The interesting mystery about the two gates lies at the end of the Great Wall

Learn more about the end of the Great Wall and the story that few people know about this place.

The mystery of the two gates lies at the end of the Great Wall

The Great Wall is one of the most magnificent works ever built by humans with an estimated length of 21,196km.

Have you ever wondered where the two ends of this thousand-mile city castle are located? The following article will help you discover the origins of history, structure and interesting stories revolving around the two gates located at the end of the Great Wall.

1. Son Hai Quan - the gate that opens the Qing dynasty

Son Hai Quan is the easternmost gate of Van Ly Truong Thanh, located in the southern part of Yen Son and North of Hai Hai in Son Hai Quan district, Hebei Province today.

This was a border gate of Chinese defense against nomadic peoples in the Northeast such as Khiet Dan, Nu Chan and Manchuria.

The gate of this land had been built since the Bac Te period (550-577) and the Tang dynasty (618-907) but it was not until the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) that Son Hai Quan was officially built.

In it, General Thich Ke Quang of the Minh Dynasty built walls and fortresses in the East, South and North of the gate. Hai Quan Son is one of the most fortified gates in China and is now one of the best preserved gates of the Great Wall.

The Gate of Hai Son Hai Quan is shaped like a square, with a circumference of about 4 km and 14-meter-high walls and 7-meters thick. The east, south and north faces have deep and wide moats surrounded by a high bell tower at the center of the door.

All four sides of the city have gates but the Eastern Town of East is the most important and still exists today due to the location facing the outside of the gate. On the city gate, there is a diaphragm hanging from another name of Son Hai Quan 'Thien Quan Nhat Quan '.

Tran Dong Mon gate of Son Hai Quan

Son Hai Quan has a city hall encroaching on Bohai - where the sea wall looks like the shape of a dragon wishing its head to the water so it is nicknamed ' Old Dragon Head '.

Around this gate there are many famous stories that are best known for being Ngo Tam Que opening Son Hai Quan to order Manchu troops.

It is recorded that, during the Ming Dynasty, General Ngo Tam Que almost agreed to surrender and join Ly Tu Thanh's rebels.

However, after hearing that the beloved concubine Tran Vien Vien was appropriated by Ly, Ngo Tam Que got angry and contacted Manchuria of Manchuria, leading to the opening of Son Hai Quan for Man Man. The coalition of Ngo Tam Que and Manchu won the Son Hai battle against Ly Tu Thanh.

The Manchu army's victory not only eradicated Ly Tu Thanh's rebels but also ended the Ming Dynasty, establishing a new reign of Manchu people in China as the Qing Dynasty.

In addition, there is another interesting area related to the word ' Nhat' in the horizontal image of ' Thien Quan Quan Quan' hanging on the east gate of the gate.

The diaphragm is 5.9 meters long, 1.6 meters wide, in which the height of the letter is 1.45 meters, 1.09 meters wide by Tieu Hien - the famous calligrapher of the Ming Dynasty, but under the diaphragm. He didn't name him.

Legend has it that when writing this monumental image , Tieu Hien finished writing a circuit, but when looking back, he was dissatisfied with the word ' Nhat ', but rewritten many times but still did not like it. He tossed his pen and entered the pub at the foot of the mountain while drinking and mulling.

At that moment, a shopkeeper knew the hand to trace a line on the table, leaving a trail of water. Tieu Hien looked to see the streak of water standing up and complimenting and praising 'great '. It turned out that the streak of water had drawn the ' Best' magic. Text Show immediately wrote this letter on the horizontal diaphragm and became a non-natural diaphragm.

For the above reason, Tieu Hien has not registered in the place of misplacement, making this diaphragm is one of the very few horizontal images that are not lost.

It is known that lost touch is an indispensable element in the calligraphy work - the part on the Calligraphy to record the name, name, date, explanation, poetry . and also close the chapter.

2. Gia Duc Quan - massive fortress built from 99,999 + 1 brick

In contrast to Son Hai, Gia Duc Quan is the gate located at the westernmost point of the Great Wall. If Son Hai Quan built the sea, Gia Duc Quan was built in the border area with the Gobi desert.

This gate is located at the narrowest point in the western part of the Ha Tay corridor, to the southwest of Gia Duc Quan city in Gansu. The building is located between two hills, one of which is named Gia Duc Quan.

Gia Duc Quan was built at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty , around 1372. The fort here was greatly strengthened by fear of an attack by Emperor Moc Tu (Timur Lenk), founder of the Timurid dynasty. in Central Asia, but the emperor died of old age while leading an army towards China.

Gia Duc Quan has a trapezoidal structure with a circumference of 733 meters and an area of ​​over 33,500m². The total length of the walls is 733 meters and the wall height is 11 meters.

The gate has two gates: one in the East and one in the West. A line of Chinese characters is written on a board at the western door. The south and north sides of the gate connect to the Great Wall.

At every corner of the gate there will be a watchtower . Gia Duc Quan consists of three defensive lines: inner city, foreign city and water trenches.

Gia Duc Quan also has another name, " Peace of Quan " because despite its strong consolidation, luckily there has never been a war.

Due to being built in the Gobi desert and the westernmost part of Chinese territory in the past, apart from the defensive effect, this gate is also an important stop of the legendary Silk Road connecting China with other countries. West and Central Asia.

A famous legend has recounted the details of the gate construction plan. Accordingly, when Jiabao Guan was planned, the officer in charge asked Yi Kaizhan - an eminent mathematician of Ming's time to design the gate, to accurately estimate the number of bricks needed.

Yi Kaizhan gave the number of 99,999 bricks, however, the official doubted his estimate and asked if the bricks were enough.

The redundant brick proves Yi Kaizhan's 'unbelievable' ability to calculate.

In the afternoon, Yi Kaizhan added a brick. When Jiabao was completed, there was exactly one leftover brick, this leftover brick was placed on a city gate and still remains today.