Ancheng City Wall

Ancheng Village lies on the west bank of the West Tiaoxi River, roughly 10 kilometres north of Dipu Town, the seat of Anji County. It served as the administrative centre of Anji Prefecture and Anji County from the late Tang Dynasty through the Republic of China era.

According to the Tongzhi-era Records of Anji County: “In the 16th year of the Zhizheng reign of the Yuan Dynasty (1356), troops of the Ming captured the territory. Prefect Zhang Junde first built an earthen city wall. A year later, Marshal Fei Yu reinforced the wall with stone rafts. The city stretched six li in circumference, over two zhang in height, and half that in width. Four gates were erected: the Eastern Gate named Yingchun (Binyang), the Southern Gate Chaoyang (Lizheng), the Western Gate Baocheng (Ying’en), and the Northern Gate Gongchen (Yingfeng). Bordering the great river, the city diverted river water to form a moat, which was further excavated into a water channel navigable by small boats and rafts.”

The city of Ancheng takes a roughly peach shape in plan view. Within the walls once stood nine streets, eighteen alleys, twelve memorial archways, seventy-two wells, alongside government offices, a Confucian temple, sacrificial altars and other buildings. Mulberry trees were planted all around the perimeter, earning it the elegant moniker “Peach-shaped Mulberry City”.

Before Anji County was established, the territory belonged to Zhang County under Zhang Commandery, whose administrative seat stood at the ancient Anji city ruins today. In the second year of the Yuanshou reign of the Western Han Dynasty (121 BCE), Zhang Commandery was renamed Danyang Commandery, and its government moved to Wanling, present-day Xuancheng in Anhui Province. The following year, Zhang County was renamed Guzhang County under Danyang Commandery.

The Book of the Later Han · Records of Danyang Commandery · Guzhang County records: “Towards the end of the Guanghe reign, Zhang Jiao launched a rebellion. The locals here guarded the mountain passes to aid the imperial court, earning imperial favour from the Han throne.”

In the second year of the Zhongping reign of Emperor Ling (185), the southern territory of Guzhang County was partitioned to form a new county. Drawing on the line “Safe and blessed shall we be” from the “No Uniforms” ode in the Book of Songs, the emperor named the new county Anji, placing it under Danyang Commandery.

The county seat shifted locations several times, before relocating west of Majia Ferry (modern Ancheng) in the fourth year of the Tianyou reign of the late Tang Dynasty (907).

The Ancheng City Wall complex comprises ramparts, gate towers, city gates, encircling horse paths, a moat and stone bridges spanning the waterways. Today, most structural elements remain well-preserved, aside from collapsed battlements, largely dismantled inner stone revetments, the demolished Eastern Gate and its drawbridge, and sections of the moat silted up over time.

The wall runs 3,000 metres in perimeter with a trapezoidal cross-section: its base measures 6–8 metres wide, the top 3–4 metres wide, and surviving sections stand 3–6 metres tall. The core is rammed loam mixed with gravel; the outer face is faced with blue bricks and ashlar stone, while the inner face is lined with field stones.

Repeatedly damaged by floodwaters, the wall underwent numerous restorations and fulfils dual functions of defence and flood control. The four gates were ingeniously laid out to suit the terrain sloping higher in the south and lower in the north. The Southern Gate, adjacent to the West Tiaoxi River, is relatively compact, whereas the Northern Gate is grand and tall. This design slows water inflow while accelerating flood discharge. Every gate tower features two sets of gates: the inner swing gates for military defence, and outer sluice-style gates built to hold back floodwater.

The retaining stone walls (king kong walls) of the surviving Southern, Western and Northern Gates are laid with ashlar stone in staggered or T-shaped bond, though the vault arch construction techniques differ slightly; the Western and Southern Gate arches follow nearly identical methods.

Horse paths encircle the wall on both inner and outer sides, approximately 1.8 metres wide. The inner paths are paved with blue bricks or cobblestone centres with generous drainage gradients. The outer paths use blue bricks flanked by kerbstones, with gentler slopes for water runoff.

The moat ranges 20 to 80 metres wide. Earthen dykes line its outer bank. Near the wall on the inner bank, ashlar stone retaining walls contain the water; other stretches rely on rammed loam embankments. Flat stone bridges cross the northern and southern moats. A drawbridge once spanned the eastern moat but was removed during the construction of the Anji-Sihong Highway, while an arch bridge crosses the western moat.

Around 500 metres southeast of the wall, on the east bank of the West Tiaoxi River, stands Lingzhi Pagoda, first erected in the Five Dynasties period of the late Tang and restored in 1995. Roughly 200 metres south of the Eastern Gate lies a secondary small eastern gate. A stone dock once stood just outside it beside the Tiaoxi River. Cultural deposits north of the dock reach over two metres deep, yielding abundant late Tang to Song porcelain shards. Recovered artefacts include bowls and plates from famous kilns such as Jingdezhen, Longquan, Yue, Dehua, Jizhou and Yaozhou.

Ancheng is also the hometown of the great master Wu Changshuo. At the age of seventeen, Wu moved from Zhangwu Village to Ancheng, where he purchased land and built a residence named Wuyuan Garden, whose ruins are still visible today.

Sited at the heart of ancient Guzhang Commandery, Ancheng was first designated a county seat in the Han Dynasty and walled in the late Tang. It served as the seat of Anji Prefecture and County for over 1,300 years, from the late Tang until the end of the Republic of China. Between the first year of the Zhengde reign of the Ming Dynasty (1506) and the thirty-sixth year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty (1771), it functioned exclusively as Anji Prefecture’s administrative centre.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, Ancheng emerged as a major commercial hub in northern Zhejiang. “Merchants wealthy and distinguished converged here from thousands of li away, forming a prosperous metropolis of the southeast.”

The Ancheng City Wall constitutes the most intact surviving prefectural and county-level defensive wall system across Zhejiang and the entire Jiangnan region, bearing distinct architectural traits of mountainous areas. Initial construction began at the turn of the Yuan and Ming dynasties, followed by multiple renovations through the Ming, Qing and Republican periods, preserving masonry techniques from successive eras and rendering it invaluable for research into the evolution of construction methods and building materials.

Clear joint seams between wall segments confirm that the rampart was built in sections, commissioned by imperial authorities and undertaken by teams of local craftsmen. Such segmented contracting for a city wall of this scale is comparatively rare in Chinese architectural history.

Ancheng’s sophisticated urban layout and clever gate engineering carry immense historical, artistic and scientific value. Preserving the wall, moat and stone bridges yields irreplaceable physical evidence and historical data for the study of ancient prefectural and county governance, politics, economy, culture and defensive architecture, especially within mountainous Jiangnan regions.

Together, Ancheng and its city wall stand as an open-air museum of prefectural urban architecture integrating structural craft and fine art. Safeguarding and inheriting this historic heritage carries profound historical and contemporary significance for patriotism education, nurturing national morale and promoting national spirit. It was designated a Major Historical and Cultural Site Protected at the National Level in 2006