1,500 years ago, the Great Wall was built here to defend against foreign enemies. Seventy-eight years ago, the Japanese army invading China was surrendered here. Gubeikou Town, Miyun District, Beijing, 130 kilometers from the North Fifth Ring Road, between the Chaohe River and the Yanshan Mountains, the Great Wall of the ancient town winds in the mountains, and is historically the first military defense line in northeast Beijing. Today, there are memorials, homestays, restaurants and craft workshops at the foot of the Great Wall.
Relying on the construction of the Great Wall Cultural Belt and the Great Wall National Cultural Park, since 2020, Gubeikou Town has launched three Great Wall cultural visit theme routes: "Road to Victory", "National Anthem Great Wall" and "Magnificent Mountains and Rivers". According to the person in charge of Gubeikou Town, relying on rich ecological resources and profound historical and cultural resources, the town develops new industries and new formats such as rural tourism and leisure agriculture in accordance with local conditions, organically connects the Great Wall, temples, border plugs and other cultures, and provides a different cultural experience for people who watch the Great Wall and visit the countryside.
On August 22, the "Twenty-Four Eyes Tower" enemy Taiwan City Tower, where tourists enjoyed the scenery of the Great Wall. Photo by Beijing News reporter Zhao Lixin
The "covered in scales" of the city bricks bears witness to the history of guarding the hometown
The summer wind howls through the remaining large and small brick holes in the walls of the Great Wall of Panlong Mountain. Panlongshan Great Wall is in the middle section of the Gubeikou Great Wall, and it forms the core of the defense of the Gubeikou Great Wall at the same time as the Crouching Tiger Mountain Great Wall, Tiemen Pass and Shuiguan Great Wall, with a total length of five kilometers. This section of the Great Wall has not been overhauled, and the walls are covered with bullet holes left by the war years, and some of the walls have a distinctly black color.
Guan Xuefeng, a 48-year-old villager in Gubeikou Town, is a medium-sized, black and skinny man who became a guide to take tourists around the Great Wall two years ago. He is always excited when he mentions the Panlongshan Great Wall to outsiders, saying that the ruined and restored Great Wall is like a book, and its vicissitudes are more shocking than the words on the paper.
On August 22, Guan Xuefeng walked on the Great Wall of Panlong Mountain. Photo by Beijing News reporter Zhao Lixin
Some of the walls are densely packed with bullet holes that cannot be counted, and some of the masonry in the middle of the wall has been powdered by guns and shells, and then subjected to long-term weathering, and now only a hole of the same shape remains. "It can be seen that back then, the war was terrible." Guan Xuefeng would sigh so much every time he mentioned the remnants of the Great Wall.
Since he was a child, Guan Xuefeng often listened to his father's story of the Gubeikou Village and the Great Wall War of Resistance, and in 1933, the Great Wall War broke out, and from March 10 to May 12 of that year, Chinese officers and soldiers bravely resisted the Japanese attack in the Gubeikou area, and many patriotic officers and soldiers sacrificed their lives for the country. After the defeat of the Great Wall Resistance, the local people collected the bodies of the fallen soldiers and buried them in the west of Gubeikou City.
Li Junchen, a native of Gubeikou Town, is in his 50s this year, gray-haired, and a government worker in Gubeikou Town, and he has participated in the protection of the Simatai Great Wall, Wohushan Great Wall and Panlongshan Great Wall since 1997. For nearly three decades, he regularly patrolled the Great Wall in search of stories about it.
On August 22, on the Great Wall of Panlongshan, Li Junchen, a government worker of Gubeikou Town, explained the history of Gubeikou to tourists. Photo by Beijing News reporter Zhao Lixin
On August 22, in an enemy platform on the Panlongshan Great Wall, he looked back and forth at the bricks and stones on the wall and paced repeatedly, "This is a bullet hole, the hole is so deep, it may have been hit by a rifle at close range." Has there ever been an encounter here? "He once found an artillery battery in the process of cleaning up broken bricks and weeds during a repair project in the western section of the Panlongshan Great Wall Scenic Area, which was initially identified by experts as from the Ming Dynasty; He once found a text brick engraved with "Heda Construction" on the east 5th floor of the Simatai Great Wall, and a text brick engraved with "Gubei Road Construction" on the Wangjing Tower.
"It's fun to watch the Great Wall, and it's even more fun to protect the Great Wall." When you find the words and bullet holes on the bricks, you are as surprised as if you have returned to the historical scene. Li Junchen said that in the protection of the Great Wall, each link of work can always unearth different historical traces, which makes people feel the value of doing this job.
The "Wild Great Wall" is guarded by special personnel, and the scenic Great Wall has signs
Not all Great Wall sites are open to the public. In Gubeikou Town, the Great Wall of Huangyugou Duan, the Great Wall of Northern Qi in Chaoguan Village, and the Ming Great Wall in Badaolouzi are not open to the public and are called "wild Great Wall" by tourists. For example, the Great Wall of Northern Qi, which has a history of more than 1,400 years, has collapsed into a gravel belt after more than a thousand years of weathering. Since 2020, Cao Yonghe, a local villager in his 50s, has come here at least three times a week to pick up garbage from the site, dissuade wild tourists from returning, and transmit photos of the site to the conservation department.
The narrow mountain road, which was uninhabited for a few days, was blocked by thorny shrubs and herbs. Cao Yonghe usually went up the mountain with a sickle to clean up the wattle grass. Although the Great Wall can be seen from home when you look up, it takes three or four hours on foot to reach the ruins of the Great Wall.
