The Great Wall, symbolizing China's ancient civilization, is one of the world's most renowned projects. It is a distance of 75 kilometres northwest of Beijing. Its highest point at Badaling is some 800 metres above sea level.

Construction of the Wall first began during the period of the Warring States (476 - 221 BC). Formerly, walls were built at strategic points by different kingdoms to protect their northern territories. In 221 BC after the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty unified China, he decided to have the walls linked up and extended.

Historical records show that about 1 million people, one-fifth of China's population at the time, were involved in the project which took more than ten years. When it was finished we call it 'Wan Li Chang Cheng' which means 'Ten Thousand-Li-Long Wall'. Now, nature has taken over most of the Great Wall.

The Great Wall which we are going to visit was rebuilt during the Ming Dynasty in the 16th century. It extends from Shanhaiguan Pass, a seaport along the coast of Bohai Bay, to Jiayuguan Pass in Gansu Province. Its total length is more than 6,700 kilometres.There were many places of strategic importance along the Wall. Fortresses were constructed at strategic points. Beacon towers were built on both sides of the Wall at commanding points. Whenever the enemy was sighted, bonfires were lit on the towers to signal warning messages.
Before the Ming Dynasty, the Wall was built mainly of earth and rock. Under the Ming, it was rebuilt in most places with bricks and stones. For instance, the section at Badaling near Beijing was faced with slabsof rock and large bricks and filled with earth and stones. It is 6 to 7 metres high.

At regular intervals along the southern side of the Wall, there are gates with stone steps leading to the top of the Wall. The top surface of the wall is paved with three or four layers of large bricks. It is 4 to 5 metres wide, enough for five horsemen to ride abreast. Along the Wall, there are parapets and battlements built of bricks and turrets and watchtowers at regular intervals.
The Wall traverses mountains and gullies. It was extremely difficult to build along steep slopes under harsh conditions. Some of the slabs of rock were as long as two metres and weighed as much as one ton. All the rocks, bricks and lime had to be carried up the mountains at the cost of backbreaking labour. The earth and bricks were passed up from hand to hand or carried in baskets by donkeys and goats. The large slabs were moved up slopes by means of rolling rods and hoisting bars. According to rough calculation, the amount of bricks and rock used to build the Wall would have been enough to build a wall five metres high and one metre thick around the world.

The Badaling section is the best preserved part of the Wall. Several renovations have taken place since 1949. It is listed by the Chinese Government as one of the historical monuments to be preserved.

The Great Wall runs 629 kilometres in the Beijing area. More than 100 kilometres are well preserved and two other sections at Badaling and Mutianyu have already been renovated for tourists both at home and abroad.

The Great Wall is the great creation of ancient Chinese people. It was listed by the United Nation's Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as one of the World heritages in 1987.Juyongguan Pass and the Cloud Terrace Juyongguan Pass is an important strategic gateway leading to Inner Mongolia. The slopes on both sides of this narrow pass are carpeted by a dense growth of foliage. It used to be one of the eight famous scenic spots in Beijing.
The 15-kilometre-long ravine, flanked by mountains, was the northern entrance to Beijing in ancient times. The cavalrymen of Genghis

Khan swept through it in the 13th century. The Yuan Emperors had to travel through the ravine
every year to their summer resort in Inner Mongolia, staying overnight here at Juyongguan Pass. Entering the Pass, you will see an ancient platform known as Cloud Terrace, built in 1345, and made of marble. It was called the Crossing-Street Dagoba, since its arch spanned the main street of the pass.

There were formerly three dagobas on the top of the terrace. Unfortunately they collapsed along with the nearby imperial residence and other religious buildings during an early 15th century earthquake. Later on, a new temple was built on the site, but it was also destroyed in the early years of the Qing Dynasty. Now only the terrace remains. The half-octagonal-arch gateway is unique and the Cloud Terrace is renowned for its marvelous artistry.The exquisite relief on the facades and side walls of the gateway is most impressive. On both sides of the facades are symmetrically carved crossed pestles of the Buddha's warrior attendants. Above the gateway are images of elephants, lions, serpents and other fabulous beasts.

Engraved on the walls under the arch are daturascrolls, images of Buddha and the four celestial guardians. Their vivid expressions are presented with exquisite workmanship. One shows a furious warrior with a snake wound round his arm. Such grandiose relief works, with several stones pieced together, are rarely seen in ancient Chinese carving. They are undoubtedly brilliant representation of the 13th century sculpture.

These four majestic guardians were said to have magic power against evil Emperors. When Ming Emperor Zhengde was passing through the gateway in his sedan-chair on a pleasure-seeking tour, the horses heading the royal procession were scared by the awe-inspiring images on the Wall and refused to move. At last, one of the court officials had to cover up the terrifying images with a smoke screen. In this way the terror-struck Emperor and his entourage escaped. On the walls of the gateway, there are carvings of Buddhist sutra in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Uygur, Mongolian and Han scripts. They are valuable to the study of Buddhism and ancient languages.
Emperor Qin Shihuang(259-210 BC)

Qin Shihuang was the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. Upon the death of his father, he ascended the throne at the age of thirteen. His father's powerful chancellor Lu Buwei served as co-regent until he was 21 years old. He soon forced the former regent into exile and started launching military campaigns to unify the country.

He spent ten years from 230 to 221 BC to wipe out all the six different states one after another and established the first centralized feudal state in the Chinese history. He proclaimed himself Qin Shihuang, the first Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, and all important officials of the central and local governments were to be appointed and dismissed by him.

