◇From salvage protection, to preventive protection, to research protection, the protection of the Great Wall itself is accelerating
◇"The systematic planning and construction of the Great Wall National Cultural Park will help to string together the stories of the Great Wall contained in different cultural relics and cultural resources in different regions into 'comic books', helping people today to understand the spiritual world of the ancients." ”
◇The reporter walked from east to west, along the Hexi corridor, passing through Wuwei, Zhangye, Dunhuang and other places, and saw that in the process of protecting and inheriting cultural heritage, more new scenes of interaction between the Great Wall and people, nature and humanities have been constructed, and the vision of sharing the fruits of protection for everyone has been brought into reality
Text | "Outlook" Newsweek reporter He asked
The Great Wall of Ming in Shandan County, Zhangye City, Gansu Province (taken on May 16, 2023) Photo by Chen Bin/This magazine
"Such a high, such a thick wall, not falling for six hundred years, how was it built?" This is a question that Zhao Junshan, a 51-year-old protector of the Great Wall, often ponders.
His gaze rested on Dujiadun, an enemy platform standing alone in the desert, located in Minqin County, Wuwei, Gansu Province, and was built on the wall of the Great Wall in ancient times for key defensive purposes.
Gansu is the "Great Wall Province", with a total of 3,654 kilometers of the Great Wall in its territory, accounting for about one-fifth of the total length of the Great Wall in the country. The western starting point of the Great Wall of the Warring States Qin and Han and Ming dynasties is located here. Across the Yellow River, on the plateau, over the snow, over the desert, the Great Wall follows the mountain trend, undulating, winding in the Longyuan land, in the majestic mountains and Gobi deserts, leaving a simple vicissitudes, mighty historical atmosphere.
For thousands of years, the Great Wall has stood tall as a representative symbol of the Chinese nation and an important symbol of Chinese civilization. The ancient Great Wall has witnessed the unremitting efforts of excavating the cultural value of the Great Wall in the new era, inheriting and innovating on the basis of protection, and continuing the Chinese roots with the spirit of the times.
Research protection accelerates upgrades
"The ancestors are amazing." This is a sentence that Cho Junshan often reads.
Looking back at history, in order to ensure the smooth flow of the Silk Road and the long-term peace and stability of the northwestern frontier, the Han and Ming dynasties built a Great Wall construction system that stretched for thousands of kilometers and was connected by beacons and piers and gates to watch each other.
Among them, the Hexi corridor from Wusheling in the east to Yumen Pass in the west, there are more than 1,400 kilometers of the Great Wall of Han and more than 1,200 kilometers of the Great Wall of Ming, known as the "Great Wall Open-air Museum". After years and natural carving, most of the relatively well-preserved Great Wall in the Hexi Corridor can still reach 4~5 meters in height.
Unlike the Great Wall of Masonry, the Great Wall in the northwest is mostly built of loess. The technology of using plates as molds and then filling soil with rods has a long history in China. The construction technology of the Great Wall is an "upgraded version": the rammed Great Wall generally uses "cooked soil", that is, the construction soil is crushed and fried or treated at high temperatures. "The soil made in this way is not easy to grow grass after being compacted, and the wall is stable." He Shuangquan, a research librarian at the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said.
In addition, the Great Wall of the Hexi Corridor has also adopted innovative technologies of plant sandwich and rammed earth sandwich to use the traction of plant roots to maintain the stability of the rammed earth wall. Firewood and grass as "steel bars", sand and stone as "concrete" - at the site of the Great Wall of Han in Dunhuang, the rammed form of a layer of sand and a layer of reed red willow is clearly visible.
In the long years spanning thousands of years, the "aging" of the Great Wall is inevitable. In some places, diseases such as alkali at the root of the wall, erosion and indentation of the wall, weathering of the surface rammed earth, and cracks are common. In order to maintain the cultural relics of the Great Wall, Gansu Province has organized and implemented more than 90 protection and repair projects of the Great Wall, including emergency reinforcement, maintenance and repair, flood control and drainage, wind prevention and sand fixation, etc.
