Embrasured Watchtower
The embrasured watchtower is an important urban military defense building in ancient China, which forms the urban defense system with the city wall, the city gate tower, the city tower, the urn, the gate tower, and the moat. The main part of the embrasured watchtower is equipped with an arrow window for looking out the enemy and launching weapons. At present, there are only two archery towers in Beijing, respectively Zhengyang Gate Embrasured Watchtower and Desheng Gate Embrasured Watchtower.
Zhengyang Gate Embrasured Watchtower
Zhengyangmen Gate Embrasured Watchtower is the largest embrasured watchtower in Beijing and it is the symbol of old Beijing. According to historical records, in the fourth year of the reign of Emperor Zhengtong of the Ming Dynasty (1439), the government built embrasured watchtower outside the gates of the capital to strengthen the capital’s defense capability, Zhengyang Gate Embrasured Watchtower was built at that time. The Zhengyang Gate Embrasured Watchtower is formed by a backstage below and the embrasured watchtower above. The backstage is 12 meters high, and the door opening is in the middle of the city tower. It is the only embrasured watchtower that opens the door among the nine gates of the inner city. It has four floors, 24 meters high and 62 meters wide. There are 94 watchwindows in the east, south and west.
Desheng Gate Embrasured Watchtower
Desheng Gate Embrasured Watchtower is located on the south bank of the north moat, the north end of the central axis, and the northwest of the Bell and Drum Tower. Like Zhengyang Gate Embrasured Watchtower, it was built in the Zhengtong era of the Ming Dynasty. Desheng Gate Embrasured Watchtower is a double eaved building with Xieshan gable. The main part of the building has three layers of eaves lower and one layer of eave upper. The main building is 35.35 meters long from east to west, 11.85 meters wide from south to north, and 19.30 meters high in total; The veranda is 26.60 meters long from east to west and 7.50 meters wide from south to north.
On the north, east and west sides of the embrasured watchtower, there are three layers of watchwindows on the lower eaves and one layer of watchwindows on the upper eaves. There are twelve watchwindows on each floor on the north side, four watchwindows on each floor on the east and west sides, and one watchwindow on each of the gables of the veranda, totaling 82 watchwindows. Three wooden doors are set on the south side.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Beijing had three and a half city walls from the center to the outside, namely, the Forbidden City, the Imperial City, the inner city and the outer city (only the southern part). Except for the inner city, the other three city walls had corner towers built, that is, a total of 12 were built at each corner of the city wall. Only the Forbidden City and the southeast corner tower at the Beijing Railway Station survived. In addition to the role of decoration, the corner tower, the city wall, the gate tower and the moat are the defense facilities of the palace city. The turret stands high and makes it easy to survey the enemy’s situation, thus it plays an important defensive role.
The Imperial Palace Corner Tower
The Corner Tower of the Forbidden City is an exquisite and ingenious existence. From the perspective of plane layout, the Imperial Palace Corner Tower is a polygonal building composed of four convex planes, in the shape of a ruler with overlapping “cross” characters; Seven wing angles can be seen on each side of the turret, and 28 wing angles can be seen on all four sides; In the internal beam frame structure, it belongs to the vertical and horizontal cross ridge. There are three-story eaves, and 72 ridges, commonly known as “nine beams, eighteen columns and seventy-two ridges”.
The Imperial Palace Corner Tower has a beautiful structure, elegant outline and unique shape. There are many corners, eaves, mountain flowers and ridges, and the eaves are warped, uneven and stacked layer by layer, which are exquisite and gorgeous. The roof is covered with yellow glazed tiles. Besides, there are 234 lifelike kissing animals on the ridge of the roof. In the center of the roof is a copper gilded pagoda. The colored glazed tiles and the crown glitter in the sunlight, which is spectacular and very beautiful.
Bell Tower
The Beijing Bell Tower was built in the Yuan Dynasty. The existing buildings were built in the Qing Dynasty, covering an area of 5740 square meters, with a building area of 1478 square meters and a height of 47.9 meters. It includes double eaves, Xieshan Gable, black tube tiles, and green glaze trim. To prevent fire, the whole building adopts brick and stone beamless arch structure. Components such as beams, purlins, eaves, rafters, brackets, and concealed windows are all carved from stone. The bell tower building skillfully integrates resonance, sound reinforcement, sound transmission and fire prevention, which can be called the top masterpiece of large single buildings in ancient China.
Drum Tower
The Beijing Drum Tower was built in the Yuan Dynasty. The existing buildings were built in the Ming Dynasty, covering an area of 6857 square meters, with a building area of 2736 square meters and a height of 46.7 meters. It includes triple eaves, Xieshan Gables, grey tube tiles, and green glaze trim. The Drum Tower is divided into upper and lower floors. The first floor is a full brick and stone beamless arch structure. There are 8 open doors in the east, west, south and north. The two-story brick and wood structure is adopted in the hall. Symmetrical column grid structure is adopted. There are 16 tall gold columns and 24 eaves columns around the hall. The front and back doors are 6, and the left and right doors are 4. The veranda is surrounded by battle seeking railings, and the cornices at four corners are supported by four eaves columns.
Translator: SHI Meiling
Reviewer: ZHANG Ruochen
