West Great Wall - China Travel

introduce

A section of the Great Wall on the left wing of Jiayuguan is called the Ming Wall. On the south side of Guancheng, there is a pier on the edge of the 80-meter cliff on the north bank of the Koolai River, called the Koolai River Pier. From here, the Great Wall is like a crouching dragon, lying on the Gobi, and crossing the Gansu-Xinjiang Railway to the north. The Helan-Xin Highway climbs straight to the Jiayu Plateau and connects with the Guanwai City. The Great Wall built with rammed loess is relatively well protected, and it is basically complete except for the broken parts where the roads and railways pass through.

The total length of the Ming Wall is 6559 meters, of which 265 meters are broken, accounting for more than four percent of the total length. The remaining height of the Great Wall ranges from 3.5 to 4 meters. In some places, there are traces of mountain walls, which can no longer be seen clearly. The bottom is 4 meters thick, and the upper width is 2.5 meters. Some sections have a bottom thickness of 3.5 meters and an upper width of 2 meters. There are three Great Wall piers in this section, which are relatively complete. Basically, a pier is set up around four or five miles away, neatly arranged on the Great Wall line.

A section of the Great Wall from Guancheng to the north is called Anbi. The Great Wall starts from the "sluice pier" on the northeast corner of Guancheng, stretches northward along the inner side of Heishan, and is in parallel with the Jiugou Shibakou in Heishan, passing through the second, fourth and fifth production teams of Jiayuguan Brigade of Jiayuguan Commune , crossed the Gobi, and went straight into the hillside of Heishan near the first team of Huangcaoying in Jiayuguan Commune, blocking the large and small mountain passes to the west. In order to prevent the enemy from entering the Great Wall from the mouth of the Heishi Gorge, an east-west broken wall was built at the mouth of the Heishi Gorge. It is about 750 meters long, more than 3 meters high, and 4 meters wide. , Blocked the mountain pass.

This section of dark wall is 8,200 meters long, of which 1,610 meters are broken, accounting for nearly 20% of the total length, and the broken parts are all part of the farmland. There are three methods of tamping because of local materials. A section of about 5,700 meters connecting the Great Wall is made of rammed loess, and the wall is 4.6 meters high.

The bright wall and the dark wall are like adding two iron wings to the pass city, making the pass defense more stringent. In order to make this section of the city wall stronger and parallel to the Great Wall, a ditch (also known as the outer moat) was dug 39-60 cm outside the Great Wall. Although it has been filled with wind and sand for hundreds of years, the ditch can still be seen on the top of the mountain. relics. The trench stretches northward from the Beida River in Guannan, climbing mountains when encountering mountains, crossing Gobi when encountering Gobi, and reaching the Black Mountain in Guanbei, with a length of 6,000 meters. The ditch is 9.8 meters wide at the top, 3.5 meters wide at the bottom and 2.1 meters deep. This trench played a role in protecting the West Great Wall.