Qiu Jian, deputy director of the Gansu Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, told the "Outlook" newsweek reporter that from rescue protection, to preventive protection, to research protection, the protection of the Great Wall itself is accelerating and escalating.
Taking Jiayuguan Guancheng as an example, in addition to strengthening patrols with the help of drones and other technical means, the local cultural protection department has also installed more than 150 high-precision sensors, and set up a variety of instruments to monitor and analyze real-time diseases that endanger the safety of cultural relics such as cracking and weathering of the Great Wall wall, and formulating maintenance plans based on this.
The reporter saw in the multi-field coupling laboratory of cultural relics protection of the Dunhuang Academy that researchers applied temperature and humidity effects such as wind, sun, and rain to a 1:1 replica of rammed earth city wall, monitored the changes in sample data in real time, and previewed the possible diseases of the Great Wall cultural relics and cultural heritage several years later.
"We want to deepen our understanding and awareness of the Great Wall while avoiding sampling." Pei Qiangqiang, deputy director of the Institute of Conservation of the Dunhuang Academy, said that at present, the biggest difficulty in the protection and restoration of the Great Wall lies in the comprehensive restoration of ancient construction techniques.
"There are records of glutinous rice milk as a binder in the literature. But hundreds of years have passed, the organic matter in the wall has been decomposed, in what proportion did the ancients modulate? We're still figuring it out. Pei Qiangqiang said, "The construction of the indicative theory of the Great Wall construction culture has a scientific basis for restoring the Great Wall." ”
Systematically explore the cultural value of the Great Wall
The Great Wall is leisurely, spanning mountains and rivers, witnessing changes in the wind and clouds, and embodying the Chinese nation's unremitting fighting spirit of self-improvement and the patriotic feelings of unity and perseverance. Looking at the imprints of civilization on the Great Wall and listening to the Chinese stories stacked behind the Great Wall is like filling the flesh and blood for the spiritual soul of the Chinese nation, making it more vivid and full.
——"In October of the first year of Yuankang, Ren Yin Shuo Jiachen, Guan Qifu Guangde Zuoxi dared to say: Zhao Zhao in the Dunhuang Shouling Tomb said to himself, husband? For the long autumn, to the clothes to use, to order the customs. Dare to speak up. ”
This simple mound unearthed at the Han Dynasty beacon site in Dunhuang's Mahuan Bay is actually an "application" for customs clearance: in 65 BC, a woman named Zhao Zhao in the Dunhuang Shouling Tomb requested to go out of the Yumen Pass to send warm clothes to her husband who was guarding outside the gate.
- "Jiayuguan, the planning is complete." The craftsman is careful and diligent, and the materials used for good work are not strict, and only a brick remains. ”
This is a poem written by Great Wall expert Luo Zhewen for "a brick". According to legend, during the Ming Zhengde period, there was a cultivator named Yi Kaizhan. He accurately estimated that 99,999 bricks would be needed to build Jiayuguan. After the completion of the project, the supervisor found an extra brick and placed it on the eaves behind the gate tower of the West Urn City. He wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make a challenge and deduct the wages of the craftsmen. Yi Kaizhan called this a "fixed city brick", and bluntly said that if it was moved, the city tower would collapse. In the following hundreds of years, no one moved bricks, and Jiayuguan Pass City has been stable to this day.
In the past, these stories, which held emotions, recorded legends, and shimmered with unique imprints of different eras, were only passed down at the foot of the Great Wall, or bundled on high pavilions, buried in piles of old papers, waiting to be discovered.
A blueprint that brings change and opens a new chapter in the story of the Great Wall that has been passed down for thousands of years.
In October 2020, the Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made strategic arrangements for cultural construction during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, clearly proposing to "build national cultural parks such as the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, the Long March, and the Yellow River". In 2021, the "Great Wall National Cultural Park Construction and Protection Plan" was implemented, connecting and integrating the cultural relics and cultural resources of the Great Wall in 15 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities along the Great Wall, promoting the reunion, association and weaving of cultural symbols and spiritual characteristics scattered in historical corners, and jointly highlighting the important symbols of Chinese culture.
