New archaeological discovery of the Great Wall, Beijing Yanqing Dazhuangke Two Enemy Taiwan was built 450 years ago

A few days ago, the Beijing Great Wall Culture Research Institute released the archaeological work results of the first phase of the Beijing Yanqing Dazhuangke Great Wall research repair project, clarifying the construction age, building shape, and collapse process of this section of the Great Wall. After excavation, the archaeological team of the Dazhuangke Great Wall research repair project team determined the “birthday” for the Dazhuangke Great Wall through the text bricks and boundary markers. The wall was built in the early years of the Apocalypse, with a time span of nearly half a century.

▲Dazhuangke Great Wall No. 3 enemy station

Yanqing No. 3 The No. 4 enemy platform is located on the northeast ridge of Xiangtun Village, Kexiang Township, Dazhuang District, Yanqing District. The enemy platforms are connected with the Great Wall. This section of the Great Wall belongs to the Dazhuangke section of the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty. It is connected to the Huairou Xishuiyu and Huanghuacheng Great Walls to the east, and to the Badaling Great Wall of Yanqing to the west. Archaeologists also cleaned up 3 sections of the Great Wall and 3 access gates to the city, with a total excavation area of ​​600 square meters.

The enemy towers refer to the towers on the wall of the Great Wall used to defend against the enemy. The buildings of Yanqing No. 3 and No. 4 are basically the same, and they are hollow towers built to ride the wall. Archaeologists have found bricks with stamps of “Youcheying” on the walls of these two enemy platforms and the nearby Great Wall. According to historical records, the “Cheying” in Changzhen was established in the second year of Wanli, and the right Cheying was under the jurisdiction of the Changping Guard General. At the same time, on the walls of the Great Wall between the enemy platforms from No. 11 to No. 13 in Yanqing, you can also see the characters “Right”, “An”, “An (anti-book)” and “Zhu” imprinted with Yangwen bricks. These bricks were burned in the same year. The number of the troops making the city bricks, in which “right” is the abbreviation of “right part”, “zhu” is presumed to be the abbreviation of Zhucheng guarding Qianhuo, and “an” needs further study.

According to reports, a stone monument unearthed in this excavation of the construction boundary of “Youcheying Autumn Defense Work End Stop” also revealed that Youcheying not only participated in the firing of city bricks, but also participated in the wall of the Great Wall construction work. The bricks and stones are the evidence, and it is pointed out that the construction time of the hollow enemy stations of Yanqing No. 3 and No. 4 is the early year of Wanli, and it has been about 450 years.

At the same time, during the excavation, archaeologists found that the foundation of the Great Wall wall was superimposed on the hollow base of the enemy platform. It is inferred that the wall was built after the enemy platform was built. The age of the wall construction can also be found on the inscriptions. In 1953, the Beijing 503 Geological Team discovered a monument named “Apocalypse Three-Year-Separate Construction of the Great Wall” during exploration in Houwa, Xiangtun Village. In 2014, when the Longquanyu Great Wall was protected and repaired, a monument was unearthed during the protection and repair of the Longquanyu Great Wall. Both steles mentioned the name “Youcheying”, which is consistent with the inscription bricks on the Great Wall and the stone steles of the construction boundary. It can be seen that this section of the Great Wall was built in the early years of the Apocalypse.

Shang Heng, head of the archaeological project and associate researcher of the Beijing Institute of Archaeology, introduced that the archaeological team’s archaeological work in the first phase of the Dazhuangke Great Wall research repair project has ended, and a number of research results have been achieved, not only The architectural form of the Great Wall and the foundation method of the enemy platform were determined, and the state of the abandoned Great Wall and the collapse process of the enemy platform were also innovatively simulated, restoring the complete life course of the Great Wall of Dazhuangke.