Jī Míng Shān Yì 鸡鸣山驿
河北省, 走八达岭高速,京张高速, 离北京市中心132公里
Little-known and little-restored former post town northwest of Běijīng
Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s coverage of Běijīng Suburbs and Beyond
The walled village of ‘Cock Crow Mountain Halt’, also known simply as Jī Míng Yì, is the biggest and best-preserved example of China’s post towns (驿, yì). At the courier system’s height under the Míng Hóngwǔ emperor (reigned 1368–1402), 1936 stations served 84,200km of land and water routes, giving free food, accommodation, and fresh horses to couriers and officials with imperial passes. The stations were typically one day’s travel or 35–45km apart, and where there was no existing village or town, one would grow up around the post station, typically with a lively market.
Jī Míng Shān Yì was on a route to Xīnjiāng in the far west, later joined by a route to Mongolia. Tradition has it that the Dowager Empress Cíxǐ’s party stopped here in 1900 when fleeing from foreign forces coming to relieve the Siege of the Legations (see ‘The Boxer Rebellion’ in A Brief History of Běijīng).
Some claim Jī Míng Shān Yì to be as much as 2000 years old, and that its status as a post town dates back to the Mongol Yuán dynasty (1271–1368), under which there was an expansion of the courier system, further increased under the succeeding Míng dynasty, during which the town’s high walls were originally built.
Much of its original 15th-century city wall still stands, although its outer brick cladding is long gone (the inner face may have been left unclad, for economy), and it’s been breached in places for the passage of modern traffic, although that’s mostly tractors. The roads are largely unpaved, the low-rise buildings dilapidated, and the town largely abandoned, with grandparents looking after grandchildren on behalf of parents who have migrated in search of work, and partly surviving on what they grow in their own gardens.
In October 2008, after some expenditure on repairing and rebuilding small parts of the city wall and prettifying some key ancient buildings, the town instituted an entrance fee, became a little less forlorn, and clearly plans that its future will be based on tourism.
Approaching on foot from the west, you can turn south on a newly-made road along the foot of the walls, where the gate tower has been rebuilt and there’s a ticket office. Otherwise continue a little further west and turn in through the tiny north gate. This will give you a little peaceful wandering around the nearly deserted streets before someone spots you and directs you to the ticket office.
Guides can be a little too enthusiastic that you should hire their services, but they are unnecessary, and none speaks English.
The main street crossing the town from east to west has been refurbished, but for now little else has changed, and the houses are mostly of mud brick with sagging roofs to match the remaining earthen core of the towering walls. The rare traffic is motorised flatbed tricycles carrying sacks of corn, and donkey carts delivering coal briquettes. The roar of the highway to the north is muted by the walls, and there’s the odd hoot from a railway line to the south, but otherwise the main sounds are of the clucking of chickens and the chug of primitive tractors.
Your ticket lists small temples and mansions that are open to the public and are occasionally signposted. Guides swear there are places you won’t find without them, but in such a small place this is self-evidently false, and most of the open buildings are anyway in the southern half of the town. You can mount the walls via stairs at the east gate, and walk on both restored and unrestored sections, looking in to the grid of the town and out across the fields of corn that lap the walls.
There are houses offering accommodation, in at least one of which you can sleep on kàng (炕), the traditional brick beds heated from below with coal, and probably still a standard installation in most of the houses. A couple of ‘antique’ and souvenir shops have opened, and officials say one Míng-era building is to be converted into a five-star hotel. They would clearly like the town to become the new Cuàn Dǐxià. As recently as 2006 the place still seemed almost entirely abandoned, and the wooden towers atop the gates were falling down. For now the whole atmosphere remains Elizabethan but perhaps not for much longer.
▶ In Héběi Province, 132km NW of Běijīng, gps 40º26’92”N, 115º18’65” E, t 0313 681 4580, 9am–5pm. ¥40. m Liù Lǐ Qiáo (Line 9) then b frequent services to Zhāngjiākǒu (张家口) from bus station. Buy a ticket to Shāchéng (沙城), ¥45, which will drop you at Jīngzhāng Expressway exit 3 after about 2 hrs. Walk up exit ramp and left over bridge, past toll gate, turn right, about 1km altogether taxi Bā Dá Lǐng Expressway, Jīng-zhāng Expressway (toll roads) to Zhuōlù (涿鹿) ~ ¥400. train Three morning services to Shāchéng (沙城) are conveniently timed, the Y535 from Běijīng South at 07:12, the K5271 from Běijīng South at 08:00, and the K617 from from Běijīng West at 10:24 each taking 2–2.5 hours, ¥18.50 or ¥19.50. At Shāchéng walk 15 minutes straight north to the long distance bus station to find buses that pass Jī Míng Yì usually en route to Zhāngjiākǒu (25km, 30 minutes, ¥4).
Simple meals and equally simple overnight accommodation are available at the Nóng Jiā Diỳī Zhàn (农家第一站) just inside the west gate (鸡鸣驿古驿站大街10号, t 135 1347 1593. ¥10 to stay, ¥15 to eat). There will certainly be more choices by the time you arrive. There are other very simple restaurants on the main road passing the north side of the town, and a cluster of them by the expressway bridge, targeting lorry drivers. Most will never have seen a foreigner before (in fact on one visit the author was given a free meal simply for being foreign).
Return Buses to Shāchéng (沙城) pass the north gate: flag one down (25km, ¥4, about 30 mins). From there buses leave for Běijīng (¥45, about two hours, last bus 3.30pm). The drop-off point is the Mǎdiàn Bridge (马甸桥) on the North Third Ring Road. Alternatively at Shāchéng walk south for 15 minutes to the railway station and take trains K5272 to Běijing Station at 15:11, K618 to Běijīng West at 17:09, or K43 to Běijīng at 17:23 (2–2.5 hours, ¥18.50 or ¥19.50).
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