Traces of Old Beijing, Wonders of Landscape and Time—Part Three: Inner City Gates of Ming and Qing (First Half)

The Mongol Yuan Dynasty was mighty on the battlefield, but it didn’t have the right genes for holding onto power. It hadn’t been even a century since Kublai Khan founded the Great Yuan in the first year of his Zhiyuan era (1271) when, in the tenth year of Emperor Huizong's Zhizheng reign (1350), peasant revolts broke out across the land. One uprising was started by the White Lotus Society, but it eventually fell into the hands of Zhu Yuanzhang, who turned it into a real force. Zhu Yuanzhang first built his strength in the south, and once he held the upper hand, he launched a northern campaign in the twenty-seventh year of Zhizheng (1367). In 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang ascended the throne in Yingtian (present-day Nanjing), becoming the Hongwu Emperor, and named his dynasty the Great Ming. That same year, his general Xu Da stormed right up to the walls of Dadu (the Yuan capital). Emperor Huizong of Yuan slipped out the back gate and fled without a fight. Zhu Yuanzhang saw this as the emperor stepping aside in line with heaven’s will, retreating north to Shangdu, and posthumously honored him as “Shun” (the compliant), which is why later generations call the last Yuan ruler Emperor Shun. From the founding of the Yuan in the first year of Zhiyuan until the loss of Dadu in the twenty-eighth year of Zhizheng, only ninety-seven years passed. From Shizu (Kublai Khan) to Huizong (Toghon Temür), eleven Mongol khans sat on the throne. The Yuan had the largest territory of any Chinese dynasty up to that point, saw considerable cultural development, and boomed with overseas trade. Yet the imperial clan never fully embraced Han identity, and the nobles refused to follow suit. As a result, the dynasty collapsed in under a century—one of the shortest in Chinese history.

After Xu Da took over Dadu, he inspected the occupied territory and found the northern part of the city rather desolate, with nothing to worry about there. So he decided to build a new northern wall running from Chongren Gate (today’s Dongzhimen) to Heyi Gate (Xizhimen), to serve as a defensive inner line against any Yuan counterattack and also function as the north wall of the inner city. Not only did he add this new north wall, but Xu Da also had the rammed-earth walls of all four sides of the inner city faced with bricks, strengthening their defensive power. Before the Ming Dynasty, most city walls were of stamped earth. Starting in the Ming, they were reinforced with brick. The famous ancient walled city of Pingyao in Shanxi also got its brick cladding in Ming times, and the best-preserved ancient city wall today, in Xi’an, likewise dates from the Ming.

Zhu Yuanzhang renamed Dadu as Beiping Prefecture, and he remained emperor in Nanjing for his entire life. In the thirty-first year of Hongwu (1398), Zhu Yuanzhang died and was buried at the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum in Nanjing, with the temple name Taizu. His eldest son had died early, so he passed the throne to his grandson Zhu Yunwen, known as Emperor Huizong, or by his reign title, the Jianwen Emperor. Once enthroned, Jianwen began pruning the power of the princedoms, demoting a number of princes enfeoffed by his grandfather. When it came time to cut down Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan, Zhu Di would have none of it. Using the pretext of “ridding the court of evil ministers,” he led his troops on the capital. After Zhu Di captured Nanjing, Jianwen vanished. Zhu Di naturally took the dragon throne, still scorched from the civil war’s flames, and sat down. Having seated himself, he changed the reign title and became the Yongle Emperor in the first year of Yongle (1402). In Yongle 3, Zhu Di renamed Beiping as Beijing.

Though Zhu Di had ascended the throne, he felt surrounded by Jianwen’s henchmen, and while Jianwen had disappeared, his ghost still lingered. So Zhu Di set up a factory called the Eastern Depot. The products of this factory were court cases—often fabricated ones—and even that didn’t cure his nervous insomnia. Thus, from the fourth year of Yongle, he began planning to move the capital to Beijing. Why move to Beijing? Since being named Prince of Yan in the third year of Hongwu (1370) and formally setting up his princely establishment in Beiping in the thirteenth year, Zhu Di had been building his power base there for decades. His family, his in-laws, all had huge compounds in Beiping; his network of allies was dense, and his trusted men controlled the local scene. It was the perfect place to cement his grip.

