please choose your country
Zhangjiakou. Zhangjiakou is located in the northwest of Hebei Province, 204 kilometers from Beijing. It is in the northern border of the Xuanhua and Huairou Basin surrounded by the Taihang Range and the Yan Mountain, and has been the artery from North China to Inner Mongolia and the crucial border gate protecting the Capital. The topography there is steep and much easier for defense, and thus the place was attached importance to by strategists. Till now, it is still entitled ‘the Northern Gate of the Capital’.
Zhangjiakoubao was constructed in 1429. According to historical records, the height of the city was 3 zhang and 2 chi, and its periphery was 4 li and 13 feet. There was a gate in the east and the south respectively. The eastern gate was called ‘Yongzhenmen’ (the ever-guard gate), the southern gate ‘Cheng’enmen’ (the kindness-indebted gate). In 1480 a side pass building was extended. Its height was 2 zhang and periphery was 5 li. In 1574 the whole pass city was renovated with a layer of bricks. On each angle of the castle there was built an angle turret. Above the eastern and southern city gates there were built gate towers. On the western rampart there was a double layered garret for watching and defense. Inside the castle there stationed the battalion department and the garrison departments.
The Dajingmen of Zhangjiakou was built in 1644. It was an arched brick gate built in the Ming Great Wall, 12 meters high, 13 meters long and 9 meters wide at the bottom. The gate leafs are wooden covered with iron sheets. On the top of the gate there is a platform of 12 meters long and 7.5 meters wide. Outside the platform there is a 1.7 meter high battlement with a 0.8 meter high eaves wall inside. A stone tablet reads ‘Beautiful Homeland’ was inlayed on the top of the gate. The handwriting was by Commander-in-Chief of Chaha’er Gao Weiyue in 1927.
Zhangjiakou was a famous market and a most important trading and material distributing center of nationalities in the Ming Dynasty, it was also a crucial nexus connecting the farming and the nomadic economic districts. In the Qing Dynasty, it was an important commercial city in the north, and was called ‘a Commercial Port in Land Route’ and ‘the City of Furs and Leather’. The famous ancient commercial road ‘Zhangjiakou-Kulun Road’ connected Zhangjiakou with Ulan Bator (called ‘Kulun’ at the time). The full length of the trading line of transportation and sale was more than 1400 kilometers. Owning to the prosperity of Zhangjiakou, in 1909 the Qing Government built the first railway of China from Beijing to there.
