Yangshuo's scenery is second to none

In times of yore Beijing consisted of an outer city and an inner city, with the imperial city (otherwise known as Forbidden City, or the Former Imperial Palace) contained in the inner city. Altogether there were 20 city gates. Entering or exiting these gates by carts and horses was governed by hard-and-fast regulations. The following is a brief introduction of it.

There are nine gates for the inner city which used to be on what is today's Second Ring Road.

First, Zhengyang (South-Facing) Gate. The Zhengyang Gate is for the exclusive use of royal sedan chairs and carts to show the supremacy of the feudal monarchs. The gate stands to the south of Tian'anmen Square; during the Ming and Qing it was the front gate of the inner city of Beijing. Built in 1419 or the 17th year of the Yongle reign of the Ming, it is by far the only well-preserved city gate tower in Beijing.

Second, Xuanwu Gate, or Gate of Military Virtue. Known in old days as Gate of Complaisant Rule, it was the gate for prison vans. Felons sentenced to death by decapitation were escorted through this gate to the executioner's ground at Caishikou south of the city.

Thirdly, Fucheng Gate or Mound-Formed Gate. It was the gateway for coal transportation in ancient times. In ancient times Beijing got its coal supplied from Mentougou on the western outskirts, and the Fucheng Gate was the only gateway for coal shipping carts.

Fourth, Xizhi Gate or Straight West Gate. Known in the past as Gate of Peaceful Righteousness, the Xizhi Gate was for tanks transporting water from Yuquan Hill to the imperial city. At the time the emperors drank water only from the Yuquan Hill.

Fifth, Desheng Gate, or Gate of Moral Triumph. It was the gate through which the imperial army returned to the capital from an expedition.

Sixth, the Anding Gate, or Gate of Peace and Stability. The Anding Gate was for carts transporting night soil out of the city. There is something symbolic about the name of this gate, which means Gate of Stability.

Seventh, Dongzhi Gate, or Gate of Worship of Benevolence, was opened exclusively for timber transportation. For this reason it is also known as Gateway of Firewood.

Eighth, Chaoyang Gate or Sun-Facing Gate, also known as Gate of Homogeneous Civilization. It was the city's passageway for grain transportation. That is why there were quite a few imperial granaries inside the gate. These included the Lumi Granary, the Nanmen Granary, and the Qianliang Granary.

Ninth, Chongwen Gate or the Gate of Literary Virtue. Known otherwise as Hade (or Hada) Gate, it was the gateway through which liquor and wine were brought into the city.

There were seven gates for the outer city: Guangqu, Guang'an, Zuo'an, You'an, Dongbian, Xibian and Yongding. During the Ming, to protect south Beijing as a commercial and handicraft centre, the imperial court had planned for the construction of an outer city wall around the imperial city, but due to financial difficulties only part of the wall was erected in southern Beijing. Seven gates were opened into this wall for the convenient of local residents.

Access to the imperial city was by four gates, Tian'an, Di'an, Dong'an and Xi'an, which were for the exclusive use of officials and generals going to and from the imperial court. These gates were off limits to commoners.

Few of these gates exist now, as most of them have been torn down, but their names have remained.

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Passes were defence fortifications in ancient China. Born of war, they were built at points of strategic importance.

In the early days passes were built of rammed earth and masonry at places easily defended and hard to be conquered. Later, cities were developed around the passes. Countless passes were built in ancient China. The nine best known ones are Shanhai Pass, Jurong Pass, Zijing Pass, Niangzi Pass, Pingxing Pass, Yanmen Pass, Jiayu Pass, Wusheng Pass and Youyi pass.

The passes tall roughly in two types: those on the Great Wall and those on postal routes.

The passes built on the Great Wall were regarded as national defence facilities. At the eastern terminus of the Great Wall to the northeast of Qinhuangdao stands Sanhai Pass, which holds vital access between northeast and central China. Reputedly the most important pass on the eastern section of the Ming-dynasty Great Wall, Sanhai Pass is therefore billed as "No.1 Pass on the Great Wall". On the western terminus of the Great Wall stands Jiayu Pass, an imposing citadel with the gobi desert to the north and the Qilian Mountain to the south. For its vital strategic importance as a major transportation hub on the celebrated Silk Road for economic and cultural exchange between China and the West in ancient times, Jiayu Pass is billed as "First Formidable Pass under Heaven". Other major passes on the Great Wall that played a major role in resisting foreign invaders and defending the national territory include Juyong Pass of Beijing and Niangzi Pass of Shanxi Province. Many of the passes on the Great Wall have been placed under government protection as key cultural heritage sites.

The passes on postal roads may be regarded as regional fortresses. A common feature about these passes is that virtually all of them were on provincial or county boundaries. Though not as large as those on the Great Wall, they were also strategically located for defence purposes. In warring periods they were often bones of contention between rivalling strategists. Major postal road passes in existence today are Loushan Pass of Guizhou, Jianmen Pass of Sichuan, Yanmin Pass of Shanxi, Tiemen Pass of Xinjiang, and Guimen Pass of Guangxi, which have all become popular scenic spots today.

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The Lingxing Gate, also known as Heavenly Gate or Gate of Dragon and Phoenix, was a kind of ancient structure built in different places with different meanings. More often than not they stood in front of mausoleums, altars and temples dedicated to emperors. The Lingxing Gate comprises baluster columns and decorated tie-beams. The space between the columns has three to nine partitions which are either blocked with walls or left open with gates to symbolize access to heaven meaning that the deceased could ascend the sky once through this gate.

