Probably the most unique watch tower in the Eastern Hebei area is Shenweilou at the western section of Baiyangyu. Shenweilou (神威楼) meaning invincible might tower is without doubt one of the most unique, beautiful and most interesting of all the varied towers in Hebei province.

A stone tablet above the door show the name of the tower – Shenweilou (神威楼) – and also indicate when the tower was build.

The vertical text in the right side of the tablet reads:

游击将军张世忠题: Guerilla warfare General Zhang Shizhong

The vertical text in the left side of the tablet reads:

万历丙申仲夏吉立: Established in midsummer, Bingshen year of Wanli

Bingshen is the 33rd year of the 60 year cycle in the Chinese calender and Wanli was the emperor between 1572 and 1620. 2016 is the next Bingshen year, so during Wanli’s rule 1596 was the Bingshen year (2016 – 7×60). At this time Qi Jiguang, renowned for  repairing the Great Wall, was already dead (1588), so apparently the repair and construction of the wall continued several years after his death.

Who was Zhang Shizhong? It seems not much is known about this General, at least not available in English, so it is difficult to say exactly who he was.

Inside the tower consist of one single room with a barrel-vault top. Each of the three walls that would be facing an approaching enemy (the west, north and east wall) from the north have three embrasures to engage  the enemy. One big embrasure in the the middle for shooting arrows and a smaller one at each side for throwing down rocks if the enemy got close to the tower. These holes was also used for dropping thunder stones at the enemy. Thunder stone was a hollow stone filled with gunpowder that could inflict great damaged when exploding. The Chinese name for these holes is 雷石口 (léi shí kǒu) which translate to thunder stone opening. In the outer wall grooves were cut in the wall to make it easier to drop the stones (see the first picture in this post) – to my knowledge this is a feature rarely seen in Eastern Hebei.

Opposite the unusually wide doorway is a screen wall where a stone tablet once was. The stone tablet has disappeared but probably told the story about the construction of the Shenweilou tower, and might also have given more information about General Zhang Shizhong.

Most of the towers along this part of the Great Wall are placed on top of the wall, but the Shenweilou tower is placed on the outside of the wall facing the enemy side.

Another feature of the Shenweilou tower is a stairway on the back of the wall. These stairways are very common along the wall and give easy access for the defenders to the wall.

About 2 kilometres northwest of Huachanyu the remains of another wall can be found. I have no information about this pass at all, but by the look of it, it might be an early Ming dynasty design. Even traces of watch towers can be found along the wall, and close to the pass it split into two sections that forms a double wall around the pass.

An interesting place to visit in Qinhuangdao is Huachangyu, not very far from Weiziyu. The mountains on both side of the pass is very steep and treacherous and does not offer any good hiking terrain.

What makes Huachangyu well worth the trip is the double walled pass. In contains both a early Ming wall with two well preserved stone towers and a late Ming wall build with bricks. The early Ming wall is to the west (left side of the above picture) and the late Ming wall is to the east. The early wall is still in very good condition, so it seems that an additional wall was added later simply to strengthen the defence of the pass.

The two walls are approximately 35 meters apart. The late Ming wall continues up the mountain on the north and south side of the pass, while only a few traces can be found of the early wall except for the pass itself.

The early Ming watch towers are well preserved although some of the corners have been destroyed, but the still make a good impressions of how these early Ming towers were build.

Both two towers had brick crenels added in the later Ming dynasty but seems to be otherwise original.

The wall to the north of the pass is very steep, but the wall to the south can be climbed for about 200 meters before it ends at a steep mountain peak. The wall here is typical late Ming brick wall with nicely decorated holes for throwing stones at an invading enemy.

The brick wall here is fairly well-preserved although some of the brick towers have suffered some damaged.

Before the wall ends at a steep mountain peak it changes from a brick wall to a stone wall. It seems to be very normal, that the wall close to the pass was made by bricks and further away from the pass local stones and rocks were used to construct the wall.

Entrance price: free

Date of visit: April 11, 2009

According to some books and websites barrier walls is exclusive to the Gubeikou-Jinshanling-Simatai area, however this is not true. At least one place these small walls, perpendicular to the main wall, can be seen in the eastern part of Hebei province namely at Damaoshan north of Qinhuangdao.

On the steep sections of the wall the soldiers would be exposed to enemy weapons, so the the barrier wall was added to give extra protection leaving only a small passage for the soldiers to walk.

Another function would be to protect the soldiers in the event that the enemy gained access to the wall, so the defending soldiers could fight the enemy and stay protected at the same time.

At Damaoshan the barrier walls are only 8-9 bricks high so it seems that the main purpose of these walls was to protect the soldiers from enemy fire once the enemy was close to the wall.

The hight of these walls at Damaoshan would make it difficult for the soldiers to hide behind them and even more difficult to fight the enemy while protected by the walls even though each barrier wall is equipped with one shooting/watch hole.

After two days of snow last week – Wednesday and Thursday – it was hard to resist a trip to the Great Wall in the weekend.

My favourite Great Wall section is still Baiyangyu in the eastern part of Hebei close to Tangshan, so what better place to go than back to the place that really sparkled the Great Wall interest.

Unfortunately most of the snow had already melted but it was still a very different experience than  normally.

