Difficult to repair
——Beijing gradually repairs the famous and steep section of the Great Wall
The Great Wall is a spiritual symbol of the Chinese nation, and it is also the largest and most widely distributed cultural heritage in China.
Among the 15 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities where the Great Wall is distributed in China, the Beijing section of the Great Wall is relatively well preserved, but the difficulty of maintenance is beyond imagination.
Beijing sets up a special fund every year
Rescue and strengthen 10 sections of the Great Wall
The Great Wall in Beijing was built in the Northern Qi Dynasty and was built on a large scale in the Ming Dynasty. Historically, it has been tightly guarded and built to protect the capital. It is the essence of the Great Wall of China.
In terms of scope, the Great Wall of Beijing covers 6 districts including Pinggu District, Miyun District, Huairou District, Yanqing District, Changping District, and Mentougou District, with a total length of 520.77 kilometers.
Since 2000, Beijing has carried out nearly a hundred Great Wall protection projects, including a demonstration project represented by the Jiankou Great Wall, a well-known dangerous section of the Great Wall.
In 2019, the "Beijing Great Wall Cultural Belt Protection and Development Plan (2018-2035)" was announced, and the protection and repair of the Beijing Great Wall has been further increased.
The plan proposes that by 2035, through emergency rescue and routine maintenance, Beijing will realize that the Great Wall itself and its carriers will be safe from danger across the board.
In order to achieve this goal, starting from 2019, Beijing will regularly promote 10 Great Wall rescue and reinforcement projects every year.
Since August this year, Beijing's 2021 Great Wall rescue and reinforcement projects have started one after another.
In late October, construction also came to an end.
Among them, the construction of the Huairou section of the Great Wall this year has all been completed-all four municipal projects have been completed, and the fourth phase of the Jiankou Great Wall repair project has also completed this year's tasks.
From Jiankou Pass to Zhengbei Building
The east section of the Jiankou Great Wall has been penetrated
This year's emergency maintenance project of the Huairou section of the Great Wall has penetrated the most precarious part of the eastern section of the Jiankou Great Wall.
The Great Wall of China extends east and west in the spectacular mountains of northern Beijing.
The Great Wall in the Huairou section of Beijing is an important part of it.
It is connected to Xiaoshuiyu in Miyun District in the east and Dazhuangke in Yanqing District in the west, with a total length of 65.4 kilometers.
Now, every enemy building (station) on this section of the Great Wall is numbered, increasing from No. 1 to No. 284 from east to west.
The Jiankou Great Wall is a part of the Huairou Great Wall. It starts from the enemy building No. 122 of "Zhengbei Building" in the east and connects with the Mutianyu Great Wall; to the northwest to the enemy building No. 169 of "Jiuyan Tower", it is at the junction of the Great Wall section of Yanqing District.
Due to the steep terrain in the area, the Jiankou Great Wall is considered "one of the most dangerous sections of the Great Wall of China."
Taking the "Jiankou Pass" between No. 131 and No. 132 enemy stations as the node, the Jiankou Great Wall is divided into two sections in the maintenance project.
Among the four municipal projects in this year's Huairou section, the rescue and reinforcement of the side wall between No. 130 and No. 131 enemy buildings is located in the east section of the Jiankou Great Wall.
The side wall of this section gradually rises in elevation from west to east, and the location is steep and steep.
The focus of this construction is mainly on the severely damaged floor tiles.
According to Zhang Tong, director of the Huairou District Cultural Relics Institute, in order to protect the structural stability of the cultural relics and prevent them from continuing to collapse, the emergency reinforcement project adopted measures such as bricklaying reinforcement, cleaning and stabilization on the parts that affect the structural safety.
The difficult construction environment and short construction period have added many difficulties to emergency construction.
The construction requires water, but because the area is in a severe water shortage area, the construction team needs to lay a pipeline of nearly 1,000 meters long, borrow the local 300-meter-deep well to pump water, use diesel-powered mountain pumps, and pass through the pumping station to lift the water to The top of the mountain.
At the end of October each year, the temperature in the mountainous area drops sharply, and the water pipes will face the problem of freezing, and the repair work of the Great Wall will be forced to stop.
The cold air came earlier this year.
The temperature on the mountains in mid-October has already fallen below the freezing point.
In order to finish the work before this, the construction of the side wall has specially increased manpower.
According to Cheng Yongmao, technical director of emergency engineering, the workers work overtime and work overtime. They go up the mountain at 6:30 in the morning and work until about 5:30 in the afternoon. "If you go down the mountain later, it will be dark."
The rescue and reinforcement project between No. 130 and No. 131 enemy buildings was checked and accepted on October 20.
This section of the side wall is connected with the repair section of the third phase of the Jiankou Great Wall.
The completion of emergency reinforcement means that the east section of Jiankou Great Wall-Jiankouguan to Zhengbei Building, has completed emergency repairs.
The fourth phase is affected by continuous precipitation
Clean up work is currently completed
Simultaneously with Beijing’s 10 sections of the Great Wall’s rescue and reinforcement project this year, on August 13, the fourth phase of the Jiankou Great Wall repair project officially started and is scheduled to be completed before the icy period next year.
The scope of the repairs started from the familiar "Beijing Knot" (enemy station No. 154), and went north to the enemy building No. 162, involving 8 enemy buildings (stations).
This section of the Great Wall has a masonry structure with arrow holes on both sides of the crenellation wall. The overall preservation is relatively intact. However, the entire section of the wall is densely covered with trees, some of the walls have collapsed, the ground is fragmented and broken, and the enemy buildings have collapsed to varying degrees.
The emergency repairs mainly included cleaning up debris, unblocked drainage, and returning to the collapsed section.
During the construction process, the transportation of materials must be relayed by agricultural vehicles and pack mules, and finally must be carried up the mountain manually.