There’s also a piece of unofficial folk history. It says that when Zhu Di was enfeoffed as Prince of Yan and was about to set out from Nanjing to Beiping, the sage Liu Bowen tipped him off to seek out another shrewd advisor, Yao Guangxiao, at Tanzhe Temple, who would help the prince. Once in Beiping, Zhu Di actually did go searching and found Yao Guangxiao at Tanzhe Temple, tolling the bell every day as if waiting for him. Yao Guangxiao led Zhu Di up an unnamed height outside the temple, and there the two exchanged secret signals and plotted to one day set the Ming capital at the foot of the hills in Beiping. Later, people renamed that height Dingdu Peak, and in recent years, to boost tourism, they even built a pavilion on top called Dingdu Pavilion, as seen below.

That’s pure fiction. Yao Guangxiao became a monk in the Jiangnan region as a youth and later studied yin-yang philosophy under an old Daoist. When Zhu Yuanzhang was selecting monk-officials, he picked Yao from Jiangnan as a monk well-versed in Confucian learning and had him serve at court. Later, the emperor assigned him to accompany Zhu Di to Beiping, to chant sutras morning and evening for the late Empress Ma. While in Beiping, Yao never lived at Tanzhe Temple—that was far too remote from the Prince of Yan’s residence. He stayed at Qingshou Temple, a celebrated monastery from the Jin and Yuan periods, where he served as abbot. Qingshou Temple stood west of what is now the Telegraph Building; it once had twin pagodas, which were torn down when Chang’an Avenue was widened. Yao Guangxiao surely played a role in Zhu Di’s decision to move the capital to Beiping, but not on some so-called Dingdu Peak—rather at the Prince of Yan’s residence, where Yao was a frequent visitor.

At the time Zhu Di fixed the capital at Beijing, the city walls were still those that Xu Da had built in the Hongwu reign. The north wall had been pulled southward and still had only two gates: Andingmen, facing the former Anzhen Gate, to the east; and Deshengmen, facing Jiande Gate, to the west.

In 1915, the Nationalist government built the Beijing City Circle Railway, running from Xizhimen east along the north wall past Deshengmen, Andingmen, Dongzhimen, and Chaoyangmen, then connecting to the Beijing–Fengtian Railway at Dongbianmen. It remained in use until it was dismantled in 1971. Some parts of Andingmen and Deshengmen were demolished during that railway construction. In 1956, the Andingmen archery tower was torn down while demolishing the city wall, and in 1969 the main gate tower itself was razed to make way for the Circle Line subway. Andingmen has now completely vanished. In old times, Andingmen was the gate through which victorious armies returned to the city; normally, though, it was used by night-soil carts—Beijing’s central collection point for human waste was outside Andingmen back then. Now that function has moved outside the South Fourth Ring Road near Xiaocun Bridge, and one whiff tells you what business is done there.

The gate tower at Deshengmen was dismantled in 1921. In 1980, Deshengmen’s archery tower and a stretch of the barbican wall were restored, and what you see today still retains the look of the Ming-era archery tower. All the visible bricks, tiles, and wooden elements are new; only the rammed earth inside remains from the Ming.

In the Yuan Dynasty, Beijing’s eleven city gates had the archery tower and gate tower built as one. Toward the end of Emperor Huizong’s reign, to make it harder for peasant armies to break in, he reinforced the walls all around and added barbicans at every gate. Yet Emperor Shun never made use of these strong defenses and retreated without a fight. When Xu Da built the inner city walls, he kept the Yuan-style gates, including the barbicans.

Take a look at the archery tower, freshly painted in recent years—quite handsome.

That small hall below used to be a Guandi Temple inside the barbican.

Inside the barbicans of Beijing’s inner city gates, there was always a temple, usually dedicated to Guandi (Lord Guan). Only Andingmen had a Zhenwu Temple. When Deshengmen was repaired in 1980, the full barbican wasn’t reconstructed, but this Guandi Temple was rebuilt. Inside, it now houses an exhibition of old coins. The temple gate now serves as the entrance to the Deshengmen historic site. At the gate, I ran into an expert from the Cultural Relics Office, and we stepped outside to share a smoke. He told me that the stone door piers are original Ming pieces, preserved with great effort when the temple was torn down.

Let’s step inside the Guandi Temple.

According to the expert, when Deshengmen was restored in 1980, the little temple was completely derelict, and the statue of Lord Guan was lying on the ground outside. Forty years on, the temple needs repairs again and is closed to visitors. Small as it is, it will be restored to its original form.

