Jinshanling Great Wall
Jinshanling is considered to be one of the most spectacular sections of the Great Wall. Starting from Wangjinglou and ending at Longyukou, it slithers along Dajinshan (Big Golden Mountain) and Xiaojinshan (Small Golden Mountain) on the border between Luanping and Miyun counties.
Although merely 10.5 km in length, the Jinshanling section fully demonstrates the Great Wall’s majesty. This section has 67 watchtowers in various architectural styles, five passes (big and small) and two beacon towers. It also has unique bamer walls, inscribed bricks, and a screen wall with a kylin (an auspicious legendary animal with a horn and scales all over) in relief. Furthermore, there is a small one-room house – the only detached house as component of the Great Wall fortifications – on the slope near Kufanglou, which is considered to have been the headquarters of the garrison at Jinshanling.
This section was constructed by soldiers from Zhejiang, led by Qi Jiguang, Regional Commander of the Ji Defense Command. A gateway between the heartlands and areas beyond the Great Wall, the Jinshanling area was continually contested by opposing armies. As early as in the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577) a frontier fortress had been established here. After the mid Ming period, the Mongolians in the north made frequent incursions to the inland areas, posing a dire threat to the Ming Dynasty. In order to reinforce the defense of the north, in 1568 Emperor Muzong transferred Tan Lun and Qi Jiguang, distinguished generals who had suppressed the Japanese pirates operating in China’s coastal waters, to take charge of the military affairs of the Ji and Liaodong defense commands, respectively. During the 16 years that Qi Jiguang served as the Regional Commander of the Ji Defense Command, he ordered overall renovation and reconstruction of the 600-km-long Great Wall under his jurisdiction. The Jinshanling section is seen as the epitome of his efforts.
The construction of Jinshanling drew on previous experiences in building the Great Wall, making it a symbol of the Ming Great Wallin terms of the layout of the military defense system, and the architectural styles and forms of the fortifications.
The foundation of the Jinshanling Gfeat Wall was made of stone slabs; the body of the wall was encased in bricks, with the interior filled with stones, clay and sand, and rammed hard. The top of the wall, about five m wide, was paved with big square bricks and was called a “horse track.” Here, six or seven people could walk abreast, and horses could gallop. Ditches were dug at intervals of two-three m, each having a drain hole in the outer wall. The drain holes, in addition to draining rainwater, were used as embrasures from which the guards could roll stones onto attackers. On the top of the Great Wall, the l.5-m-high wall rising up from the inner edge is called Yuqiang, or Nu’erqiang, while the two- m-high wall rising up from the outer edge is called the battlement. Both of them have embrasures at the top, middle and lower parts for soldiers to shoot at the enemy from standing, kneeling and prone positions, respectively. There are also holes at regular intervals for erecting signal flags. Along the Great Wall, which is generally five-eight m in height, a pass was usually built at a valley and a place of strategic importance. The entrance of such pass normally was an arched gateway built of bricks, 2.5 m high and l.5 m wide, and it was usually difficult to find. At both sides of the pass, east and west, there were stone or brick stairways leading to the top of the Great Wall. During wartime, as the Chinese saying goes, “One man can hold out against 10 thousand at a strategic pass.” The passes along the Jinshanling section are: Longyukou, Taochunko_u, Zhuanduokou, Shalingkou, and Houchuankou (kou means pass).
The intensity of the watchtowers at the Jinshanling section – 67 in a stretch of 10.5 km, is rare along the 10-thousand-Great Wall. Watchtowers, some 10 m in height, are usually built on commanding heights. With a foundation of granite slabs, the body was built with a rammed mixture of stones, loess and lime, and was encased with bricks. The watchtowers usually have two stories. The first story was for storing grain and weapons, as well as for keeping a lookout; the second story, enclosed by embrasure battlements, was the soldiers’ living quarters. There are two kinds of passageways connecting the two stories, one being a stairway, the other a vertical shaft where a rope ladder was needed. The interior of the watchtowers is a one- or two-barrel-vault construction. The ceiling of the first story of the watchtowers varies in form – flat, vault, pyramid or octagonal caisson. Each of the walls of the first story usually has two to three embrasures for shooting arrows. Each watchtower has one, two, or even three doors (mostly two), and has a vivid name, such as Wangjinglou (Tower for Viewing the Capital), Taochunlou (Tower of Spring Peach Flower) or Xiannulou (Fairy Tower).
On both sides of some watchtowers, barrier walls were built on the top of the Great Wall. These horizontal barrier walls, two m in height and l.5 m in width, and with openings for keeping a lookout and shooting, were usually built in a row of more than a dozen walls. They served as blindages, covering more than half the width of the Great Wall. Even when attackers had scaled the Great Wall, the guards, protected by the barrier walls, could still resist by pushing forward or retreating in an orderly manner to a commanding height or a watchtower.
An important military defensive fortification in the past, Jinshanling is today a cultural relic under State protection, as well as a well-known tourist attraction. In 1992, Ke Shouliang (Blacky Ko Sau-Leung), a stuntman from Taiwan, jumped over the Jinshanling Great Wall on a motorcycle, and in 2001, Yu Shunye, a stunt performer from Dalian, did the same thing backwards. Both got their names in the Guinness Book of World Records. In addition, more than 160 films, TV plays and commercials have been shot on location here.
Jinshanling Great Wall Pictures
