Gubeikou
Gubeikou ( Chinese 古北口 , Pinyin Gǔběikǒu - "Old Northern Pass") is an important pass fortress of the Great Wall of China from the Ming Dynasty . It is located in the southeast of the town of the same name on the east bank of the Chao He River at the foot of the Yan Mountains in the northeast of Miyun County , Beijing , about 135 km from the city of Beijing, and was an important transit station from Beijing to the north. In terms of its meaning, it is comparable to Shanhaiguan and Juyongguan .
history
The first construction work on a wall near Gubeikou goes back to the Warring States period (475 to 221 BC). In the middle of the 6th century a wall was built under the Northern Qi from Juyongguan via Gubeikou to Shanhaiguan. It was expanded during the Jin Dynasty with the construction of a fortress called the “Iron Gate” ( 铁门 , tiěmén ). The Han used the fortress to station troops for protection against the Xiongnu . The Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang had today's fortress city built in 1378 under the direction of General Xu Da at the same time as the pass fortresses Juyongguan and Xifengkou , and occupied them with an imperial guard. Under Qi Jiguang , the walls were reinforced and a strong force was stationed in the 16th century.
Strategic importance
The strategic position of Gubeikou was due to its location in front of the very narrow and only passable passage of the pass road from Beijing to Chengde through the Yan Mountains. The Chao He breaks through the mountains here and flows west of the pass at the foot of the Wohu Shan mountain through Gubeikou. Panlong Shan Mountain delimits the plain to the east of the fortress .
Numerous battles were fought here, especially after the 12th century, for example 1122 (attack of the Song by the Jin ) and 1550 ( Mongol invasion). Under the Qing , the Wall's importance declined in general, and Gubeikou also lost its prominent strategic position. Fighting at Gubeikou did not start again until the 1930s, when the Japanese attacked the Chinese positions in Gubeikou and captured it after losing battles. Even today, numerous bullet holes can be seen in some sections.
Construction
In contrast to Shanhaiguan and Juyongguan, Gubeikou is on the same level, so the walls were particularly solid and closely guarded. Examples of this type of wall are the wall sections of Jinshanling in the west and Simatai in the east, which were under the command of Gubeikou. The fortress had a circumference of about 2500 meters with a wall up to 10 meters high and had numerous watch and alarm towers.
The section of wall administered from Gubeikou is more than 20 km long and consists of four sections: Wohushan , Panlongshan , Jinshanling and Simatai . The Jinshanling section in particular - his nickname is "Second Badaling" - offers numerous well-preserved examples of characteristic wall architecture. It has 143 watch and signal towers, which are on average about 150 m apart. The smallest distance between two watchtowers is 30 m. Each watchtower has two floors and several door and window openings. The size of the towers is different, the largest can hold up to 100 soldiers, the smallest a crew of ten. The watchtowers offer a good view of the area.
Current condition
Today only ruins remain of the fortifications. The “sister towers”, a pair of watchtowers standing on either side of the wall near Gubeikou, which were a unique architectural feature of the wall and can still be seen in old photos from 1948, no longer exist today. Research by the British photographer William Lindesay revealed that the towers were first bombed by the Japanese during the 1930s, later stones from the towers were used in railroad construction by the People's Liberation Army , and the rest was used by the residents of the nearby village.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Pass fortresses - Passages of the Great Wall: The fortress city of Gubeikou China Radio International (CRI), Beijing (English)
- ↑ Ah Xiang: Battles of the Great Wall - Japanese Invasion of Jehol. (PDF; 233 kB) Description of the fighting at Gubeikou
- ↑ Gubeikou Great Wall. Chinahighlights.com (English)
- ↑ Jiang Chao: William Lindesay. Business Beijing, January 16, 2007 ( Memento of the original from November 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 40 ° 41 ′ 44 ″ N , 117 ° 8 ′ 10.1 ″ E