Great Wall - Yangguan

Yangguan Pass is located west of Dunhuang and it’s essentially the end of the Great Wall. It was a major stronghold on the western border of the Han Dynasty, alongside Yumenguan Pass, east of Dunhuang. Emperor Wu ordered the construction of the two passes to protect the frontier and Dunhuang. The two passes were connected by a 40mi (64km) wall interspersed with beacon towers at 3mi (5km) intervals.   

Both passes served as trading posts on the Silk Road, providing food and water supplies to travellers and armies. Just like Dunhuang, Yangguan profited from the Silk Road trade, until its decline during the Ming era.

With the exception of one beacon tower, nothing else remains of the pass as it was buried beneath the sand dunes, long ago. However, there is a museum in its place exhibiting thousands of items from the two passes and the Silk Road.

The Great Wall is a remarkable structure, built by multiple dynasties across two millennia. It spans over 13,000mi (21,000km) across various parts of China. A lot of effort went into protecting the northern and northwest borders. Mountains and rivers were used as natural barriers and earth, reeds, bricks and stones were used to build and reinforce the Walls. Millions of people were conscripted to work on the Wall and many died on the job. Various ethnic groups ruled, each empire replacing the other through a series of rebellions or military campaigns.

The Great Wall is a Chinese cultural icon and a symbol of its unification. It is a representation of stoicism, cohesiveness and national pride. It has inspired paintings, poems, operas, stories and legends. But most of all it is an engineering marvel.

Let me leave you with a famous folk story called, The Tears of Meng Jiangnu:

Meng Jiangnu met and fell in love with the fugitive scholar, Fan Xiliang. Not long after they were married, Fan was found by the Imperial Guards and promptly dragged away as a prisoner to work on the Great Wall. Meng waited for him day and night. When winter came and Fan did not return, she packed some warm clothes and began her long journey to search for him. When she arrived at the Wall, she was informed that Fan had died and was buried inside the Great Wall. Devastated, she wept for days at the Wall until a section of it collapsed. There in the crumbled heap, Meng found her husband’s bones. She carefully wrapped them in his winter clothes and made the long journey home where Fan had a proper burial.

I may have started at the Old Dragon’s Head near the Bohai Sea but I think I have finally found the dragon’s tail. How about you?




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Great Wall - Laoniu Bay

Laoniu Bay sits at the junction of Shanxi Province to the south and Inner Mongolia to the north. It is where the Great Wall meets the mighty Yellow River and then runs alongside it for the next 44mi (70km). A lone, ruined beacon tower stands at the end of the headland.

The Yellow River has an amazing journey across China. Its source is in the Bayan Har Mountains, Western China at an elevation of 15,700ft (4,800m) and it flows east until it empties in the Bohai Sea. It is the second longest river in China, after the Yanghtze, and the sixth longest in the world.

Heading east, the river runs through two large freshwater lakes, Gyaring and Ngoring. The water is crystal clear with a steady flow. It then makes two loops, first is northwest, followed by northeast, before it takes a sharp southern turn until it turns east again for its final flow into the sea.

The upper river travels through pastures, swamps, knolls and peat bog. The terrain along its banks changes from steep cliffs to deserts and grasslands. When it reaches the middle section, the river runs through the Loess Plateau, where large amounts of mud and sand end up in the river, giving it the muddy-yellow colour. Each year approximately 1.4 billion tonnes of silt are carried to the sea. In 1933, a record 3.9 billion tonnes of silt were discharged into the river from the plateau. The flow here is powerful, making it a great location for hydroelectric plants. When it reaches the lower section, the river slows down and sometimes it even dries up before reaching the sea.

The Yellow River has flooded many times, causing enormous losses of life and destruction. It has also been used as a military tactic by sabotaging canals and reservoirs or intentionally flooding warring states. Sometimes such plans backfire, as it did in 1642, when a Ming governor ordered the dikes to be broken in the hope that it would flood the rebels. Instead, it destroyed his city, causing famine and a plague that killed nearly 80% of its population.

Over the course of the last 2,500 years, it is estimated that the Yellow River has flooded nearly 1,600 times. It has also changed its course noticeably 26 times and severely at least 9 times. The most significant change was in the 12th century when instead of flowing into the Bohai Sea, as it usually does, it shifted so far south that it flowed into the Yellow Sea. It took 700 years for the Yellow River to return to its more northerly course.



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