Photos! Huachangyu Photos

[Kim]

I did plan to go to Dongjiakou today with a short stop in Huachangyu, however Huachangyu proved much more interesting than expected and during the day dense fog turned into rain, so I spend some time exploring the Huachangyu area, which must be considered yet another Eastern Hebei Great Wall Treasure

Examples of early and late Ming wall is located very close to each other - only about 30 meters apart - the below photo is taken from the late Ming wall and show the early Ming wall with very well preserved stone tower.



There are two well preserved early Ming towers along the early Ming wall. Both of them seem to have some late Ming brickwork addition at the top.



Late Ming towers at the north side of the pass.



North of the road the early Ming wall can be seen to the left and the late Ming wall to the right.



Late Ming wall south of the pass.



At the top on the south side of the pass the wall change from brick to stone - perhaps this is were the late and early wall meet. The early wall was made of stone and the late wall of brick.



Late Ming dynasty wall.



Early Ming on the left and late Ming on the right.



Early Ming on the left and late Ming on the right.



Notice the size of the early Ming towers by comparison to the truck.



Beacon tower west of the pass.



The terrain in this area is very dangerous and consist mainly of very steep mountains that requires a lot of climbing experience and the right equipment to hike. The GW in this area mainly consist of scattered watch towers and some short wall sections.

[Kim]

West of Huachangyu there is another pass not mentioned in the books (at least I've never heard of it). The pass is located about 2 kilometres nortwest of Huachangyu and consist of a stone wall. By the look of it I guess it might be an early Ming wall. There is a late Ming watch tower in the mountains overlooking the pass so it was probably also used during the late Ming dynasty.

Stone wall.



Not much is left of the wall at this location.



Stone wall.



The wall continues on the mountains at the other side of the valley. Notice the remnants of a tower in the middle of the picture.





The wall continues on the mountains at the other side of the valley.

[andarchen]

Wonderful introduction ! it is hard to find from Google earth there were two walls in Huayangyu pass without your report , thank for your sharing . GW bible has few information on fortress of Huachangyu .
"fortress of Huachangyu locates 250 meters away from GW ，and total length of fortress's wall are 250 meters ，bricks wall ."
I made a satellite image of Huachangyu as below , two red lines are GW as you said, and white line could be wall of fortress, for your reference .

[Kim]

Originally Posted by andarchen

Wonderful introduction ! it is hard to find from Google earth there were two walls in Huayangyu pass without your report , thank for your sharing . GW bible has few information on fortress of Huachangyu .
"fortress of Huachangyu locates 250 meters away from GW ，and total length of fortress's wall are 250 meters ，bricks wall ."
I made a satellite image of Huachangyu as below , two red lines are GW as you said, and white line could be wall of fortress, for your reference .

Thanks, that's the fortress I saw but no sign of brick wall there today - only the stone foundation.

Does the GW bible mention the wall at this location: 40° 9'54.12"N 119°30'12.71"E ?

[Bryan]

Thank you for the excellent photos and information!

[andarchen]

Originally Posted by Kim

Thanks, that's the fortress I saw but no sign of brick wall there today - only the stone foundation.

Does the GW bible mention the wall at this location: 40° 9'54.12"N 119°30'12.71"E ?

No. The picture of tower you took looks like collapsed completely , it might be built very early dynasty .

[Kim]

Originally Posted by andarchen

No. The picture of tower you took looks like collapsed completely , it might be built very early dynasty .

Some Ming walls are very damaged, so it is not impossible that it would be Ming.

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Kim

I don't recall ever having seen a tower like this before, stone on the bottom and bricks at the top. In your experience, is that very unusual? Would you guess it was originally built in early Ming Dynasty and then the top was added (or re-done) later?

[Kim]

Originally Posted by greatwallforum

I don't recall ever having seen a tower like this before, stone on the bottom and bricks at the top. In your experience, is that very unusual? Would you guess it was originally built in early Ming Dynasty and then the top was added (or re-done) later?

There are some well preserved stone towers along the early Ming wall at Banchangyu that seem to have stone crenels. The tower in question is shown in the book "The Great Wall in Funing" but it contains no information on when the tower was build. There are also several other stone towers in Hebei, but I don't remember seeing them with brick crenels before.

Close to the tower there is an almost similar tower with no brick crenels.



My guess would be that these towers was build, together with the two towers at the western wall, during the early Ming dynasty and then reused by the late Ming constructors. The towers that were in good condition was left as they were and damaged crenels was replaced by bricks.

[andarchen]

Originally Posted by greatwallforum

I don't recall ever having seen a tower like this before, stone on the bottom and bricks at the top. In your experience, is that very unusual? Would you guess it was originally built in early Ming Dynasty and then the top was added (or re-done) later?

You are right ! the crenels were added later . and it is very usual in Heibei east .it is its drawing at Chinese GW forum .