianyu is that the inner and outer parapets of the wall are crenellated with merlons for shots to be fired on both sides of the wall. It was at Mutianyu that Cao Cao during the Three Kingdom Period defeated his opponent Yuan Shao. The Mutianyu section was later redesigned and strengthened by Ming General, Qi Jiguang, Military Superintendent of Jizhou. Simatai, the 5.5 Km long sector at Miyun County near the Gubeikou frontier garrison is 140 km to the north-east of Beijing. It has 35 beacon towers, being quiet and peaceful but challenging, with crumbling parts and steep walls beyond its restored first portion. For those who want to see the Great Wall untouched by modern hands, this is the part to go for. It has interesting towers and platforms of various designs. At the highest position one can see Beijing from a tower called Wangjinglou (Tower for viewing the Capital). Notice that some of the bricks here have dates and numbers to indicate the maker in order to ensure quality. To reach Wangjinglou, about 1000 meters above sea level, one must overcome the 70 degree slope Stairway to Heaven (requiring a crawl on all fours), and the narrow hundred meter long Sky Bridge across a deep abyss between Wangjinglou and Fairy Tower. This is certainly a most dangerous climb. In the early spring and summer mornings, one may be lucky to see a sea of clouds below. Fairy Tower is beautiful with an interesting twin lotus flower carving above its arched door. A cable car may save some half hour by foot, while a full hike may take two hours. A small Simatai reservoir divides the wall into two sectors, the Simatai to the east and Jinshanling to the west. Simatai has been included by UNESCO as a World Cultural Heritage site. Jinshanling (Gold Mountain), equally far as Simatai, is at Luanping county some 150 km from Beijing and slightly to the west of Simatai. It was constructed during the Ming Dynasty from 1386 till 1389, and re-constructed in 1571 by Ming General Qi Jiguang. The Jinshan name apparently came from Genral Qi’s Jiangsu troops, who named two towers in honor of the smaller and greater Jinshan Islands in Zhenjiang City in Jiangsu. The section, just over 10 km, is desolated with 150 odd battle platforms in various shapes. Parts of the Jinshanling have "obstacle-walls", actually smaller upright stone slabs at right angles to the parapets to shield defenders when facing enemies who had already ascended the wall from below and were charging up the rampart. The side walls also have peepholes and shooting holes unique to Jinshanling. After Badaling, it is the second most complete section of the Great Wall, despite having no recent repairs. From the eastern end of Jinshanling, one ascends the hundred meter long Stairway to Heaven to reach Wangjinglou (Tower for viewing the Capital) at Simatai. Huanghuacheng (Yellow Flower Town), 100 km north of Beijing and 20 km from Mutianyu, is the latest section to become popular with hikers. It was built by Ming General Cai Kai, whose prolonged and meticulous work caused him to be beheaded under a false charge of inefficiency. Realizing his mistake and with a heavy conscience, the Emperor had General Cai Kai reburied with honors as well as commissioning a two large words Jin Tang to be carved into a large rock at Huanghuacheng. The character (metal) denotes the hardness of metal, and the character (boiling solution) denotes great heat, hence the two characters implied the invincibility of the Huanghuacheng wall. Thus, the Huanghuacheng sector is also known as the Jintang Great Wall. The wall can be accessed by crossing a moon-shaped reservoir close to the Jintang Lake. The wall section is said to be an exquisite for the lonely and contemplative traveler, a site considered beautiful but dangerous as parts of the wall may crumble, plunging the hiker down to the terrain below. During summer, the area is colored with yellow by the flowers, and during autumn, the ground is carpeted with yellow leaves. Shibadeng is the steepest and most perilous part. Gubeikou (Old Northern Entrance), in Miyun County is 120 km northeast of Beijing on a road that running northwards as a 20 km wide pass through the Yanshan Mountain Range. Located at Wohu (Lying Tiger) mountain, it was originally called Hubeikou. In 1368 Ming Dynasty general, Xu Da, rebuilt this section of the Great Wall. Gubeikou has seen famous battles and on its slope is a temple dedicated to Yang Ye who was a famous Song Dynasty general. His illustrious military family served the Song Emperors for four generations. Their stories of loyalty, bravery and romance were told in books, operas and by balladeers and minstrels. Gubeikou was first constructed in the Qi Dynasty while the newer Beikou town, originally called Yingcheng, was built in 1378. The town is protected by Caohe River to the west and surrounded by three gates to the north, east and south, as well three underground, water gates. The Qing Emperors going to their summer residence in Chengde had to