Ancient City Wall used to be a huge systematic defending system and now the biggest and best preserved ancient city wall in China. In 1961, the Ancient City Wall was listed the Cultural Relics of National Importance under the Protection of the State. And in 1983, the city government began to invest 10 million Yuan to restore the City Wall and built a public park around the wall. After that, the moat water was cleaned again and again, and now the Ancient City Wall takes on an altogether new aspect.

History

The Xi’an Ancient City Wall was extended in Ming dynasty (1368 A.D.-1644 A.D.) based on the Tang dynasty (618 A.D.-907 A.D.) Imperial Palace. In Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor came into line with a hermit name Zhu Sheng that “built high walls, store abundant food supplies and take time to be an Emperor” and ordered to enlarge the original Tang dynasty Imperial Palace. This is the reason why we call the city wall Ming Dynasty City Wall in nowadays.

After the Ming dynasty extension, the wall now stands 12 meters (40 feet) tall, 12-14 meters (40-46 feet) wide at the top and 15-18 meters (50-60 feet) thick at the bottom. It covers 13.7 kilometers (8.5 miles) in length with a deep moat surrounding it. Every 120 meters, there is a rampart which extends out from the main wall. All together, there are 98 ramparts on the wall, which were built to defend against the enemy climbing up the wall. Each rampart has a sentry building, in which the soldiers could protect the entire wall without exposing themselves to the enemy. Besides, the distance between every two ramparts is just within the range of an arrow shot from either side, so that they could shoot the enemy, who wanted to attack the city, from the side. On the outer side of the city wall, there are 5948 crenellations, namely battlements. The soldiers can outlook and shoot at the enemy. On the inner side, parapets were built to protect the soldiers from falling off.

Construction

Xi’an City Wall includes four main gates in each direction, with Changle Gate (means eternal joy) in the east, Anding Gate (harmony peace) in the west, Yongning Gate (eternal peace) in the south and Anyuan Gate (forever harmony) in the north. Each gate was made up of 3 parts: Zhalou (bridge tower), Jianlou (arrow tower) and Zhenglou (main tower). Because around the city wall, there are moat surround it, and the bridge connecting the outer city and inner city became the only entry and exit in ancient times. Zhalou (bridge tower) used to be the tower who was in charge of rising and landing the bridge. Jianlou (arrow tower) with small windows in the front and flanks was used as a defensive outpost. Zhenglou, the main tower of the city gate stands in the inner, is the main entrance to the city. The area between Zhenglou (main tower) and Jianlou (arrow tower) called Whengcheng, which means Jar. For that army who came to the area of Wengcheng, they were probably killed by arrows from soldiers on the main tower and arrow tower.

Xi’an City Wall has been restored three times in history. In 1568, Zhang Zhi (the local government officer of that period) rebuilt the city wall with bricks (originally it was a dirt city wall). In 1781, another officer, Bi Yuan, restored the city wall and the gate towers. The most recent restore of the city wall was in 1983 by local provincial government. In nowadays, the moat was cleaned time and time again. In addition of the circular park, the city wall now is a must see in Xi’an.

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