Jūyōng Guān Great Wall 居庸关长城
Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s coverage of Běijīng Suburbs and Beyond
Jūyōng Guān is the closest officially open section of Wall to Běijīng, and it’s worth visiting if only to view the genuinely ancient and highly unusual Yún Tái (暾憩, Cloud Platform) built in 1342, the stone base of three now-vanished stupas from the end of the Yuán dynasty, replaced in the early Míng with a Buddhist temple, now also vanished. The two longer sides and a passage through the centre are all very beautifully carved with Buddha figures, elephants, dragons, snakes, the four heavenly kings and inscriptions in Mongolian, Uighur, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Xī Xià, and Chinese.
So close to Běijīng, this was a vital pass, and there may have been wall building here as early as the Northern Wèi (386–535), although there was no Běijīng at that time. When the Mongols under Genghis Khan came south to crush the Jīn dynasty in 1211, this was the only point in the Wall that gave the attackers pause. The Mongol general Jebe staged a fake retreat, drawing the defenders out in pursuit, and then poured in through the open gates to slaughter the surprised garrison.
It was the Mongols who built the decorative and defensively pointless Cloud Platform, the closest they ever came to wall building, and through which they fled when driven out by Míng armies in 1368. The Míng soldiers were not allowed to rest from their conquest of Dàdū/Khanbalik (大都), renamed Běipíng (北平, ‘the pacified North’), but were sent on the heels of the departing Mongols to build a defensive wall at this pass. Wall building was back in fashion and would reach its peak in the following decades.
The tower, wall, and other defensive works copied here date from much later, around 1368, the very beginning of the Míng, and were almost constantly improved and expanded until 1582, intended to prevent the return of the Mongols the new dynasty had just driven out. But the rebel leader Lǐ Zìchéng (李自成), on his way to oust the Míng in 1644 only to be driven out himself by Manchu forces, passed through without a struggle, the garrison simply surrendering. The wild scenery later won the approval of the Qīng Qiánlóng emperor, who added the pass to his list of eight great scenic spots and left his calligraphy carved into a stele, ‘Spreading greenery on the hills around Jūyōng Pass’. (See also the Marco Polo Bridge, and Běi Hǎi Park).
Perhaps the scenery swallowed the Wall altogether, since the anonymous author of the Guide for Tourists to Peking and its Environs of 1876 comments on the Yún Tái yet gives first sight of the Wall itself as several miles further on towards Bā Dá Lǐng.
The most recent enhancements to the fortifications were made in 1993–7, when more than four kilometres of wall, including 28 towers and 30 other temples (to the horses used in battle, the town god, the god of war, etc.), and governmental and military structures were rebuilt from the ground up, at a cost of ¥100 million (roughly US$12.5 million). The two-storey triple-eaved gate here is marked 天下第一雄关 (tiānxià dìyī xióng guān), ‘the first impregnable pass under heaven’, and from it the Wall climbs steeply up in two directions, with handrails to assist. The site remains surprisingly quiet, especially in the afternoon.
▶ Jūyōng Guān Cháng Chéng, on Bā Dá Lǐng expressway about 60km N of Běijīng in Chāngpíng County, t 6977 1665, gps 40º 17.37.7’ N, 116º 04.05’ E, 7.30am–5pm, 1 Apr 1–31 Oct; otherwise 7.30am–4.30pm. ¥40 summer, ¥35 winter. b to 居庸关长城: 879 from three stops at the Míng Tombs, or from Bā Dá Lǐng Great Wall taxi N up the Bā Dá Lǐng Expressway to the marked turn-off.
You can continue from here to the Bā Dá Lǐng Great Wall, glimpsing the Shuǐ Guǎn Great Wall en route (to the right), or return to the Míng Tombs on b 879. You can return to Běijīng by ‘black’ taxi (no more than ¥200 per vehicle). Just downhill from the site is a tiny privately-run museum of foot-binding clearly targeting foreign tourists with an English sign and the outrageous entry fee of ¥50. There are small local restaurants here, too, and rock-bottom accommodation options in small farming family-run (nóng jiā yuàn, 农家院).
Next in Běijīng Suburbs and Beyond: Shuǐ Guān Great Wall
Previously: Wall Stories (story)
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For discussion of China travel, see The Oriental-List.