On the way to the Great Wall, the rangers often encountered wild animals, and Cao Yonghe had seen ocelots, roe deer, badgers, and snakes. He once thought that the ocelot was a leopard, and after seeing it, he hid behind a stone and did not move; On a narrow mountain road in summer, he encountered a two-meter-long green snake crossing the road, and a cool air suddenly appeared on his back. But he did not flinch: "We grew up under the Great Wall, and to protect the Great Wall is to protect our home." ”
Compared with the wild Great Wall, the scenic Great Wall open to the public has a relatively complete wall structure, and there is no lack of beautiful enemy tower towers.
Li Junchen especially liked the two enemy platforms in the Great Wall section of Panlongshan, the "General Building" and the "Twenty-Four Eyes Tower". The "General Building" has four arrow windows on the north and south sides, and the inside of the brick layer is a mixture of triad earth and stone, and the building structure is square and neat. When Li Junchen introduced to foreign tourists, he always praised the "General Building" building, "This building is strong and beautiful, and those lookouts were used by homesick soldiers at that time to look at their hometowns, and also to survey the enemy's situation." ”
August 22, the exterior of the "Twenty-Four Eyes Building". Photo by Beijing News reporter Zhao Lixin
The "24 Eyes Building" is named for the six-hole arrow windows on each wall and two floors, and the 24-hole arrow windows and desk doors on all sides. On August 22, the reporter visited the building and found that the city tower currently has two relatively complete exterior walls, with a steel frame supporting the wall inside, and the steel frame and the wall are fastened with a cable. According to the signboard, the protection adopts the least disturbance of the original relics and maintains the sense of simple vicissitudes of the site as much as possible, reflecting the concept of minimal intervention in the protection of cultural relics.
Each open enemy tower has a sign. Tourists can scan the QR code above to understand the history and construction information of the enemy platform. According to the person in charge of Gubeikou Town, the open section of the Gubeikou Great Wall Scenic Area is equipped with rich Great Wall cultural explanation signs, which will help visitors understand the history of the Great Wall, the structure of facilities, the causes of diseases, and the protection concept; In addition, the Great Wall cultural sign interpretation system has been set up in the scenic area, and an online mini program and interpretation system have been integrated, which further enhances the digitalization and display of the Great Wall protection work.
At noon on August 22, Guan Xuefeng was explaining the history of the Panlongshan Great Wall to tourists. Photo by Beijing News reporter Zhao Lixin
With the help of the Great Wall culture to develop cultural tourism, the traditional ancient village embraces the times
Chen Baizhuo, who is in his 60s, lives in the north of Gubeikou Town. At dusk and sunset, the streets of the ancient town were quiet, Chen Baipile picked up a broom to sweep the fallen leaves in front of the door, and less than a hundred meters away from him, there was a stone monument. The setting sun illuminates the red characters on it: Gubeikou invading the place where the Japanese army in China was surrendered.
On the afternoon of August 22, the memorial site of the surrender of the Japanese army invading China at Gubeikou. Photo by Beijing News reporter Zhao Lixin
On the afternoon of September 13, 1945, the anti-Japanese armed forces led by the Communist Party of China and the Soviet Red Army held a surrender ceremony in the playground of the Japanese barracks in Gubeikou. At that time, the highest commander of the Japanese army stationed in Gubeikou, Honno Shaosa, handed over the signed surrender document and command knife to the representatives of China and the Soviet Union, and ordered the Japanese troops present to clear the bullets and raise their guns above their heads with both hands. The Chinese and Soviet representatives signed the surrender documents and accepted the surrender of the Japanese army.
Gubeikou Town is a place to witness the victory of the Chinese people against foreign invaders. In recent years, Gubeikou Town has opened up a "Victory Road" cultural visit route. The line has landmarks such as the surrender site of the Japanese army invading China, Victory Square, and the Memorial Hall, and can host activities such as red study and anti-Japanese war lecture hall. At present, the cultural tourism route has received more than 100,000 tourist groups.
Relying on the Great Wall culture, every village in Gubeikou Town is building a distinctive cultural tourism industry. Before entering Gubeikou Village, people will pass a courtyard gate with the inscription "Ancient Royal Road", which is a north-south street, which connects the majestic city wall and the magnificent temple and courtyard, and the main street extends from east to west with many secondary alleys, lined with blue-tile houses where villagers live.
Song Liyin, 40-year-old party branch secretary of Gubeikou Village, said that Gubeikou Village is excavating local cultural resources and developing the village economy. Today, there are antique residential buildings scattered on both sides of the ancient royal road, which are used for homestays and restaurants. Song Liyin told reporters that Gubeikou Village was historically a camp city, bringing together soldiers and merchants from Tiannanhaibei, so there are many folk customs and delicacies in the village, including Gubeikou baked cakes, Beikou noodle tea, bean noodle rice cakes, donkey rolling, large and small yellow rice dumplings, refreshing cold powder, gourd fried shredded meat, etc., and there are also hundreds of handicraft skills such as rattan weaving, weaving, winemaking, grinding tofu, paper cutting, and oil pressing.
In October 2022, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the Notice on the List of Villages to be Included in the Sixth Batch of Chinese Traditional Villages List. There are four villages in Beijing on the list, of which Gubeikou Town accounts for two: Hexi Village and Chaoguan Village. As early as November 17, 2014, Gubeikou Village was announced by seven departments including the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development as the third batch of traditional Chinese villages.
"The Great Wall is national and world-oriented." Song Liyin told reporters that on the basis of protecting traditional buildings and traditional culture, Gubeikou Village will develop catering and tourism that meet the tastes of modern people, and will focus on mining red cultural resources in the future and cooperating with the government to create relevant tourism routes, so that the Great Wall culture, folk customs, and food in the village will attract tourists from all over the world.
Beijing News reporter Zhao Lixin
Edited by Zhang Shujing Proofread by Liu Baoqing