Hiking around Jiangjunguan Great Wall and Jiangjunguan Village

Today is Feb 17, 2011, the day for the Lantern Fesitval, also the last day of the two week Chinese New Year Period 2011. Though eager to return home for the family reunion on this special holiday, we all expect to visit Jiangjunguan Village and hike around the Jiangjunguan Great Wall, our last inspection spot on the 5-day Great Wall Tour.

After 20-minute driving from Huangsongyu Reservior, we are now at the crossroad of Kaoshanjibeikou (靠山集北口) with east leading to Huangyaguan Great Wall 30km, south to Jinhai Lake, and north to our destination Jiangjunguan (将军关) 8km.

Actually Jiangjunguan Village is now divided into two parts - The original old village and the new village. We have just driven past the new village, where all the villagers live in the brand new two-storey buildings. Most of the famlies in the new village are engaged in rural tourism, providing housing and eating to the urban residents driving to the countrysides on the weekends.

Jiangjunguan Village

We skip over the new village and directly enter the old one. The ancient Jiangjunguan Village is a standard mountain village lying on the flat and open place in the valley with its west side extending to the main road linking Beijing and Hebei Province. So Jiangjunguan Village is a border village abutting the Hebei Province in the northeast.

Jiangjunguan Village is one of the villages in Beijing which still keep its traditional and pristine structures - made of stone and brick walls, tiles and dirt roads.

An old house with 2 or 3 rooms within a shabby stone walls, forming a simple courtyard. The corn stalks are their main firewood.

A close look at the farmhouse.

A grind stone in the village.

Jiangjunguan Great Wall

Standing on the north of Jiangjunguan Village is a bit of the Great Wall built in Ming Dynasty, locally referred as "Jiangjunguan Great Wall". "Jiangjunguan" literally means "a general's pass". This place used to be an important pass with military importance, the reason why the fort was built here.

It is said Jiangjunguan Great Wall is the first Great Wall pass (fort) in Beijing from the east. Or in other words, Jiangjunguan Great Wall is the first section of the Great Wall from east Beijing with Beijing's most western section at

Changyucheng Great Wall.

Jiangjunguan Great Wall stands on the north of the Jiangjunguan Village.

Through our field inspection, we find this section of the wall is made of all the rocks with little lime cementing these rock. Most of the battlements are destroyed and collapsed. The wall surface looks bare and rough.

To the west of the Village across the valley, we find the distant Great Wall still visible on the high mountains.

So the valley was one of the easy passages to Beijing from the north. A fort built here had its reason. Later the fort disappeared and the village came.That's the general history of the village and the Wall.

he historical record says there used to be three-storey building in the fort (pass city). The building base is there with an archway door.

  This huge rock is locally referred as "the General's Rock". West of the rock is an open playground, where the general used to gather or train his soldiers.

If you finish your travel in Jiangjunguan Village, don't forget to stop for a rural lunch here. They offer grilled rainbow trout, fried shrimp, braised local chicken mushroom, assorted vegetables, millet pancakes and other characteristics of food readily available.

Further Readings