It is often seen in film and television dramas that the official title of "Nine Gate Admiral" is the so-called Nine Gate Admiral, that is, the official responsible for the defense of the Beijing Division. The Nine Gates refer to the nine gates of the original Imperial City.
Turning to today's map of Beijing, we can still see a lot of place names named after the gate, although many have been replaced with new buildings, but these surviving city gates and place names still add a distinct historical and cultural color to Beijing City.
Today, we will talk about the former Nine Gates of the Beijing Division. As we all know, the old city of Beijing was built on the basis of the Yuan Capital, rebuilt and developed by the Ming and Qing dynasties. Its central area is miyagi as the core, with the imperial city, the inner city and the outer city three city walls arch guard, the city gate is known as "inner nine outside the seven imperial city four".
The so-called "Nine Gates of the Beijing Division" refers to the original nine city gates along the Second Ring Road in Beijing, with Dongzhimen and Chaoyangmen in the east; Chongwenmen, Zhengyangmen and Xuanwumen in the south; Xizhimen and Fuchengmen in the west; and Deshengmen and Andingmen in the north.
Nine doors have their own uses, in the words of old Beijing, that is, "nine doors walk nine cars". The Three Gates of the South Wall are the gates that control traffic between the inner and outer cities.
Zhengyang Gate, commonly known as the front door, is majestic and magnificent, and is located in the center. It is a special passage for dragon cars. Not only is the city tower gate exquisite in construction, but it is also the tallest building in Beijing in the Ming Dynasty, which is only for the emperor's royal driver to enter and exit, so it is also called the national gate.
Under normal circumstances, the emperor would go to and from the country twice a year, once to sting, to cultivate at the first farm altar, and once in winter, to the Temple of Heaven to worship the heavens.
Chongwen Gate, also known as Hade Gate, specializes in wine trucks, and outside the city is the wine road. At that time, most of the royal liquor was transported from Zhuozhou and other places in Hebei, so it was natural to enter the city of Beijing to take the south gate.
Outside the Xuanwu Gate is the Caishikou where the execution site is located, so Xuanwu Gate generally takes the prisoner car. For this reason, the common people called Xuanwu Gate the door of death. General prisoners were determined by the Punishment Department after examination and approval, came out of Xuanwu Gate, and asked to be beheaded at caishikou. Therefore, there is also a stone stele under the arrow tower, which is engraved with three big characters of 'regret late'".
The second gate of The West Wall is an important passage for the royal family to draw coal and water. Fuchengmen takes coal trucks, because the Mentougou area west of Beijing is a place where coal is produced, and most of the coal used in Beijing is transported from this area, so coal trucks go to Fuchengmen.
Fuchengmen's UrnChengmen Cave is carved with a bouquet of plum blossoms by coal merchants, because of the harmonic sound of ''coal'' and ''plum'', whenever the north wind whistles in winter and the sky is white, people who use coal for heating will praise ''Fucheng plum blossom warm spring''".
Xizhimen water wheel, because the previous Beijing city did not have running water, so the imperial city's royal water is from the Yuquan Mountain sweet water, to and from the Xizhimen, so Xizhimen Wengcheng carved Han white jade water pattern stone carvings.
The North Wall has only two side gates, which are closer to the central axis and are an important gateway to beijing. Deshengmen was specially used as a walking military vehicle during the Ming and Qing dynasties, and all foreign soldiers were sent out from Deshengmen. Deshengmen has the meaning of "winning with virtue", so sending troops to Deshengmen is also to have a good omen.
During the Ming Dynasty orthodoxy, during the Jingtai period, the Beijing Defense War fought fiercely with the Wallachian Mongols here, and the Qing Dynasty Kangxi Three Expeditions to Geldan also entered and exited from this gate. There is also a Qi stone stele of the Qianlong Emperor's imperial book in Wengcheng, so it is called "Desheng Stone Jie".
Andingmen manure truck, this is mainly because the former Temple of Earth near the main manure yard in Beijing, the city's manure with manure trucks transported to the Temple of Earth, unloaded and spread, after the sun dried, sold to farmers as fertilizer. Therefore, there are few people in Andingmen.
The second gate of Dongyuan is a busy area for grain freight. Chaoyang Gate walks a grain truck, so there is a grain ear carved on the top of the city gate cave of Chaoyang Gate.
After the grain entered the Chaoyang Gate, it was stored in the nearby granary, so the place names in the current Chaoyang Gate also include ''Lumi Warehouse'',''
Dongzhimen walked timber, brick and tile cars, and most of the timber needed to build the city of Beijing in the early Ming Dynasty was transported into the city of Beijing through this gate. During the Qing Dynasty, the wood from the south was often stored outside the Dongzhimen, so the Dongzhimen were also commonly known as ''wooden doors''".
Each of the nine doors has its own purpose and characteristics, showing the deep historical heritage of old Beijing.