Badaling Great Wall

Badaling Great Wall

This section of Great Wall is the best preserved and earliest to be open for sightseeing. The Great Wall is undoubtedly among the most imposing and amazing architectures in this planet.
The Great Wall was initially built in the Spring and Autumn Period, and for the 2, 000 years that followed, the construction, connection and restoration of the wall had never ceased. The Great wall we still see today was largely built in the Ming Dynasty. The Badaling stretch is the best preserved portion of the Ming Great Wall and widely realized as the representative and essence of the Ming Great Wall. As an outpost of the Juyong Pass, this section of the wall with latitude of 1, 015 meters, had long been a strategic location for military purpose. On the top of Badaling and look to the distant, one will be amazed at the great wonder of the Wall. In 1961 here was listed by the Chinese State Council as a key national historical heritage protection site, in 1988 it was nominated by the UNESCO as a world cultural heritage. In the 1991 Forty Important Chinese Scenic Spots Nomination, Badaling was recommended as the No. 1 tourist attraction in China.
Badaling Great wall is about 70 kilometers northwest of Beijing. The Badaling Expressway shortens the trip by car from Beijing to about 40 minutes. The Wall here averages 7.8 meters high, 6.5 meters wide at the base and 5. 8 meters on the top, wide enough for five horses or ten men walking abreast on the wall. The Wall contains a large number of beacon towers and watchtowers. Standing on these still strong tower, one can see the grandeur as well as the difficulty of this great ancient project.
From the ancient time, Badaling has occupied a militarily important position. In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring State Period, the Great Wall was built by the states around here in an attempt to block the horsemen from the north, whose layout and position had great influence upon the Ming Great Wall built over one thousand years later. According to the book The Night Talk in Chang'an published in the Ming Dynasty, here is a place where numerous roads meet, therefore from here one can go to any direction. Its name - Badaling, or literally a hill from which one can go to 8 directions (in China "8 directions" mean all direction and places) well depicts the situation. Furthermore, here is the summit of the Guan Mountain. This ancient literature tells the strategic location of Badaling.
During the early years of Ming Dynasty, the central government moved its capital from Nanjing (a city in south China) to Beijing. Afterwards the emperors attached great importance to the rebuilding of the Great wall as a key defense project against the northern invaders like Manchu. One of the famous national generals Qi Jiguang, known for his leadership in the battle against the Japanese pirates in the East China Sea, was sent here as a supervisor general for the construction project. Altogether, the Ming government spent eight years, countless wealth and manpower on the Great Wall. In the past Badaling was the gateway to Juyong Pass. A 40 kilometers long valley connecting the Badaling Great wall and today's Nankou, Juyong Pass was built on this valley. As a result, the valley is also called the Pass Valley. Badaling commands the highest point of the Pass Valley, an old Chinese saying tells the crucial position of Badaling: if one man guards the pass, ten thousand cannot get through. Badaling witnessed a number of important historical events. When the first emperor of China - Qing Shihuang went to Jieshi in the east and returned to his capital Xianyang in the west, he passed here. The first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty brought his savage horsemen down to central china from the north, Badaling was a key point that they tried to take. When the Ming emperors went out of the Great Wall to attack the enemy in the north, their troops gathered here. It was also here that the peasant rebellion leader Li Zhichen broke into Beijing and overthrown the Ming empire. In China's modern age, a lot of important events were related to Badaling as well. For instance, when Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu fled the Eight Powers Allied Forces from Beijing in 1900, they passed Badaling. The first railway designed and built by the Chinese engineer Zan Tianyou – the Jingzhang (Beijing to Zhangjiakou) Railway came by Badaling and the Chinese democratic pioneer Dr. Sun Yat-sen climbed the Badalig Great Wall during his stay in Beijing.
Badaling Great wall was originally built in 1505 by Emperor Hongzhi, and its construction continued until the reigns of the following two emperors Jiangjing and Wanli. It functioned as an important military barrier for the empire's capital – Beijing.
Badaling Great Wall winds its way among the undulating high peaks. Badaling, situated out of the Juyong Pass, has two Pass gates: the Ju Yong Wai Zheng, in the east and Bei Men Shuo Yao in the west. The outer side of the wall is topped with crenellated battlements, which are about 2 meters high and have a square hole below for shooting arrows through and for keeping a watch over the enemy. The 1-meter high parapets are on the inner side. The bottom of the Wall here is laid up with big stone blocks while the upper parts were built with large pieces of rectangular shaped bricks. Steps were built on the steep slope and paved with huge stone blocks. Some of the huge stone blocks are two meters in length and hundreds of kilograms in weight.
The portion of the wall at Badaling has undergone frequent restoration, and in 1957 it was the first section of the wall open to tourists. Now visited annually by millions, the immediate area has seen significant development, including hotels, restaurants, and a cable car. The recently completed Badaling Expressway tremendously facilitates the trip from downtown Beijing to the Badaling Great wall. As the late Chinese leader - Mao Zedong wrote, if you have not climbed the Great Wall, you are not a true man. In the past several decades, over 300 important visitors from home and abroad have visited here, such as the former US president Nixon and British Prime Minister Mrs. Thatcher.