The Beijing Badaling Great Wall
Located in the south of Yanqing county, the Badaling Great Wall
is a distance of 75 kilometers northwest of the center of
Beijing. The Badaling Great Wall is part of the Great Wall which
symbolizes China's ancient civilization as one of the world's
most renowned projects for defense. Construction of the Wall
initially began during the period of the Warring States (476 -
221 BC). Walls were built by different kingdoms to protect their
northern territories. After the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty
unified China in 221 BC, he decided to have the walls linked up
and extended. The Badaling Great Wall was constructed during
Hongzhi 18 years (in 1505) in Ming Dynasty, it was rebuilt
during Ming's Jia Jing and Wanli years. The topography of this
section of the Wall is precipitous, occupying a commanding
position, and was the important military mountain pass and the
capital Beijing's critical barrier.
The Badaling Great Wall was built flanked by mountains and it
traverses mountains and gullies, it rises and falls, windingly
extended continuously. Badaling is situated outside the
Juyongguan Pass. There are two strategic gates, the east one is
called "outer town of Juyong", the west one is called "lock and
key of the north gate". It is narrower in the north and wider in
the west. The Wall was built leaning against the mountains from
the "lock and key of the north gate", the height of the Wall
changes at different points, it averages approximately 7.5
meters high, the top surface is approximately 6 meters wide,
spacious enough for five horsemen or 10 people to ride abreast.
This section of the Great Wall is paved with three or four
layers of regular shaped gigantic rocks, some of the slabs of
rock reached 2 meters in length and weighed several hundred
catties (catty is a weight unit used in China and it is half of
the kilogram. The internal of the wall is filled up with soil
and rocks, the ground is fully paved with square bricks and made
extremely smooth. 1.7 meters high crenels were built externally,
there are observation holes above and firing holes below, the
internal wall was built with space walls. At strategic points
along the Wall, square shaped beacon towers were constructed at
different height. The higher one is called blockhouse, which was
used for defense as well as the living space for the soldiers;
The low one is called wall platform, it is about the same height
as the wall itself but is sticking out of the wall, there are
crenels all around it, and it was the place for patrolling and
standing sentry. Blocks of woods were set up at all commanding
points, hence the name beacon tower. Whenever the enemy was
sighted, bonfires were lit on the towers to signal warning
messages.
Since October 1st, 1995, within the distance of 1200 meters from
south to north of Badaling Great Wall, 650 colorful floodlights
get turned on simultaneously with enchanting light on every
weekend. It's open to tourists between 6:30pm to 9:30pm at
evening.
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