In the Jiayuguan Great Wall Museum, there is a "Great Wall Work Tablet" unearthed from the northern side wall of Guancheng. The front of the "work card" is engraved with the start and completion time of the section at the beginning, that is, "the first work ends on the first day of the first day of the first month of July in the nineteenth year of the Jiajing"; The back is engraved with the list of the leaders of the construction team at that time: "Li Jing's team of the first worker, the second worker Meixi team, the third worker Wang Yuan team, the fourth worker Hou Xun team, the fifth worker Zong team, and the sixth worker Zhang Tan's team." These texts support the construction model of the division of labor of the Great Wall and the construction of the division of labor.
There is still a lot of evidence that the Great Wall construction has a clear division of labor and responsibility. In the Jinshanling Great Wall in Hebei, some city bricks are engraved with the firing date and troop number, such as "Wanli 5th year Shandong left construction" "Wanli 6th year Zhenyu cavalry construction" and so on. For those involved in the construction of the Great Wall, this is both a "monument" to record their exploits and a certificate of accountability.
The Ming Dynasty chronicle "Suzhen Huayi Zhi" recorded: "On the night of July 14 of the 22nd year of Jiajing, he went to Guanxi to attack Suzhou, commanded Li Yu to guard the pass, fell ill and lost his preparations, and caused the capture to dig the Great Wall, but the axe could not enter, and then drilled the crypt to enter the inner territory. Compared with the construction and management system of strict construction and quality first of the ancients, the Great Wall is "axe and pound", and the historical materials that invaders can only dig holes in the ground are easier to understand.
"The systematic planning and construction of the Great Wall National Cultural Park will help string together the stories of the Great Wall contained in different cultural relics and cultural resources in different regions into 'comic books', helping people today to understand the spiritual world of the ancients." He Shuangquan said.
Qiu Jian introduced that the Gansu section of the Great Wall National Cultural Park has systematically sorted out and integrated the cultural resources of the Great Wall in the province, and plans to take the three exhibition parks of "Hexi Hansai", "Ming Dynasty Xiongguan" and "Longyou Barrier (Warring States Qin)" as the core, and branch to establish three exhibition belts of the Han, Ming and Warring States Qin Great Wall, as well as eight characteristic Great Wall points that integrate the Yellow River Silk Road culture and display different regional characteristics. It is expected that by the end of 2023, the Gansu section of the Great Wall National Cultural Park will begin to take shape.
The fruits of protection are shared by all
The Ming Great Wall passes through the village from Changcheng Village, Dajing Town, Gulang County, Wuwei City. The backyard wall of villager Li Fengzhong's house is separated from the Great Wall by about two meters, "When I built my house more than 30 years ago, I left this road in particular. ”
There are more than a dozen families in the village living next to the Great Wall, and they, like Li Fengzhong, have left "aisles" for the Great Wall. This is a rule passed down from generation to generation in the village. "This wall is so strong that it hasn't collapsed for many years. Since childhood, I have listened to the older generation and cannot touch the soil on it. Li Fengzhong said.
The Great Wall culture includes not only the cultural relics themselves, but also their environment and surrounding humanities. Grateful that "the Great Wall helped us block the wind and sand", people under the city have passed it down from generation to generation to protect and fear "what our ancestors left behind".
Walking from east to west, along the Hexi corridor, passing through Wuwei, Zhangye, Dunhuang and other places, the reporter saw that in the process of protecting and inheriting cultural heritage, more new scenes of interaction between the Great Wall and people, nature and humanities have been constructed, and the vision of sharing the fruits of protection for everyone has become a reality.
Nanniwan Village, Anyuan Town, Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Wuwei City, is the first village to cross the Wusheng Ridge and enter the Hexi Corridor.
Over the past few decades, 29 families in nearby villages have built houses, livestock pens and breeding shelters around the Great Wall. In order to better protect the cultural relics resources of the Great Wall, the local government launched the relocation of historical houses and livestock sheds on both sides of the Great Wall in 2018.
After the completion of the relocation, the local government promoted the simple and magnificent cultural and natural scenery through e-commerce live broadcast. More and more tourists come here by bicycle and self-driving, admire the plateau snow mountains, and taste the flavor of collectors. Silent historical resources are revitalized.