Since the start of construction, continuous rainfall in Beijing has added more difficulties to the construction.
"The construction site is far from the material yard, the road is muddy, and the materials cannot be transported." Cheng Yongmao described.
Therefore, the fourth phase of the project currently mainly completes the pre-cleaning work, and will resume construction after the thawing next spring.
However, Cheng Yongmao estimates that the fourth phase of the project will be completed on time next year.
Before the start of the fourth phase, the repair work of the Jiankou Great Wall was about 3,200 meters completed.
According to calculations, after the completion of the phase four project with a length of 1678 meters, the Jiankou Great Wall will be repaired nearly halfway.
However, the current repair work is mainly an "emergency treatment" for dangerous situations, and the conditions for opening to the outside world are still not available after completion.
"Minimal intervention, archaeology first"
Respect the traces left by time
According to experts, after years of protection and maintenance practices, people have gradually formed the Great Wall protection concept.
After the State Administration of Cultural Heritage issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Protection and Maintenance of the Great Wall" in 2014, these protection principles have been further regulated and implemented.
During this emergency repair process, the construction staff always adhere to the principle of "minimal intervention" and "no change to the original state of the cultural relics": in order to maintain the original appearance, use the original old masonry as much as possible to repair; in order to delay the weathering damage of the underlying bricks , The vegetation that can be retained is not easy to move.
Zhang Tong said: "After the risk is eliminated, the Great Wall structure will be more stable, but the appearance of the damage caused by wind and frost will not change."
Such rescue work has indeed withstood the test of time.
Enemy Building No. 202 and Gate No. 204 are the Great Wall rescue and reinforcement projects in Beijing in 2019.
At that time, in addition to repairing and reinforcing the wall, the construction staff also added an additional retaining wall to prevent the wall from being directly washed away by mountain floods in the rainy season.
In the continuous rainfall in Beijing in July this year, no new danger appeared in this section.
Similarly, with the advancement of the Jiankou Great Wall repair project, the safety factor of the Jiankou Great Wall, which is known for its "risk", has gradually increased.
The concept of "archaeology first" has gradually been integrated into the daily work of emergency repairs.
In this year's emergency reinforcement project, many scattered cultural relics such as roof ridge beasts, sewage grates, and blue and white porcelain bowl bottoms have been cleared out one after another.
Beginning with the Jiankou Great Wall Phase II repair project, the staff added archaeological cleanup before construction, and used archaeological methods to clean up the Great Wall and the “one meter by one meter” area on both sides to ensure that the scattered cultural relics can be more authentic, Complete protection.
Relevant experts believe that this is an important advancement in the concept of protection of the Great Wall's cultural heritage.
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Jiankou Great Wall Section
The Jiankou section of the Great Wall is W-shaped, like a full bow, and the Jiankou at the lower point is like a buttonhole for an arrow. This is the origin of the name "Jiankou Great Wall".
The Jiankou Great Wall has undergone many repairs.
In 2006, the cultural relics department implemented rescue and reinforcement of Jiankou Pass, which was facing the threat of landslides.
Since 2016, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage has approved four phases of Jiankou Great Wall repair projects.
In 2017, the first phase of the Jiankou Great Wall repair project was completed, ranging from No. 146 to No. 150 enemy building (station), with a total of 1003 meters.
From 2019 to 2020, the second and third phases of the repair works will be completed one after another.
The second phase of the project was repaired from No. 151 to No. 154 enemy building (taiwan), with a length of 745 meters; the third phase was from No. 122 to No. 130 enemy building (taiwan), totaling 1094 meters.
The first and second phases are located on the west side of Jiankou Kan, and the third phase is located on the east side of Jiankou Kan.
Before the start of construction this year, only 135 meters west of No. 130 enemy building between Jiankou Pass and Jiankou Phase III had not been repaired. Therefore, this section of the side wall was included in Beijing's 10 Great Wall rescue and reinforcement projects this year.
Further reading
The maintenance section is mostly located in the future open scenic area
The Huairou section where the Jiankou Great Wall is located contains a total of 284 enemy towers (platforms).
Enemy station No. 154 is called the "Beijing Junction" by the people. From this, the Great Wall of China branches and extends all the way north to Sihai Town, Yanqing; all the way to the west, it extends to the direction of Changping Juyongguan.
From the beginning of the "Beijing Junction", follow the No. 154 enemy station to the north until you reach the No. 169 enemy building, which is the famous Nine Eyes Tower at the junction of Yanqing.
This section is also part of the Jiankou Great Wall.
On the west side of the "Beijing Junction" is the enemy building No. 170, one of the four municipal projects in Huairou District this year. If you continue to the west, you can find enemy buildings No. 180 and No. 185 in turn.
The "Beijing Great Wall Cultural Belt Conservation and Development Plan (2018-2035)" determined the spatial layout of the Beijing Great Wall Cultural Belt as "one line, five areas and multiple points".
Among them, the "first line" refers to the Great Wall line, and the "five pieces" are the five core cluster areas used to relieve the pressure on tourists from the open scenic spots of the Great Wall.
The sections repaired in Huairou District this year belong to the Huanghua Road Group area.
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The World Heritage Committee spoke highly of the Great Wall protection
At the 44th World Heritage Conference held this year, the World Heritage Committee spoke highly of the active and effective measures taken by the Chinese government in the protection of the Great Wall, so that the outstanding universal value of the heritage was properly protected; at the same time, it appreciated the Chinese government's promotion of the Great Wall National Cultural Park Construction, the promulgation and implementation of the "Great Wall Protection Master Plan", and the efforts and results achieved in public communication and promotion, heritage site capacity building, special protection legislation, modern technology applications, international exchanges and cooperation, and relief of tourism pressure.