The Best of the Great Wall——SI MA TAI
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Simatai Great Wall is located in Gu Beikou, a strategic pass about 120 km to the northeast of Beijing. The construction of this part of Great Wall started in the early Hongwu Reign of Ming Dynasty. It is a section that still keeps the original appearance of Great Wall of Ming Dynasty. Simatai Great Wall is 5.4 km long. There are 35 watchtowers on it all together. This section of Great Wall was ingeniously conceived and uniquely designed with novel structure and diversification. It concentrates many characteristics of the Great Wall in one section, and forms a section of “Wonderful Great Wall”. |
| Simatai Great Wall can be described with the following five words: precipitous, dense, comprehensive, ingenious and peculiar. Precipitous: Simatai Great Wall was built along the wriggling mountain ridge that seemed to be cut by knives and axes. It wind its way sinuously and dangerously. Dense: It is another unique character of Simatai Great Wall. The smallest distance between two watchtowers is only 43.8 m, the most distant two towers are just about 600 m apart from each other. The average distance between towers is about 100-200 m. According to the regulations of building Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty, one watchtower was to be built at about every 500 m. Therefore, this section of Great Wall was an exception. Comprehensive: This means that the construction forms | 
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and the wall are unique and diversified. Ingenious: This is embodied in the construction of the barrier wall that
could be used for both offense and defense, consolidating step by
step. Peculiar: The Great Wall built above
water-eroded caves. The ingenious combination of water-eroded caves and
the wall is unique among the entire Great Wall of Ming Dynasty. We can’t
help think that it is splendid.
Although the major scenery of Simatai is Great Wall with precipitous mountain, there are also beautiful scenes with waves of clean water and sailing boats. The Mandarin Duck Lake at the foot of this section brings spirit to the Great Wall. The clean water comes from the abundant perennial cool spring and hot spring; witch sprays not vapor in winter and keeps water temperature at 38oC year round. Water of the lake is cool in one half and hot in another half. It never freezes whether in summer or winter. Sailing on the lake in summer, the cool breeze will make you relax and happy. |
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