In the summer of 2023, the number of tourists in Anyuan Town reached a record high, and the passenger flow of Nanniwan Village reached 450,000. Tourists climb the sightseeing boardwalk at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters, which can not only overlook the magnificent scenery of Maya Snow Mountain, but also have a panoramic view of the winding and parallel Hanming Great Wall.
Starting from Wuwei, go west along the Hexi Corridor to Kikou Village, Shandan County, Zhangye City. An apricot forest covering an area of 11,600 mu runs parallel to the Ming Great Wall, spreading out wantonly, like an emerging oasis, guarding the Great Wall.
In the summer of 2014, a group of university students came to hike the Great Wall in the Kip Kou section. Fang Wei, a 28-year-old Great Wall protector at the time, told them that he wanted to plant apricot forests outside the Great Wall protection area, which would not only protect the Great Wall, but also increase farmers' income. The young people responded enthusiastically and helped plant trees in the village for three consecutive years. In 2017, the forest began to bear fruit.
"In recent years, the apricot forest has become greener and greener, the Great Wall has been better and better protected, and our village has become more and more prosperous." Fang Wei, who grew up by the Great Wall, said.
Dafangpan City is located 90 kilometers away from Dunhuang and is an important part of the Yumen Pass site. As cultural relics conservators, 60-year-old Zhang Jianjun and 57-year-old Chen Wanying and their wife guarded Dafangpan City and a section of the Great Wall about 2 kilometers long like border soldiers for more than ten years.
Their home is the only "modern building" in the nearby Gobi. The house is covered with gray floor tiles, the walls are exceptionally clean, and the bedroom, monitoring room, toilet, storage room are all available. Behind the house, Chen Wanying carved out a small vegetable plot and planted some eggplants, peppers and tomatoes. In front of the house, is Zhang Jianjun's "territory", he planted apricot trees and peach trees.
Here, the ancient Great Wall and everyday life are eclectic. Endure through the years.
(Outlook, Issue 40-41, 2023)
Reporter's Notes
Guardian of the "Great Wall Open Air Museum"
Stopping his Chang'an "little bread", Liu Shenghai put on a straw hat for shading, stood against the sun, walked to a section of "earthen wall", took out his mobile phone from time to time, and carefully took pictures of the potholes and cracks in the wall.
There was no one around, only the rustle of windswept away stones.
This "earthen wall" that he "took care of" belongs to the Liangzhou section of Gansu, the site of the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty. Liu Shenghai has lived at the foot of the Great Wall since he was a child. Three years ago, he became one of the 215 Great Wall protectors in Wuwei City, Gansu Province, transforming from a "Great Wall family" to a "Great Wall guardian."
In the day's inspection log, Liu Shenghai wrote: "The Dragon Boat Festival has arrived, and the endless potato flowers on the side of the Great Wall are like flower clothes, decorating the Great Wall so beautifully." A faint floral fragrance wafted from the windbreak, like a perfume sprinkled on the Great Wall..."
Walking west from the "earthen wall" is the western starting point of the Ming Great Wall - Jiayuguan, which was historically known as the "throat of Hexi". The Great Wall here has suffered from natural disasters such as wind and rain, earthquakes and man-made damage, and diseases such as alkaline root of the wall, erosion and indentation of the wall, weathering of the surface rammed earth, and cracks are common.
Next to a crack in the city wall, a group of people are fiddling with various instruments and recording monitoring data. "In addition to traditional personnel patrols, we also use many technological means to protect the Jiayuguan Great Wall." Zhang Bin, director of the Jiayuguan Silk Road (Great Wall) Cultural Research Deancheng Protection Research Institute, said that patrol personnel are equipped with patrol cars and drones, and the ancient buildings of Guancheng are equipped with anemometers and inclinometers, and crack meters and settlement meters are installed in the walls, which can inspect the overall situation of the Great Wall and changes in the surrounding environment at any time.
About 8 kilometers away from Jiayuguan Guancheng Scenic Area, the Great Wall of Shiguanxia is like a dragon, coiled in the mountains.