The Lingxing Gate is also found in front of Confucian temples to symbolize the Confucian school's willingness to accept people with talent and virtue.

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The Hakka people inhabiting southeast China are known for the distinctive style of their dwellings in a variety of castle-like designs. They are round or square, and there are also those in the style of big mansions or in the shape of the Eight Diagrams.

These castle-like dwellings go back a long way in history. The Hakkas, who had moved from central China and settled in the south after the Western Jin Dynasty, developed this unique style of house construction, but it was not until after the Qing that their dwellings began to grow in height and size to function as fortifications. A mixture of clay, ash and bran was the major construction material for these dwellings, which are reinforced with bamboo and timber. A typical Hakka dwelling is a 10-metre-high structure with three to five floors, and the walls, more than one metre in thickness, were built of earth repeated rammed until they became sturdy enough against earthquake and intruders. Each dwelling covers an area of over 1,000 square metres, with 30 or so houses on each floor. Thus a dwelling with more than 100 rooms is large enough to accommodate 100-300 people. Access to such a dwelling is by a single gate, and a well was dug inside it to supply drinking water. Some Hakka dwellings are fashioned in the shape of a palace richly decorated with carved beams and lacquered pillars. Most phenomenal of all the Hakka dwellings are a kind of round castle, in which houses are arranged in three mutually containing circles. In some places a single castle-like Hakka dwelling is seen atop a mountain, or several or a dozen such dwellings are clustered in a tiny basin. They are evocative of ancient Roman castles, yet each looks distinctive in its Hakka architectural style.

The term "Hakka" means "outsiders"--the Hakka people were settlers from north. That is why elements of central Chinese architecture, such as symmetry and a clear distinction between the centrepiece and the ancillary structures, are palpable in their dwellings. As newcomers small in number and meagre in strength, they were in dire need of a kind of dwelling that could ward them off invaders and allow them to live in a compact community and rally their strength against any possible invasion.

The castle-like dwellings in Yongding, Fujian Province, are definitely the finest examples of Hakka architecture, which attract a constant stream of visitors from at home and abroad.

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Eaves tiles are small accessories in classical Chinese architecture fixed at the end of rafters for decoration and for shielding the eaves from wind and rain.

Eaves tiles emerged as a culture in their own light during the Zhou (c.11th century-771 B.C.) and reached their zenith during the Qin and Han (221B.C.-220 A.D.). In the intervening years they underwent the transition from a half-round design to a cylindrical design, and from plain surface to decorative patterns, from intaglio to bas-relief carvings, from lifelike imagery to abstraction, and from patterns to inscriptions, until they became an art that involved language, literature, aesthetics, calligraphy, carving, decoration and architecture, with themes that ran the gamut from nature and ecology to mythology, totems, history, palaces, yamens, mausoleums, place names, auspicious phrases, folklore, and family names. Together the eaves tiles form a history book that reflects vividly the natural scenery, humanities and political science and economics. The Beijing Museum of Ancient Ceramic Civilization is billed as the nation's first exhibition centre of ancient eaves tiles: its collection of more than 400 eaves tiles has no lack of rare and valuable pieces of art.

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Many labouring people on the Loess Plateau in northwest China live in caves dug into the mountains. The caves are laid out in rows one atop the other, looking like buildings of multiple floors in the distance.

These cave dwellings were either tunnelled into the face of a stupendous cliff or scooped into a cross-section of the Loess Plateau. A cave dwelling is usually six metres deep and four metres wide.

Stone slabs are piled up to form a semicircle at the entrance, which is decorated with exquisite latticed windows in a variety of styles. There are also arched cave dwellings of masonry that are covered with earth, which is definitely a variation between stone and loess structures.

The beauty about the cave dwellings is that they help maintain local topography and save on farmlands by making use of space that would have been otherwise left unused. They are warm in winter and cool in summer. The temperature inside is usually 13 degrees Celsius higher than in the open in winter and 10 degrees Celsius lower in summer. Moreover, the cave dwellings are sequestered in peace and quiet as they are shut from the noise of the outside world. There are drawbacks as well. For example, daylighting is poor, humidity high in summer, and ventilation leaves much to be desired.

Statistics show that 40 million live in cave dwellings that are scattered over an area of 600,000 square km in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River. In recent years curious visitors and scholars are arriving in droves to study the loess cave dwellings.

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Standing opposite every city gate of old Beijing was an embrasured watchtower, an imposing and distinctive structure that added tremendously to the landscape of the city in old days. Today, only two of them are still there: the Zhengyang Gate and the Desheng Gate.

In days of yore the watchtower was a defence fortification whose tall and sturdy structure, vast vistas and impregnability had won the favour of many an emperor in this country. A typical embrasured watchtower is found in the southeast corner of Beijing. Scooped into its walls are 144 embrasures in four rows.

A barbican entrance was built between a city gate and a watchtower, with a gateway built into either side of the barbican wall to facilitate the traffic of pedestrians, carts and horses. The barbican entrance was an ancillary defence facility that contained a tiny temple and a store selling pots and basins of varying" sizes. When the city was under siege, a heavy sluice gate was lowered to close down the city gate, soldiers hidden in the watchtower shot arrows at the enemy, and on the city walls the defenders filled pots and basins with boiling water and poured it at the enemy troops attempting to gain the top of the city wall by scaling ladders. Thus the store selling pots and basins was actually an integral part of the defence system of the city gates.

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