This was only the second time the Tangshan area had snow this winter so it is definitely not a normal sight in this part of China.

For more pictures please click on one of the pictures above.

Last weekend I visited the Heliukou Great Wall north of Qian’an in the eastern part of the Hebei province. A detailed account for this trip will follow later. So far please enjoy the video from Heliukou.

After some investigation I think this section should be called Jiejiagou:

Chinese name: 竭家沟

Pinyin: jié jiā gōu

English:
jié: make the utmost effort
jiā: home/house/family
gōu: gulley

At the end of September I went back to Liujiakou (刘家口) in the western part of Qinhuangdao, Hebei, a place I visited for the first time in February this year. Back then it was very cold so I only stayed a short time, so this time I planed to reach the top of the mountain – a hike of about 2.2 kilometres. Unfortunately, I misjudged the time so I only had time to go to where the steep climb begins before I had to turn back, and wait for another time to climb the mountain. I probably take too many photos, so even a very short hike can take a long time.

The main feature at Liujiakou is the cross-water watchtower, the biggest of its kind in Hebei province. The tower is 10 meters long, 9 meters wide and 12 meters high with a 6.36-meter high water passage in the middle.

According to one of the locals, the tower contain a stone tablet with some inscriptions, but the access to the tower is not easy since the wall close to the tower have completely disappeared.

From the tower the wall can be accessed on both the west and east side. So far I have only hiked the east side, and from the tower it’s only a short walk to the beginning of the Great Wall.

The Great Wall here is in very bad condition, and the original brick covering can only be seen in a few places including the watchtowers.

To the north of the wall there is a distinct ditch running along the wall. This is probably the place where the stones to build the main part of the wall was collected, however later it might have served as an extra defence against an advancing enemy.

From the top of the wall, there is a beautiful view to the west where the wall winds its way towards the Lengkou section.

When coming from Bejing follow the Jingshen expressway towards Qinhuangdao and exit towards Qian’an (迁安) and follow S252 north towards Qinglong (青龙). At Jianchangyingzhen (建昌营镇) take S363 to the east and continue until Liujiayingxiang, and then follow the road from here to the north. Another way is to take the exit on the expressway after the Qian’an exit and then follow the road north.

Entrance price: free

Date of visit: September 30, 2008

During a visit from my family we made a one day trip to Laolongtou (老龙头) a few kilometres south of Shanhaiguan (山海关). Although it was heavily damaged by the invading Eight-Nation alliance in 1900 and restored in 1984, it is still worth a visit especially because this is the place where the Great Wall meets the Bohai Sea. 

Most of the wall here is completely new, but some of the original stones can still be see since it was reused during the renovation, and part of the original Ninghai wall is preserved behind glass.

One of the most impressive parts of Laolongtou is the Chenghai Tower, which stands majestically looking out at the see from the top of the Laolongtou fortification, looking down at the Great Wall stretching into the sea.

Laolongtou was first constructed by General Xu Da (1332—1385) during the early Ming Dynasty. When he constructed the Shanhaiguan Pass, Laolongtou was chosen as the place where the wall meets the sea. Later in 1579 General Qi Jiguang extended the wall 23 meters into the sea.

After large parts of China was united during the Qing dynasty, the Great Wall at Laolongtou lost it military significance but remained a popular place to visit the sea.

Laolongtou is still a popular place to visit, but being so far away from Beijing it’s normally no problem to visit without too many tourists as long as you avoid the Chinese holidays.

From Laolongtou the Great Wall continues north towards the fortified city of Shanhaiguan and Jiaoshan mountain. All three places can be visited in one day, and Shanhaihuan can easily be reached by car by following the Beijing-Shenyang expressway or by train or bus from Beijing.

Entrance price: 50 RMB

Date of visit: September 16, 2008

Because of a vacation back in Denmark and a wedding in a few weeks, this post have under way for a long time but here it is.

The Taolinkou area northeast of Tangshan has long been on my list of places to go. Especially because it seems to be possible to hike for a long time in a fairly deserted area, even though the wall is in poor conditions at some places.

In the middle of July I made an attempt to reach a specific part of the Taolinkou Great Wall but was first stopped by a big outdoor market which totally blocked the road and made it impossible to continue. An attempt to find an alternative road to the area also failed because of the quality of the road, which in the mountains suddenly became very bad and the big stones threatened to damage the undercarriage of the car.

Luckily the bad road was located very close to another part of the Great Wall, which is connected to the Taolinkou Great Wall, so even though it was not possible to reach the intended section this day it way still possible to explore some nice Hebei Great Wall.

A closer look in the area reveal that the wall splits in two for a short stretch and then meet again on the next mountain. This might be to strengthen the defensive force of the pass here or maybe it is a result of different ideas in different building periods during the Ming dynasty.

The north part seems older with no visible watchtowers although Google Earth images suggest at least one watchtower, while the southern part of the wall still has intact watchtowers. This might suggest that the northern part was build prior to the southern part but no information regarding this area has been found so far.

The weather is too hot for any whole day trips at the moment (at least in my opinion) so the idea was mainly to go there and get a feeling of the difficulties and challenges in the area to help plan future trips, and this is most likely an area I will return to later.

Entrance price: free

Date of visit: July 12, 2008