JINSHANLING Great Wall lies between Miyuncounty of Beijing and Luanpingcounty of Hebei Province, 140 km from Beijing city. It is a World Heritage Site and a National Priority Protected Site (of 1271 sites in China). It is an important remain of the Ming Dynasty (1368 –1644 AD). We discover steles from the 1540s that record that Tan Lun, Liu Yingjieand QiJiguang, famous government officials, built this section of the wall.
On several bricks of the Great wall are the characters “Fifth year of WanliEmperor”(1549 AD) which allows us to date the wall accurately. We can conclude that JINSHANLING was built at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, with large-scale reconstruction in the 1550s, especially during the Long QIngand Wanliemperors.
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| JINSHANLING Great wall |
During the QingDynasty (1644 -1911) the government united China and controlled both inside and outside the Great Wall, so the wall was no longer important for defense The wall served as the gate to and from the north of China, and there was no maintenance of the wall during the QingDynasty . The length of the JINSHANLING Wall is 10.5kms. It has six cols (gates), 68 dilous(towers) of varied form and two FengHuoTai (high watch towers).
The Great wall has many dilou, about every 100 m along the ridge of the mountain, many more than on other sections of the wall. Where necessary, they are 50--60 m apart. The form of the dilouis square, oblong, or rhomboid. All dilou are hollow, sit in the middle and on top of the wall. They are about 10 m high.
The foundation of the dilouis of bar shaped stones and the body of bricks and stones. Its wall was built with bricks with stone fill. All dilouhave two floors: the ground floor is is brick and wood, or brick with arches. The soldiers lived, stored food and weapons on the ground floor, andused the
second floor to fight or stand guard.
The Great wall is the main body for the whole system. It has a stone base. The wall itself is a brick shell filled with stone and earth. Wherethe landform is even, the Great wall is about 4.5--5 m high. The width at the bottom is about 5 m. The height of the wall is about 4.5 m. On the outside (right in the picture) the Duokouqiang(steps on the side of the wall) are 1.8 m. The inside of the wall has Yuqiang, which are about 1.5 m.
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| JINSHANLING Great wall |
Feng HuoTai (watch towers) were built on steep peaks inside or outside the wall. When the enemy came, soldiers would light fires to warn the others. A barrier wall was built inside the wall to delay the enemy if they climbed the wall. The overall characteristics of the JINSHANLING Wall: a wide view,
frequent dilou, unique sight, beautiful architectural art, integrity of the defense system.
There are 68 diloustogether, one typical instance Siyanlouis chosen for this project. It includes one section of collapsed wall and one section of the wall where the shell has fallen off. The Siyanlou Dilouhas two floors. The ground floor has arrow windows. The second floor has a chamber and a low wall around it used when shooting the enemy with arrows or crossbows.
The east gate is damaged: the brick (or stone) around the gate is gone. The west gate has a crack and a lot of weeds and shrubbery on the roof. The arrow window is damaged. 2/5 of the floor bricks were broken. Some of the wall has fallen down. Many of the wall bricks are gone. Most of the earth filling has collapsed, and only the inner wallremains.
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