During his reign, he worked out a uniform code of law and standardized currency, weight and measures and even the written language. He also had the different sections of the walls built by various warring states along their frontiers linked up and had the Great Wall built. All these measures were helpful to the consolidation of unification and promoted economic and cultural developments.
Zhan Tianyou

Zhan Tianyou was a patriotic engineer born in 1861 in Guangdong Province. He was intelligent and interested in machinery when he was a child. At the age of 11, Zhan was accepted to a preparatory class for young people chosen to study abroad. In 1878, he was admitted to Yale University where he majored in civil and railway engineering.

In the early years of the 20th century when the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway was built, he took on the responsibility of designing and building the railway, and succeeded in overcoming the gradient problem by switching back the line. The railway was completed in 1909, two years ahead of schedule. It opened a new chapter in the annals of China's railway construction. In memory of his contributions, a bronze statue was erected
by the Chinese Government at Qinglongqiao Railway Station. Note: Whenever you travel to the Great wall, please wear comfortable shoes with nonslip soles. The climb is steep in parts and sometimes the stones are slippery. If you are going in cooler weather wear more warm clothes; the wind that comes through the mountain in that area will cut right through you.

Looking-Toward Beijing Rock

East of Badaling lies a big rock which is called Looking-Toward Beijing Rock. It is seven metres long and two metres high. It is said that Empress Dowager Cixi passed here on her fleeing to the north as the Eight Imperialist Powers were advancing on Beijing in 1900. At this rock she turned to look toward Beijing, thus it is called 'Looking-Toward Beijing Rock'.Great Wall at Mutianyu

Chinese and foreign tourists are very familiar with the Badaling section of the Great Wall, but not the Mutianyu segment of the wall in Huairou County 79 kilonmetres away from Beijing proper. The Mutianyu Valley in Huairou County on the outskirts of the capital city was such a strategic point that it was contested again and again through China's history.

The first wall in this area was built some 1,400 years ago. Construction of the present wall began in the early years of the Ming Dynasty (1368 -1644) and was not completed until the 15th century. The mountains around the valley are heavily-forested, there are many natural springs and thick, beautiful foliage. In the past, these were important military considerations; today, they make this section of the wall a very pleasant place to visit. The watchtowers at Mutianyu are believed to have been designed by Qi Jiguang, the Ming general who won many battles in southeast China.A number of his soldiers were from south China, and perhaps they influenced the architectural style of the brick watchtowers---the shape of the lookout openings at the tops of the towers greatly resembles a fence design popular in that region.

In 1988, Mr. Albrecht Woeste, Chairman of the Henkel Shareholders' Committee of Germany donated 300,000 deutsche mark ($187,500) and chemical products worth 200,000 marks ($125,000) to help Beijing to restore the 747-metre Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. It took 5 years and was completed on June 14, 1993. Beijing Municipal Government gave the Germans an ancient brick of the Great Wall and built a stone-tablet at Mutianyu to commemorate their assistance.Simatai Great Wall

The Simatai Great Wall, 110 kilometres northeast of Beijing, has 135 watchtowers. The 19-kilometre wall is dangerous to climb but splendid to view as it meanders up and down the mountain ridges that seem to have been sliced on both sides by a huge axe. The Wangjinglou watchtower on a steep cliff 986 metres above sea level is the summit of the Simatai Great Wall and also the most dangerous place to reach, because the visitor must walk over some unrepaired paths, including the 'scaling ladder' and 'overline bridge' before reaching it.
The 'scaling ladder' is a slope at an angle of 60-70 degrees: the visitor must climb on all fours and be extremely careful. The 'overline bridge' is a path about 100 metres long and less than one metre wide which crosses abysses about 500 metres deep. With nothing to hold on to, the slightest wind will make the visitor tremble with fear. Because of the dangers involved in reaching Wangjinglou, only a few people have ever set foot on the tower in modern times.Gubeikou Great Wall

With a total length of 21 kilometres, the Gubeikou Great Wall section is located northeast of Beijing, 128 kilometres from the city centre. The section of the wall was first built in 1368 and expanded in 1567 by a famous general named Qi Jiguang in the Ming Dynasty. It still retains its past magnificence, although it was broken in parts by Japanese shelling during the War of Resistance from 1937 to 1945.

This section meanders through mountains 400 to 900 metres high. Unlike other sections, it varies in width, with the widest part able to accommodate five horses walking abreast and the narrowest spot allowing only a single person to pass. A road leading to the section of the wall has been built for tourists. Many cultural relics have been discovered in the preliminary digging, including arrows, bamboo guns, stone mills and knives. They are exhibited as part of the tourist attraction.

The Great Wall Restoration Committee, jointly sponsored by Beijing's five newspapers and the Badaling Administration Office, was established in Beijing and first launched the drive on July 5, 1984. By September of 1986, Chinese and foreign donors have contributed nearly 10 million yuan ($ 2.7 million) to rebuild the Great Wall. The contributions have come from thousands of people from China's 3O provinces, regions and municipalities and from 26 foreign countries, in response to an open appeal to 'Love China and Rebuild the Great Wall.' In addition, many donors have contributed art works such as calligraphy, paintings and sculptures to the drive. As promised by the sponsors in their open appeal, prominent donors will have their names inscribed on plaques which to be erected at the Badaling and Mutianyu Great Wall sites. Out of the contributions one million yuan ($ 270,000) was used to build a Great Wall Museum at Badaling. Construction of monuments to honour individuals and organizations whose donations exceed 500 and 1,000 yuan respectively is already underway. A major monument, with an inscription by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in Chinese meaning 'Love our Motherland and Rebuild the Great Wall' has been erected near the entrance to the Great Wall at Badaling. A monument honouring Pakistan Goverment and other foreign contributions has been erected at Wangjingshi (Looking-Toward Beijing Rock) at Badaling.