Viewed from outside, the main hall is three bays wide and two bays deep, fronted by a protruding porch. The main hall has a single-eave hip-and-gable roof with grey tiles; the porch has a roll-shed flush-gable roof. This main hall is of Qing dynasty style and must have been rebuilt during that period. The gable planes formed by the vertical ridges are almost perpendicular to the ground, so the diagonal hip rafters are quite long. Roofs like this in the Qing usually have colonnades below; since there is none here, support eaves poles are needed under the diagonal rafters.

Flanking the main hall are side halls.

Even more surprising—there’s a diminutive bell and drum tower set. The place really is a sparrow, small as it is, yet complete with all organs. The bell and drum towers here are so tiny their sound couldn’t have carried far. You need to walk around to the side to ascend the archery tower.

Don’t be fooled by the curved wall—it has nothing to do with the original barbican. It’s just like an ear-hole. This is on the west side; the east side has a matching ear-hole. A plaque marks it as a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level, from the sixth batch. Next to it is a small courtyard, probably once barracks for the soldiers stationed in the barbican.

Notice the roll-shed flush-gable roof of that little house—one of the most common residential roof styles in Beijing. Only the brick-carved eave-end tiles and drip tiles hint that this was an official building.

Deshengmen should have a horse ramp, but none remains now. Climbing up onto the wall, the first things you see are two iron cannons.

In earlier days, it’s said, soldiers came up here at noon every day to fire a shot. This wasn’t because bandits attacked every noon; it was a time-announcing gun. The soldiers at Xuanwumen on the south wall did the same. Regardless of what clocks or watches people owned, north- and south-city residents set their time by that boom.

The archery towers of Beijing’s inner city gates are all pretty much alike—same structure. They are triple-layered towers with double-eave hip-and-gable roofs; between the upper two roof layers there’s an extra floor, and at the back is a five-bay, three-story enclosed porch. The loopholes first held mounted crossbows, later fire-lances, and even repeating guns. These weapons weren’t very accurate, but the enemy couldn’t withstand saturation fire, so most ragtag attackers would call it quits as soon as things got hot.

Taking off my hat and looking up at the eaves, the archery tower’s roof is a bracket-set structure. Below it, the lower level and the porch roof have post-and-beam framing.

Coming down, I went to look at the stone stele in front of Guandi Temple.

Both sides of this stele are completely effaced. One face was even carved with a board game grid, showing that it had once been laid flat and used for tabletop games. The inscription on both sides of the stele’s cap is still clear: on the front, “Record of Rebuilding the Temple of Emperor Guan”; on the back, “An Everlasting Good Name.” In the past, Emperor Gao referred to Lord Guan. This is a merit stele erected in the twenty-first year of Jiaqing (1797) in the Qing Dynasty. Before it was damaged, someone had taken a rubbing, and a very clear rubbing still exists.

There was once another stele inside Deshengmen’s barbican, earlier than this one. In the thirteenth year of Qianlong (1748), an imperial poem stele by the Qianlong Emperor was erected there. The previous spring, the emperor had passed through Deshengmen on his way back to the Forbidden City from the Imperial Garden (it isn’t specified whether it was the Old Summer Palace or the Garden of Everlasting Spring). Once back at the palace, he gave vent to his feelings and composed a doggerel verse. By today’s standards, Qianlong’s poetry is quite good, but back then it was probably on a par with Xiangling’s efforts in Dream of the Red Chamber. The stele in the Deshengmen barbican was engraved with that poem and even had an imperial stele pavilion built over it, which was also called the Yellow Pavilion. Both the pavilion and its stele have been destroyed. Some people once saw the smashed fragments of the tablet. Perhaps because the poem was, well, what it was, not a single rubbing was made during the two centuries it stood there, so naturally I saw neither stele nor rubbing at Deshengmen.

The name Deshengmen probably derives from the ancient veneration of the Dao and virtue: “Those with the Dao find support; those without it lose support.” Ming armies fancied themselves an army of virtue and righteousness, so when they went on campaign, they’d cry, “The Army of Virtue Shall Win!” and then march out this gate.

Outside the gate, on both east and west, there used to be a gate-tower controlling the drawbridge over the moat; both were torn down when the circle railway was built. The moat outside the archery tower is still there.

