中华门城堡-英文简介

Zhonghua Gate

Zhonghua Gate is the south gate of Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province. As a precious cultural relic, Zhonghua Gate has the double distinction of being the biggest castle-style city gate in China and the most complicated castle in the world. It is the castle’s magnificent scale, delicate structure and the great skill with which it was built that bequeath it an important place in China’s military and architectural traditions.

The building of Nanjing’s imposing city walls began in 1366, ordered by Zhu Yuanzhang who adopted the suggestion of “building the high was”by his minister, named Zhu Sheng, and founded the Ming Dynasty two years later in 1368. Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang then made Nanjing as the capital of the Ming Dynasty and had the wall project expanded to defend it from attack. When completed in 1386, the wall was the longest in China, 33,676 kilometers in circumference, and had many gates.

Zhonghua Gate, the grandest among all the gates in Nanjing, was an architecturally complex structure composed of three closed courtyards and four arched doors serving as the entrance. The first entrance of the gate is a three-tier building in which 27 hiding caves for soldiers are built. These caves are spacious enough to hold approximately 3,000 soldiers and store large quantities of food and weapons. There is a ramp for horses on either side leading to the top of the wall.The entire structure was built with massive bricks mortared together with special cement made from lime, sticky rice juice and tung oil.

Zhonghua Gate has gone through wind and rain for more than 600 years. As the biggest among similar constructions in china, it provides valuable data for the study of ancient city was involving military purpose. It has been listed as a key monument for national preservation since 1988.