pass through Gubeikou. Although an interesting historical site on its own, Gubeikou is considered by some as inclusive of the Great Wall sections of Jinshanling to the west and Simatai to the east. Here, Jinshanling and Simatai are considered separately as different locations. During the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) the walls were 10 kilometres north of the present Ming walls. The walls were built and rebuilt by succeeding dynasties from the Northern Qi Dynasty (479-502) to the Tang (618-907), the Song (960-1279) and the Jin or Jurchens (1115-1234). The victorious Mongols from the north under Gengzhis Khan did not have need to have the Great Wall as a barrier. With the overthrow of the Mongols, the Ming Dynasty General Xu Da quickly captured Gubeikou and started reconstruction of the wall from Juyongguan to Shanhaiguan in 1370. When the Yongle Emperor moved his capital to Beijing in 1420, Gubeikou became even more crucial as the key to the defence of the city from the north-east. In 1549, the Mongol leader, Altan Khan, succeeded in breaking through Gubeikou and pillaged the suburbs of Beijing before returning north. In 1568 the Gubeikou wall was again rebuilt by General Qi Jiguang in coordination with General Tan Lun, and the new wall was able to face attacks from both front and rear. Part of the wall was damaged from shelling by Japanese Army during the War of Resistance from 1937 to 1945. Jiankou (Arrow Entrance) in Huairou County is 73 kilometres north of Beijing, connecting Mutianyu to the east and HuanghuaCheng to the west. This section was built during the Ming Dynasty in 1368. It is noticeable for its white rocks and the fact that the main sections are built on cliffs, with iron shoulder poles inserted between the cliffs. It has five gate towers and is considered very perilous, especially in winter when the wall is very scenic under white snow. Like HuanghuaCheng, this site is gaining popularity among the adventurous and the backpackers. Two Great Wall sites outside Beijing For visitors to Beijing who are Great Wall enthusiasts, they can continue eastward outside Beijing onto Shanghaiguan and Huangyaguan. Shanhaiguan Pass (Mountain and Sea Pass), at Qinhuangdao City of Hebei, about 300 km from Beijing, lies between the Yan Mountains in the north and the Bohai Sea in the south. It is 10km in width and commands an extremely strategic location that blocks the northern Manchuria tribes from advancing into eastern Hebei. The pass was restored in 1952. There is a temple for Lady Meng Jiangnu at Shanhaiguan. The first settlement appeared in 6th Century BC and the earliest gate called Yuguan, now non-existent, was erected in 618. The pass saw numerous battles between the Chinese ruling dynasties and the northern tribes. Following the defeat of the Mongols by the Ming forces, General Xu Da in 1381 built the present pass into a formidable fortress complex with four gates. The four gates had each an urn-like enclosure, the east gate further enhanced with web fortification. The north gate was destroyed and only the east, west and south gates remain, the east gate being the most beautiful. Each gate had a tower but only the east gate tower remains. This tower, about 14 meter high has two storeys, the top storey of wood has decorations of the Ming era. The main fort is surrounded by a moat of 10 meters deep and 20 meters wide and supported by smaller secondary forts. In 1472, a Ming scholar and calligrapher called Xiao Xian wrote the famous five characters in Chinese meaning First Fortress under Heaven. His calligraphy is on a placard hanging on the top of the eastern gate. In 1644, Ming General Wu Sangui, opened up the fortress gate for the Manchu troops under Doergun to foray south into Beijing and China to destroy the rebel army of Li Zicheng. Once in China, the superior Manchu army took Beijing and set up the Qing Dynasty which ruled from 1644 till 1911. Each Manchu Emperor on his journey to and from Chengde would pass through Shanhaiguan, but the pass had already lost its military significance. Some 5 km from Shanhaiguan is Laulongtou (Old Dragon Head), the end point of this section at the Bohai seacoast. It was built of stones by General Qi Jiguang but has fallen into ruins. A stone tablet at a secondary sea-pacifying fort read “Heavens with a view of Mountain and Sea”, apparently with the personal calligraphy of Qi Jiguang. Huangyaguan (Yellow Precipice) 28 km north of Jixian Country, 120 km north of Tianjin was built in 557 and rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty. This section of the Great Wall, hugging the Wangmaoding Mountain, has features different with those in Beijing, for it is a mix of high terrains and rivers with fortresses, water obstacles and traps. It hosts an international marathon on the Great Wall annually. The sites of interest include the Forest of Stone Tablets, the Phoenix Tower and the North Pole Pavilion. More Detailed Stories about China
Great Wall
|