Once you crossed the drawbridge, you’d truly left the city. Before departing, you’d turn around to bid farewell to your folks. Back then, Ming troops had no military songs, so as they lined up to set out, they must have sung Xin Qiji’s recent verse: “Let my body be wrapped in horsehide—that I swear; don’t speak of lovely women’s harms anymore.” They’d march out along the path below, still paved with the old stone.

West of Deshengmen stands the gate at the northwest corner of the inner city. In the Yuan Dynasty it was called Heyi Gate; after Zhu Di made Beijing his capital, it was renamed Xizhimen. Xizhimen was the water gate, where water entered the city and flowed into Jishuitan. Even the imperial palace water was brought in through here, carted daily from Jade Spring Hill to the Forbidden City.

South of Xizhimen was Pingze Gate of the Yuan. Pingze means “fairness of the law.” The Mongols originally had no law, let alone writing. Genghis Khan borrowed from others to create a Mongol script and issued his decrees as the Great Yasa, a kind of supreme law. Yuan Dynasty law was a mess—some Tang elements, some Song forms—and never truly matured. By naming this gate Pingze, Kublai Khan showed his desire to establish a proper legal system.

Among the Beijing gates that have been torn down, even the few that have been restored lack one essential component: the gate plaques. Even the Deshengmen archery tower above has no plaque. These plaques have all been scattered and lost—except the stone plaque of Pingze Gate, which survives. It’s now at the Five Pagoda Temple north of the Beijing Zoo, as shown below.

You can still make out the date: “Sixth Year of Hongwu.” It wasn’t until the fourth year of Zhengtong (1439) that Emperor Yingzong (Zhu Qizhen) changed the name Pingze to Fuchengmen. The “Fu” here should be pronounced in the fourth tone, but Beijingers say it in the third tone. Fucheng comes from the Book of Documents: “The six ministers each lead their subordinates, guiding the many officials, to bring prosperity to the common people.” It means making the people prosperous and secure. Fuchengmen was the coal gate—coal from Mentougou west of the capital mostly came into the city through this gate.

All that was about the gates on the west wall. There are gates on the east wall, too. Starting from the north, the first is Dongzhimen, opposite Xizhimen. In the Yuan Dynasty, Dongzhimen was called Chongren Gate. After Zhu Di fixed the capital at Beijing, in the seventeenth year of Yongle it was renamed Dongzhimen. Demolition began in 1915 when the circle railway was built, and by 1958 almost everything was gone. Outside Dongzhimen, there used to be many brick and tile kilns, and timber shipped from the south also came into the city here. So, in ancient times, Dongzhimen was for construction materials. Even now, a large building-materials market stands near Dongzhimen.

The meanings of Dongzhimen and Xizhimen are unclear. One story says that because the Ming realm stretched so far, east straight to the Eastern Sea and west straight to the Kunlun Mountains, they were called Dongzhi (East Straight) and Xizhi (West Straight). That theory is unsubstantiated and can’t even serve as a reliable reference.

Next from Dongzhimen comes Chaoyangmen, a very important gate. In old times, it was for grain and forage, including officials’ salaries paid in rice. Even now, nearby place names like Haiyuncang and Lumicang preserve the memory of the old granaries. In the Yuan Dynasty, Chaoyangmen was called Qihua Gate. It was renamed Chaoyangmen after the Ming Zhengtong-era renovation of the nine inner city gates. Chaoyang means “facing the morning sun,” so named because it faces the direction of sunrise. When I traveled in Spain, I saw the Puerta del Sol in Madrid—that was ancient Madrid’s Sun Gate, also named for facing the sunrise. In the royal palaces of France and Italy, the king’s bedchamber always had windows facing east, placed right at the center of the second floor.

When Zhu Di made Beijing his capital and built the Forbidden City, he discovered that the new palace was too close to the south wall. So in the fifteenth year of Yongle, he began shifting the south wall further south from the Chang’an Avenue line to its present location. The three gates on the southern wall of the Yuan capital’s outer city—Shunchengmen, Lizhengmen, and Wenmingmen, from west to east—were moved and renamed Xuanwumen, Zhengyangmen, and Chongwenmen. In the Yuan, the stretch of wall from Shunchengmen to Lizhengmen wasn’t straight but bulged outward, in order to enclose Qingshou Temple (near today’s Xidan) within the city. Why? Because Kublai Khan wanted to save Qingshou Temple for later use by Yao Guangxiao.

To learn about the gates on the inner city’s south wall, stay tuned for the next installment.