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Simatai Great Wall is located in Gubeikou,a strategic pass about 120 km to the  northeast of Beijing. The construction of this part of Great Wall started in the early Hongwu Reign of Ming Dynasty. It is a section of the Grest Wall of Ming Dynasty that ws not built on the foundation of Great Wall of North Qi. It is a section that still keeps the originsl appearance of Great Wall of Ming Dynasty.
Simatai Great Wall is 5.4 km long .There are 35 watchtomers on it all together . This section of Great Wall was ingeniously conceived and uniquely designed with novel strucre and diversification . It concentrates many characteristics of the Great Wall in one section .and forms a section of “Wonderful Great Wall”.
Simatai Great Wall can be described with the following five words: precipitous, dense ,compehensive, ingenious and peculiar .
Precipitous: Simatai Great Wall was built along the wriggling mountain ridge that seemed to be cut by knives and axes. It is particularly dangerous in the sections of Sky Ladder and Sky Bridge.
 Sky Ladder is single side Great Wall.The ramp is steep and the wall is narrow. The narrowest part is no more than half a meter in widrn . It goes up along the mountain like straight ladders. There are sheer precipices on both sides of it .When looks down from it , anyine will feel dizzy. Above the Sky Ladder is the Sky Bridge,which is less than 100 m long and just has the width of abrick, about 40 cm . There are also sheer precippces on both sides . which will make you tremble with fear and lose the spirit of hero . Tourists named the Sky Bridge as “been so close and yet so far away”. It is often described by those who have been here in the following way-“passing through the bridge is more difficult than reaching the sky”. This section could be recognized as one of the most precipitous part of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall . which was built based on the natural dangerous landform and made the mountain more precipitous .
Dense: It is another unique character of Simatai Great Wall. The smallest  distance between two watchtowers is only 43.8 m . The most distant two towers are just about 600 m apart from each other. The average distance between towers is about 100-200m.According to the regulations of building Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty, one watchtower was to be built at about every 500 m. Therefore , this section of Great Wall was an exception .
Comprehensive: This means that the construction forms of both the towers and the wall are unique and diversified. For their outside appearances, some towers have one observing hole, some have two, three, four or five holes. Some watchtowers have only one story, some have two and some have three stories. They all have rooms inside. These towers are varying in size and form. They were built according to ranks of the head officers and numbers of soldiers as well as the strategic conditions of locations. From the view of interior structure, some were built with bricks, some with bricks and wood, some with bricks and stones; Some has a single room, some has two or multiple rooms. The internal room layout of some towers are like Chinese character “田(field)”, and some like “井(well)”. The roofs of watchtowers are also varying in forms. Some are flat, some are arched, some are octagon caisson roofs and some have double cup like roofs. Even the entrances and windows are novel and unique. Some were built on the side and some in the middle. Some were built with bricks, some with stones, some were even built with exquisite carved granite. These are all rare and precious historical relics in history of the Great Wall. The Fairy Maiden Watchtower and the Overlooking Beijing Tower, located at eastern part of the Wall, are two typical watchtowers. Overlooking Beijing Tower is the highest place of the Simatai Great Wall. It is 986 m above the sea level. It is a three-hole, two-story, brick-stone tower. It gained the name because it gives you a wide view and you can roughly see the profile of Beijing. Standing on top of the tower and looking eastward, you will see the “Mist and Snow”, “Coiling Dragon and Sleeping Tiger”; looking northward, you will see “Endless Green of Yanshan Mountain”; looking southward, you will see “Pearl of the Reservoir”. The beautiful scenery will come into your eyes completely. The Fairy Maiden Tower is most beautiful one among the watchtowers. It set off the boscages at side of the Tiger Mountain. The lower part of it was built with long pieces of stones and the upper part with polished bricks. Inside it, there are two arched roofs, three paved paths, ten arched doors, which were built with cyan bricks. The roof was built into a spider-web-like octagon caisson ceiling. On its four sides there are four brick pillars. If you sing lightly inside, there will be  pleasant echoes. Above the doors there are sculpture of twin lotus flowers. The whole tower gives you the impression of exquisiteness, fine, smooth and beautiful. It looks more like a building in paradise than a defense work for war. In addition, construction of the wall is also unique and diversified. Due to their locations and the military requirements, different parts were built in forms of singular, double or barrier wall with bricks, stones or a mixture of them. The density of balistrarias also varied from dozens to ahundred.
Ingenious: This is embodied in the construction of the barrier wall that could be used for both offense and defense, consolidating step by step. Construction of the barrier wall above the Sky Ladder had reached the peak of perfection. With the 20 m drop in elevation, one can shoot arrow from balistraria in the top barrier wall. Through all balistrarias in barrier walls, the arrow can reach the balistraria at the bottom. The ingenuity is really marvelous. From this you could imagine the scenes of ancient soldiers fighting violently against enemy.
Peculiar: The Great Wall built above water-eroded caves. The ingenious combination of water-eroded caves and the wall is unique among the entire Great Wall of Ming Dynasty. We can’t help thinking that it is splendid.
Although the major scenery of Simatai is Great Wall with precipitous mountain, there are also beautiful scenes with waves of clean water and sailing boats. The Mandarin Duck Lake at the foot of this section brings spirit to the Great Wall. The clean water comes from the abundant perennial cool spring and hot spring, which sprays hot vapor in winter and keeps water temperature at 38℃ year round. Water of the lake is cool in one half and hot in another half. It never freezes whether in summer or winter. Sailing on the lake in summer, the cool breeze will make you relax and happy.
Simatai Great Wall is not only a unique and beautiful scenery, but also a treasury of cultural heritage. In recent years, many cultural relics about Great Wall are found in this section, including Carved stone “superscription tablet”, which recorded the situation of building Great Wall in those years and names of officials correlated to construction. In several parts of the walls and towers, bricks with stamped words were found. The words are names of armies taking part in building the Great Wall and the year of construction, such as “Building in left battalion of Shandong in the fifth year of Wanli Reign”, “Building in battalion of Ningxia in the fifth year of Wanli Reign”, etc. Stamped words on bricks are seldom seen in other sections of the Great Wall. During the course of stripping in repairing this section of Great Wall, many cultural relics were unearthed: there are all kinds of weapons used by soldiers who had defended the Great Wall, including cone drums, stone slingers, iron arrowheads, grenades, three-barrel blunderbusses, iron cannonballs, gun-power spoons, etc. There are tools for producing and living used by the soldiers, including hoes, shovels, kitchen knives, iron lamp-cups, etc. The cultural relics mentioned above are very precious. They provide valuable practicality for studying Great Wall and history of Ming Dynasty.
The Great Wall is very important culture heritage not only in China, but also in the world. Simatai Great Wall is a bright pearl in this heritage. To protect this section of Great Wall and satisfy tourists’ requirements inland and abroad to appreciate graceful profile of the Great Wall, the scenic spot of Simatai Great Wall strengthens the protection work and develops tour simultaneously. This made the Simatai Great Wall feel no regret to the age and to evaluation of famous experts of the Great Wall, professor Luo Zhewn: “The Great Wall of China is wonder of the world, and Simatai is wonder of the Great Wall of China”. |
