Badaling Great Wall

Badaling Great Wall is located in Yanqing County, 80 kilometers (50 miles) from central Beijing. It is the most visited section of the Great Wall of China. About 370 state leaders and VIPs have visited Badaling Great Wall, which include the former US president Richard Nixon, The section is located about 1,015 meters above sea level, and is the outpost of Juyongguan Pass. The Great Wall at Badalling runs along mountain ridges with precipitous valleys, which makes it strategic importance and defense of Beijing in ancient times.

Badaling Great Wall was built in the 18th year (1505) of the reign of emperor Hongzhi of the Ming Dynasty. It had undergone successive repairs during the reign of Jiajing and Wanli, both emperors of the Ming Dynasty, with additions of watchtowers and beacon towers.

The Badaling Section of the Great Wall had witnessed many great historic events. Qinshihuang, the first emperor of China, passed Badaling on his trip back to Xianyang, capital of the Qin Dynasty, from his journey to Jieshi (today's Changni in Hebei Province) to search for elixir. Yuan Tai Zhu, the first emperor of the Yuan Dynasty, and other emperors of the Yuan Dynasty, passed the Badaling Great Wall on their journey from Beijing to Shangdu. Shangdu was the summer capital of the Yuan Dynasty. The city was located in Today's Inner Mongolia, about 175 kilometers north of Beijing. It was once a very prosperous town. However, today, only ruins remain. Empress Dowager Cixi fled from Badaling Great Wall to the western part of China when the allied forces of eight western countries invaded Beijing. Doctor Sun Yat-sen also visited it.

The wall in Badaling Great Wall is 6-9 meters tall and about 6 meters in width, which allows five horses to gallop abreast and ten people to go shoulder to shoulder. The outsides of the wall were built with granite slabs, with the longest one reaching 3.1 meters and each weighing 1.5 to 1.7 tons

There are 43 watchtowers in the Badaling Section of the Great Wall. The towers look similar in shape while each one has its own characters. The tower, in general, is comprised of two storeys. It is 10 meters tall and 1o meters in both width and length. Each storey is equipped with shooting holes, which allows archers to shoot arrows, lookout holes and drain holes. These drain holes can drain water outside of the wall, and they has protected the Great Wall from the erosion of rain water over a long period of time.

One important features of the defensive system of Badaling Great Wall is the war daises. War daises are blockhouse-like structures built at regular intervals along the wall, usually at places of strategic importance. The inside of the war daise was used to store ammunition, and food and water to survive a month-long siege. Those daises together with watchtowers and city daises form the formidable defensive system of the Great Wall

City Dais, also called wall dais, is a platform structure slightly higher than the wall. Crenellated walls, crenels and shooting holes are built around the city daises. It served two purposes: as a watchtower and as a platform from which to defend the wall during enemy attacks.

Transport
There are expressway, Badaling Expressway, and tourist line connecting Badaling with central Beijing. The tourist buses depart at the Historical Museum on Tian'anmen Square, the east side of Qianmen Tower and Congwenmen, respectively, to the Badaling Great Wall.

Line S2, Beijing Suburban Railway, runs from Beijing North Railway Station to Badaling. The trip only takes around one hour. The first train departs at 6:08 and arrives at Badaling at 7:07. People can buy ticket at Beijing North Railway Station. Bus No.99 runs frequently from Desehngmen to Badaling.