page_title: Beijing city fortifications
section_title: Defense
hierarchical_section_title: Beijing city fortifications / Defense
caption_attribution_description: English: The Ming Dynasty city wall's south-eastern corner tower of Beijing City 中文: 北京内城东南角楼
context_page_description: The Beijing city fortifications were constructed from the early 1400s to the year 1553. The inner city's wall was 24 kilometres long and 15 metres high, with a thickness of 20 metres at ground level and 12 metres at the top, and had nine gates. The wall stood for nearly 530 years, but in 1965, it was removed to allow for construction of the 2nd Ring Road and Line 2 of the Beijing Subway. Only one part of the original wall still exists, just south of the Beijing railway station in the southeast portion of the city. The Outer city walls had a perimeter of approximately 28 kilometres. The entire enclosure of the Inner and Outer cities formed a "凸" shape with a perimeter of nearly 60 kilometres.
  Beijing was the capital for the majority of the last three Chinese imperial dynasties. It was also a secondary capital to two northern dynasties, and is therefore often referred to as an ancient capital of five dynasties. It had an extensive fortification system, consisting of the Forbidden City, the Imperial City, the Inner city, and the Outer city.
context_section_description: The defense system of Beijing during the Ming and Qing dynasties included city walls, moats, gate towers, barbicans, watchtowers, corner guard towers, enemy sight towers, and military encampments both outside and inside the city. The mountains immediately north of the city and the interior Great Wall sections on those mountain ranges also acted as a defensive perimeter.
  During the Ming dynasty, troops under permanent encampment in and around Beijing were called Jingjun or Jingying ("capital troops"). During the Yongle era (1402–1424), they were organized into three groups, called Wujunying (consisting of the majority of the army), Sanqianying (consisting of mercenary and allied Mongol troops), and Shenjiying (consisting of troops using firearms). The three ying were further divided into 72 wei, organised into five groups named Zhongjun (centre), Zuoyejun (left middle), Youyejun (right middle), Zuoshaojun (left guard), and Youshaojun (right guard); these were collectively known as the Wujunying ("five troops"). The majority of the Jingjun were headquartered outside of west Deshengguan. Some camped in the rural districts of the capital area, at Nanyuan, Tonzhou, Lugouqiao, Changping, and the Juyongguan interior Great Wall. During the Tumu Crisis in 1449, the entire Jingjun was destroyed, a loss of some 500,000 men. Yu Qian then changed the organisational structure of the force, bringing approximately 100,000 well-trained troops from several different camps into one supergroup: the 10-battalion supergroup. This was raised to 12 battalions during the reign of Emperor Xian of the Ming dynasty. These were commanded from within the Inner city at Dongguanting and Xiguanting. Drilling and training fields outside of the city walls could also be used as temporary encampments. The original Wujunying, Sanqianying, and Shenjiying were converted to guard units in charge of protecting the Imperial city and the Forbidden city. Later the Imperial guards were joined by the Jinyiwei and the Tengxiangwei, whose commanders included "Mianyiwei Dahan General", "Hongkui General", "Mingjia General", "Bazong Director", and several others. A guard post in the Imperial city called "Hongpu" was formed. The city gates were closed at night and no one was allowed in or out unless special permission was given though one exception was the carts that continually brought spring water from Mount Yuquan. The city streets had guards on constant patrol at night. Loud and disruptive behaviour was forbidden. Some streets had barricades erected at night to keep traffic away. The city walls normally had no soldiers on station, day or night. Most lived under the walls in encampments, with a few doing night shifts at gate towers, watchtowers and enemy sight towers. Only when there was danger of enemy attack were soldiers stationed atop the city walls. During the Ming dynasty, Beijing was often under siege by Mongol and Manchu forces. The city of Beijing was totally closed many times, with commoners forbidden entrance into the city.
  During the Qing dynasty, Beijing's defense forces mainly relied on the Xiaoqiying, who were scattered in encampments within the Inner city, then mainly inhabited by Manchus. They were organized into Eight Banners: the Xianghuang banner at Andingmen, the Zhenghuang banner at Deshengmen, the Zhengbai banner at Dongzhimen, the Xiangbai banner at Chaoyangmen, the Zhenghong banner at Xizhimen, the Xianghong banner at Fuchengmen, the Zhenglan banner at Chongwenmen and the Xianglan banner at Xuanwumen. Each banner had an office hall, several troop barracks, a patrol station and a warehouse. In addition to the Xiaoqiying, troops permanently encamped in and around Beijing included the Qianfengying, Hujunying, Bujun Xunbuying, Jianruiying, Huoqiying (in charge of artillery), Shenjiying (first begun in 1862), and the Huqiangying (in charge of guns). From the Yongzheng era (1722–1735) onwards, the Eight Banner guard troops in charge of protecting the imperial leisure parks were camped in the area around the Old Summer Palace and Fragrant Hills. The sa
caption: Ming era southeastern corner tower of the city wall
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