Dongshuimen and the City Wall

Dongshuimen and the City Wall

Dongshuimen and the City Wall are a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Dongshuimen and the City Wall are located in the Dongshuimen section of Yuzhong District, dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Dongshuimen and the City Wall are a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit, built during the Ming Dynasty as the main eastern gate of old Chongqing. The existing city gate is 3.2 meters wide, 5 meters high, and 6.7 meters thick, featuring a stone barrel-vaulted gate passage. Nearby, there is a section of stone city wall about 200 meters long, approximately 6 meters high. It is named after its orientation to the east, aligned with the flow of the Yangtze River heading east. The stone battlements and gate remain largely intact, consisting of a single gate with an arched gateway. The characters “Dong Shui Men” (East Water Gate) on the lintel have been weathered. The Dongshuimen city wall faces the Yangtze River, standing alone in the middle of the river, naturally fortified and imposing, showcasing the typical characteristics of an ancient mountain city’s fortifications.

Speaking of the history of Chongqing’s city wall construction, it can be traced back to 316 BC when Zhang Yi, a renowned statesman of the Warring States Period, first built Jiangzhou City. Later, in 226 AD during the Jianxing era, Li Yan, the Governor of Shu, expanded the city. During the Southern Song Dynasty, to resist invasions by the Mongols (and later the Yuan), Peng Daya and Yu Jie successively constructed a mountain city defense system. This continued until the Ming Dynasty under Zhu Yuanzhang (1368–1398), when large-scale renovations were carried out once again.

According to the "Ba County Annals" from the Qing Dynasty's Qianlong era: “In the early Hongwu years of the Ming Dynasty, Commander Dai Ding built a stone city on the old site, ten zhang high. It spanned 2,660 zhang and 7 chi in circumference, encircling the river as a moat, with seventeen gates—nine open and eight closed—symbolizing the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams.” Although Dai Ding was a military man, he had considerable faith in Taoist doctrines. Therefore, when constructing the gates, Dai Ding determined their placement according to the Five Elements—metal, wood, water, fire, and earth—and set the number of gates based on the “Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams,” symbolizing an impregnable “city of gold and boiling water.” This gave rise to the seventeen gates of old Chongqing’s “nine open and eight closed” layout.

Among these “nine open and eight closed” gates, Dongshuimen is one of the riverside open gates. The other open gates are Chaotianmen, Taipingmen, Chongqimen, Jinzimen, Nanjimen, Tongyuanmen, Linjiangmen, and Qiansimen; while the closed gates are Cuiweimen, Jintangmen, Renhemen, Fenghuangmen, [a missing gate name], Dingyuanmen, Hongyamen, and Xishuimen.

In the old days, the area inside Dongshuimen was quite bustling. The Jiangnan Guild Hall, Huguang Guild Hall, and Yuwang Temple were all built near the gate. Here, fellow townsmen gathered, local accents filled the air, merchants thronged, trade was frequent, and shops of all sizes stood in rows. Mountain goods, Cantonese goods, Suzhou goods, and miscellaneous items were all available, making it one of the most prosperous areas of old Chongqing.

In 2000, Dongshuimen and the City Wall were announced by the Chongqing Municipal People’s Government as part of the first batch of Chongqing Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Units.