Old East Gate Ruins

Old East Gate Ruins

The Old East Gate Ruins is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Old East Gate Ruins are located in the eastern part of Guiyang City.

According to the Qing Dynasty’s Qianlong-era *Guizhou General Gazetteer*, the Guiyang Prefecture city, also known as the Shunyuan city from the Yuan Dynasty, originally had an earthen wall. Its east, west, and south sides were the same as those of the present city, while the north side only extended to the Bell and Drum Tower (now at the entrance of Wangjia Lane). The basic layout of old Guiyang city was truly established by the two constructions of the stone city during the Ming Dynasty. The first was the construction of the inner city of Guiyang in the 15th year of the Hongwu reign (1382), which had a circumference of nine li and seven fen, with five city gates in total: the Wusheng Gate in the east, the Chaojing Gate in the south, the Shengquan Gate in the west, the Rouyuan Gate in the north, and the second southern gate called the Dehua Gate. The second construction took place in the 6th year of the Tianqi reign (1626), when the Governor-General of Yunnan and Guizhou, Zhang Heming, and the Governor of Guizhou, Wang Jian, built an outer city wall over 600 zhang beyond the North Gate, adding four new gates: the Weiqing Gate, Liuguang Gate, Hongbian Gate, and Xiaodong Gate. In the early Qing Dynasty, to erase traces of the previous dynasty and promote the orthodox ideology of the Qing rule, local authorities changed the names of the Ming Dynasty gates. The *Guizhou General Gazetteer* from the Kangxi era recorded: Five gates: the east called Zhaowen, the south called Ying’en, the southwest called Guangji, the west called Zhenwu, and the north called Bude. There were also two water gates: one in the northeast and another along the riverside in the southwest.

Attraction Location

Zhongshan East Road, Yunyan District, Guiyang City, Guizhou Province