The Bell Tower Drum Tower and the City Well in Xi’an

　　Good morning Ladies and Gentlemen:

　　Today we will have three places to visit—the Bell Tower the Drum Tower and the City Well. First we come to the Bell Tower.

　　The Bell Tower, a classical building with carved beams and painted rafters, has been served as the symbol of Xi’an. It stands in the center of the downtown area where the north street, the south street, the west street and the east street meet. And the tower house a huge bell which in ancient times was use to strike the time every morning. This is how the tower got its name. now it is an important historical monument in shaanxi Province.

　　The Bell tower was first built in Ying Xiang temple in 1384 during the Ming dynasty. It was moved to its present site in 1582 as a result of the city‘s expansion program.

　　Ladies and gentlemen, There is a story about the Bell Tower. It’s said that the first emperor of Ming dynasty , Zhu yuanzhang , he was born in a poor family. Both his parent died when he was young, and he had to live a hard life. Later, he went to a temple to become a monk. When he ascended the throne, he was afraid of being deposed by someone of “real dragon”. Therefore, he gave orders to build bell tower all over the county to repress the “dragon spirits”. Xi’an has been the imperial capital city since ancient times. So the “dragon spirits ” must be very strong here. That’s why the bell tower in Xi’an was not only built earlier, but also bigger than the other ones in the country. The base of the tower is 1,337.4 square meters in size, 8.6 meters high and 35.5 meters wide. It was laid with blue bricks all over. The whole building is 36 meters above ground. It is a brick-and –wood structure. The eaves are supported by colored “dou gong” a traditional structural system in which brackets are used to join columns and crossbeams, the use of dou gong made the whole building firm and beautiful.

　　Well, next we will visit the Drum Tower nearly.

　　The Drum Tower stands 500 meters to the northwest of the Bell Tower. It was built in 1380. There used to be a huge drum in the tower, which told the time at dark, and that is how the tower got its present name. Besides marking the time, the drum was also used to give warnings to people in times of war. The base of The Drum Tower is 1,924 square meters in size, and 34 meters in height. It was built with blue bricks. The Drum Tower has a rectangular shape and shows tier and the outside eaves are decorated with networks of wood arches.

　　At last, we will visit the famous city wall of Xi’an. The most complete and the best preserved city wall in china.

　　The city wall of Xi’an is an extension of the prior Tang dynasty structure. It was stared in 1370 and finished in 1378 and has a rectangular –shaped construction. It is over 4 kilometers from the east to west and about 3 kilometers from the north to south. And the total length is 13.7 kilometers. It stands 12 meters high, 12-14 meters wide across the top and 15-18 meters thick at the button. On the top of the city wall, there is a rampart every 120 meters, which extends out from the main wall. The top of the rampart is at the same level as the top of the wall. The ramparts were built to allow soldiers to see those enemies who would try to climb up the wall. The distance between every two ramparts is just within the range of arrow shot from either side. This allowed soldiers to protect the entire wall without exposing themselves to the enemy. There are altogether 98 of them on the city wall and each has a sentry building on top of it.

　　There are four main gates of the city wall-one on each side-named the east gate, the west gate, south gate and north gate. The four gates of the city wall were the only way to go into and out of town. In Xi’an, each of the four gates consists of three gate towers. The main gate tower is called ZhengLou which is located on top of the main part of the city wall. It is the inner one and is also the main entrance to the city. Zha lou is the gate tower which a suspension bridge and located outside of the city wall. It’s used to lift and lower the suspension bridge. Jian lou is the arrow tower and located in between the Zhenglou and Zhaloutowers. There are square windows in the front and on the two sides to shoot arrows. Jianlou and Zhenglou are connected by walls and the encircled area is called Wongcheng in which soldiers could be stationed. From Wongcheng, there are also horse passages leading to the top of the wall. There are altogether eleven horse passages around the city.

　　A watch tower is located on each of the four corners of the wall. The one at the southwestern corner is round, probably after the model of the imperial city wall of the Tang dynasty. But the other three are square and are higher and larger than the sentry building on the ramparts. This shows the strategic importance of the corners of the city wall.

　　All right, we have finished visiting the famous city wall of Xi’an. Thank you.
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