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Ancient City Wall
Built with rammed earth inside and brick and stone outside, the ancient city walls measure 10 meters high and 6162.7 meters long with 3-5 meters wide tops. Except the southern wall, which zigzags a bit according to the land contour, the other three walls all go straight, making the city area a square one. One city gate was built each to the southern to northern walls and two city gates were built each to the western and eastern walls. All six city gates have gate towers and inside gates attached to them. A watch tower was built on the wall top every 50-100 meters away, totaling 72 watchtowers in all along the four walls. The parapets measuring 2 meters high each were built along the outside edges of the walls with 3000 mouths left open for defense shooting. It is said that Confucius once had 72 disciples and 3000 students, therefore 72 watch towers and 3000 parapets¡¯ openings on the top of the four walls were built. There were another four grand watch towers originally built on the four corners of the squared walls, but they all disappeared long ago, with only one Great Scholar Tower and one Nameroll Calling Platform on the wall tops left today. Dug around the walls is a defense ditch measuring more than 3.3 meters in depth and 3.3 meters in width with trees planted along it. A drawbridge is built in front of each gate.
Pingyao City is called "Tortoise City" by local people, because the southern gate and the northern gate look like the head and tail of a tortoise, respectively, while the two gates in the eastern wall and two gates in the western wall look much like the four legs of a tortoise. With the outer gate extended a bit out of the inner southern gate and two wells dug outside on either side, the tortoise city seems, to have its own head and its two eyes. What's more, the northern gate curves a bit towards the east, the four gates in both the western and eastern walls curve a bit all towards the south. This design shows as if a tortoise is crawling forward. Some people say it was for preventing the flood coming from the north-west that the city walls were built in such a pattern. But there is no definite proof for this saying except the symbolic meaning of eternity given by the shape of a tortoise according to the Chinese mentality.
Streets and Markets
The three-storey Market Tower is the center and joint point of the city streets. The buildings such as Ancient City Government seat, Town God's Temple, Confucius Temple, Military God Temple, Wealth God Temple and Lucky Fortune Temple are arranged symmetrically. With its main streets forming a "¸É"shape, there are altogether four main streets, eight branch streets and 72 lanes in the city area. Having stood a long time weather-wearing, all these buildings show no sign of dilapidation. In front of the gates of some magnificent buildings and grand shops, deep ruts on the ground are still there to be seen, reminding visitors of its ancient busy traffic and commercial situation.
The streets in this ancient town are broad and very well arranged. Dotted with memorial archways and decorated gateways, stretching one after another and high and low, the old houses and courtyards flanking the streets and lanes remind visitors of the long past and their ancestral places. Walking along the ancient streets, you seem to have landed in a world beyond the present one.
18.5 meters in height, and situated in the town centre, the Market Tower is the highest building within the main street from the south to the north running through it. it is said the marketing was going on around the Tower all day long, thus it was named the Market Tower. Belonging now to the historical sites protected by the provincial government, it was renovated in 1688 during the Emperor Kangxi Period of Qing Dynasty, but people still don't know when it was first built.
Banks and Shops
Pingyao is one of the birth places of Shanxi's banking and commercial businesses. As early as in 1824, Bank of Ri Sheng Chang (Sunrise Prosperity) initiated by Mr. Lei Lutai had begun its banking business. Probably it was the earliest bank in China and beginning of Chinese finance business in the modern era. Within a few years of its founding, its branch banks were rapidly distributed to Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan and Liaoning Provinces. Branch banks were also set up in such big cities as Beijing,
Chongqing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Hankou, Xian, Nanchang, Changsha, Sanyuan and so on. Followed by many Shanxi merchants and bankers, the banking business of Shanxi developed quickly, reaching such countries as Korea, Japan, Singapore, Russia and so on. Besides Ri Sheng Chang, collected in Pingyao City were more than 20 headquarters of such big nationwide banks as Ri Sheng Tong, Ri Sheng Da, Bai Chuan Tong, Wan Yuan Sheng, Xie Tong Qin, Xie Tong Tai and so on. There were also many banks in neighboring counties like Tai Gu and Qi Xian. Shanxi's banks constituted more than half of the banks in China, dominating then nation¡¯s finance business. Besides the banking business in commerce, Qing government's bank business affairs in the fields of industry, railways, water projects, coastal defense, relief funds and international finance affairs were all handled and managed by Shanxi¡¯s Bank System. They almost played the roles of National Central Bank and the National Finance Ministry of this country at that time.
Up till today, people can still trace its great prosperity of the bank groups nicknamed as "Asian Wall Street" from the remaining bank and shop buildings along the West Main Street in ancient Pingyao City.
Houses and Courtyards
There are altogether 3797 traditional residential "quadrangles", courtyards enclosed by buildings on all four sides, among which 400 courtyards are still well-preserved. Most of these courtyards have been left over since Ming and Qing Dynasties; some are the Yuan Dynasty buildings enjoying a history of more than 600 years, which are rarely seen in other parts of China.
Residential constructions in Pingyao vary greatly in style. Some are single-doored courtyards with buildings on all four sides. Some are compounds with two or three courtyards in string, or with a grand passway between two courtyards. Some courtyards have another courtyard coupled, with the main or two main courtyards paralleling with each other. Most of the houses are wood-framed, having the walls built with bricks and the roofs covered with grey tiles. Some houses have brick-arched ceilings, or have another room built over this cave-like house. Usually, the wooden doors, windows, cornices and their supporters have intricate designs and decorations. Stone columns and their bases are also sculptured beautifully. Brick walls opposite to the courtyard front doors always have meaningful sculptures on them. Pediments on the house roofs are built up and covered by tiles with both ends decorated by tiger-faced tiles. The pediments on rich families' house roofs are usually fixed with elegant animal-shaped tiles specially made of baked clay. The residential houses in Pingyao bear all the typical characteristics of the houses in the central part of Shanxi Province.
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