A different kind of Great Wall

When you visit Zhangjiakou, you've got to take a photo in front of the Big Mirror Gate. It's the landmark of the city. Also, who can resist a chance to scale the Great Wall in less than a minute and boast about it when other sections of the wall are so forbidding?

Built in 1644 in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), this is the only place along the wall where a crossing is not called a pass, but a gate. Inside the gate is a street flanked with shops, where merchants from various ethnicities conducted business.

Obviously there were also times of tension and military conflict. Not far from this gate is the Little Mirror Gate, which is so small no horse rider could gallop through. You can easily figure out the occasions for war and peace. This section of the wall was constructed in the Ming Dynasty and stretched 450 kilometers. When the subsequent Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) came around, the border was pushed further north, so the wall lost its use for defense.