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CH'IA-YU-KUAN - THE
'GREAT WALL'
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This section is a summary of Stein's observations
at and around Ch'ia-yu-kuan including parts of the Ming wall north of Su-chou.
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Jiayuguan- Ch'ia-yu-kuan - When Stein
saw this fortress is recognized it was not a part of the Han Dynasty wall he
had been tracking but part of the Ming Dynasty 'Great Wall" An excellent
artistic rendering of this fortress as rebuilt today is on pages 46-47 of
Stephen Turnbull's book - The Great Wall of China 221 BC- AD 1644 -
published by Osprey. And it is shown with extensive description and discussion
in The Great Wall - by Luo Zewen - McGraw-Hill Book.
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Detail of Stein's map of the eastern Nan-shan - the Suess,
Alexander III, To Lai-shah and Richthofen Ranges and the corridor between
Kan-chou and Su-chou and An-hsi. Note the Ming 'Great Wall' shown north and
north-east of Su-chou and a few of the Han wall towers around An-hsi
Chia-yu-kuan is very close to Su-chou. So-yang-cheng is close to the western
side near An-hsi.
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225 - Pavilion over inner west gate of Ch'ia-yu-kuan, with view
across interior of circumvallation. He immediately saw this is not part of the
Han fortifications. It is indeed a Ming dynasty fortress now called Jinyuguan
and restored to be an important tourist attraction. Thus it is on current maps
of China and photos of it are in many new books on the Great Wall. Stein
recognized that its main purpose was not military defense but rather frontier
control of people going out as well as in.
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Photo 251 - Watch tower and post of Ta-han-chuang - one of the
towers toward the east end of the corridor - at foot of the outer Nan-shan
hills south west of Chia-yu-kuan - This is a Ming Dynasty tower as part of the
Great Wall complex guarding the route to Su-chou
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Photo 254 - the "medieval' great wall - north of Su-chou
near Hsin-ch eng-tzu - Stein immediately recognized the great difference
between the early Han Dynasty wall and towers that he had traced eastward from
Tun huang and the Ming Dynasty "Great Wall".
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Photo 250 - A very poor reproduction of an already poor
photograph - but interesting as Stein recognized that the line of wall he found
south of Chia-yu-kuan could not be a viable military defensive wall but was
part of a frontier control system undertaken by the Ming Dynasty.
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224 - The Ch'ia-yu-kuan gate of the "great wall" seen
from south-west
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227 - Temple of Kuan-yin, or Avalokitesvara, within east gate
of Ch'ia-yu-kuan
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Photo 238 - Ruin of main stupa, east of So-yang-ch'eng seen
from south.
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Photo 237 - Ruined temple and stupas east of So-yang-ch'eng
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Photo - 240 - Stein shows here the erosion from wind of the
eastwall of ruined town of So-yang-cheng. This ruin also is in the above map
toward the west side
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The Ta-han-chuang fort was still occupied to watch the route along the
mountains. It had massive watch tower and walled enclosure. On that day Stein
reached the high road 4 miles west of Ch'ia-yu-kuan with mountains to the north
and south. This was the route west to Tun-huang for 2000 years. He examined the
Ch'ia-yu-kuan fortress walls and high towers and inner and outer gates. The
valley here is crossed by the wall - south into the Nan-shan. The wall to the
north was hidden by a ridge. He noted this is the ideal place for a barrier
wall , with the valley only 8 miles wide. He noted a second line of wall and
towers far away to the north east. (Map 88) - shows the wall SW and NE. It is
not an extension of the wall at Ch'ia-yu-kuan. The gate fortress is medieval
(not ancient), Emperor Ch'ien-Lung 1736-96 ordered it. It is typical of
medieval Chinese fortresses. There are three successive gates through the
massive bastions and inner defenses and a single road street east to west.
