A Visit to Jiayu Fortress

I felt greatly rewarded at the first sight of the Jiayu Fortress after a grueling journey across the Gobi desert for days. The desolate scenes on the way to the fortress did not prepare me for the lush greens that surrounded the great military stronghold. For a moment, I thought I was back to the Yangtze River Delta.

The fortress stands in a verdant valley, which stretches strategically between the central part and the western part of the country. Flanked by the snow-capped Qilian Mountain on the south and the Maozong Mountain on the north, the fortress used to be the most important garrison in the famous corridor west of the Yellow River that connected the central plains with China’s vast west. The land west of the gate was a battlefield where battles were fought over centuries. To the east of the fortress is Jiuquan, an important stopover town on the Silk Road.

Feng Sheng, a general of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), suppressed a rebellion in the region in 1372. Seeing the strategic significance of the valley, the general began to build a garrison there. In the following 160 years, several expansion projects were undertaken on the site. The military defense complex with the two sections of the great wall and beacon towers we see today was finally completed in 1539. The fortress was the western tip of the Great Wall that stretched for more than five thousand kilometers.

The fortress sits in the east and faces the west. It is composed of several defense courts separated by different walls. The fortress measures 733 meters in circumference and 33,500 square meters in floor space. The wall stands nine meters in height. The fortress underwent refurbishment in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when General Zuo Zongtang guarded Lanzhou. The First Fortress under Heaven, an inscription on the stele that adorns the gate tower of the fortress, was handwritten by Zuo Zongtang.

Inside the Eastern Gate is the External City Court where there used to be a street flanked by shops, hotels, restaurants, a temple and many other buildings. Only the theater stage, the Lord Guan temple and the Wenchang Pavilion still stand today. The fortress was equipped with a complete range of defense battlements for various military functions and purposes. It is on the gate tower that one can look down and take the best view of the headquarters in the center of the inner court. The 1,000-square-meter courtyard house was first built in the Ming Dynasty and has undergone a few restoration projects since the Qing Dynasty up to now. The wood and earth house in the complex with red pillars and gray roof tiles is known as the Guerrilla General Residence where military commanders and their families stayed. Today, the house has imitation exhibits on display, showing the life in the house hundreds of years ago.

One brick on the site reminds visitors of the difficulties construction workers went through in building the fortress hundreds of years ago. A craftsman named Yi Kaizhan of the Ming Dynasty was an expert designer famed for accurate calculation of building materials. The official in charge of the fortress project refused to believe anyone could be that accurate. The official ordered Yi to calculate how many bricks would be needed to build the fortress. A mistake would be punishable by death. Yi said the fortress would need 99,999 bricks. When the project was completed and one single brick was left unused, the official in charge was overjoyed, thinking at last he had an excuse to behead the pompous craftsman. Yi argued that he had made no mistake in computation and that the remaining brick was designed to stabilize the whole complex or the fortress would crash. Today, tourists can still see the legendary brick on one of the eaves of the west side tower of the western outer court.

The Jiayu Fortress has witnessed the relations of the people in China’s central region and its west and witnessed the peace and wars between the people on two sides. I could envision how envoys from the west passed the fortress to reach the capital of China and how caravans and travelers met at the fortress.

Standing in front of the fortress, I looked up. The arching firmament was empty and silent. An eagle glided past in the distance. For a moment I felt lonesome with history surging away into nothingness.