Since Ming times it was a border control post -immigration and customs - not
for strong military defense. |
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Stein visited the wall to the south and north west. He surveyed the NW
section of the wall where it starts at the NE corner of Ch'ia-yu-kuan and goes
unbroken along the eastern foothills of the precipitous hills. The wall has a
clay rampart 11 feet thick and 12 feet high with a parapet 4 feet high. Inside
the wall are watch towers an average of 1.5 miles apart with a tower near the
gate. (plate 47). The tower is 36 x 33 feet square built of layers of stamped
clay each 4-5 inches thick. The top of the tower has loop holed walls 6 feet
high and watch room. There is a double line of foot holes on the inside wall to
help the watchmen climb using a rope. The brick built wall is at the same
height as the main wall but 1/2 the thickness and forms an enclosure around the
tower. There was a ruined quarters for garrison. Each tower was a defense point
defended independently. Outside the line of the wall (that is north west of it)
at a distance of 1-2 furlongs there were three detached towers - very modern
looking and massive - on spurs of hills westward. The towers were 40 feet wide
at base and 30 feet high with square entrenchments around them as outer works,
guarding ravines. The wall at a mile from the 3rd of these reaches a hamlet,
Huong-tsiao-ying at the mouth of Hao-shan-k'ou gorge. Then the wall crosses
this half mile of rock spur on the left bank to 200 feet above the valley and
beyond it the precipice is unscaleable. The wall ends at the mountain range
which rises to the NW to 9200 feet 10 miles away. The ridge has deep valleys
and steep cliffs forming an impassible barrier. Also the defense of the mouth
of the Hao-shan-k'ou valley lies outside the main wall. Where this approaches a
farm, a branch wall goes at right angles SW up a steep spur by the river and
ends were a cliff is very steep. Then at the end of the valley a mile away,
another wall of 200 yards goes across the valley with loop holes in it. The
parapet is on the SW up the valley guarding a small valley another 100 yards up
the gorge. Here is another older wall made of stamped clay 11 feet thick and 11
feet high with a parapet 2 feet high. There is still another wall at right
angles to the NE. A watch tower is located north of the gate 1.5 miles away.
The earlier one is of stamped clay, 8.5 feet thick at base and 8 feet high plus
a parapet. |
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He also examined the tower defenses on both sides of the narrow section of
the valley. The wall from SW to NE has gaps and watch towers at 1.5 miles.
Stein visited two that he found to be 25-26 feet square and 20-22 feet high of
stamped clay layers. They had repairs made of sun dried bricks. The wall
continued east. The line of the wall is on map 88 with a side wall to
Yeh-ma-wan and sections toward Su-chou. A fort at Yeh-ma-wan is at the bend of
the wall with a guard gate for a road to Hami. From Yeh-ma-wan the line of the
wall goes SE and around a marsh for 7.5 miles. It is north of Su-chou. Stein
visited on 26 July 1907. In 1914 going from Su-chou to the Su-lo Ho on this
route he again found the wall. In September 1907 he saw that the wall goes on
the left bank of the Pei-ta Ho or Su-chou River near the NE end of the Su-chou
cultivation oasis. It starts again on the right bank near Ai-men and goes NE to
the desert hills The same wall at Su-chou then goes east along the edge of the
Su-chou cultivation area. |
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Stein made very clear that the well known line of walls following the route
Kan-chou to Su-chou is not a border defense or from the Han conquest of western
Kansu of Emperor Wu or an extension of the Great Wall. The original Han wall
did not pass from the bend of the Su-lo Ho SE toward Chia-yu-kuan and Su-chou,
but a really unbroken chain of remains show that it first continued east past
the oasis Hu-hai-tzu or Ying-pan north of the An-hsi to Su-chou road. It then
led far away toward the NE beyond Mao-mei on the united course of the Su-chou
and Kan-chou Rivers .The new wall is much later, from Ming Times and its
purpose then was exclusion and seclusion, to keep people in as well as out. As
a defensive line it was close to the cultivated area at the foot of the
Nan-shan and the high road had no purpose in T'ang era when China controlled
Central Asia. Later with Tibetan and Turkish conquest of Central Asia it also
had no use. When the Uigurs and Tanguts controlled Central Asia also the wall
had no purpose nor did it during the Mongol Era. |
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