water gate
There is a water pass on the Badaling Great Wall. The origin of this water pass is extraordinary.
It turns out that this is a big sand river. There is a spring above the bend of the river. The current is so fast that it rushes out of a ditch over time. In order to pass, people put up flagstones on the ditch. There are mountains on both sides of Hetao. If you want to cross it, you must walk on the Shahektao.
When building the Great Wall, it was difficult to build because of the wide river channel. In addition, this is the gateway, so it was abandoned first. When the mountains on both sides are repaired, the gold, silver, stone and city bricks are all used up. However, the official issued an urgent order to finish the repair within one month. As time goes by, the deadline is getting closer and closer, but the construction of the city wall is not yet in sight. Now, the foreman made a mistake.
One evening, the foreman forced the migrant workers out to open stones. He came to Shahetao alone, looked at the mountains, looked up at the sky, and sighed sadly. At that moment, an old man with white beard came riding a small donkey, humming and singing a song. The foreman felt curious, so he stared at the old man closely, and saw the little donkey walking up the flagstone. Unexpectedly, the donkey's hoof was twisted by the stone plate, and lost before hitting (dialect: stagger). His girdle was suddenly lifted, and a lot of gold bars were shaken out of it. The donkey was startled, straightened up, trotted, and the old man was gone.
When the foreman saw the gold bars, his eyes turned red. He quickly grabbed the flagstone, grabbed the gold bars and put them in his coat pocket. There was no place to put the rest of the gold bars. It was a pity to leave them behind, so we hurried to pull them in the Hetao and covered them with stones. With a sigh of relief, we covered the gold bars in our pockets and went back.
The next day, the foreman got up early, slipped a bag and ran to Shahetao secretly. Unexpectedly, Shahetao is totally different. At the place where he buried the gold bars, there were two big stone walls, with only the ditch left in the middle, which is exactly the same as the Great Wall required by the authorities. He was surprised and afraid. He thought to himself: The old man with white beard must be a fairy. He has come to help others. How can God tolerate the fact that he has hidden immortal gold bricks? So he quickly took out all the gold bars and used them to build two stone doors on the top of the stone slab. There was still water flowing in the ditch below.
Since then, people have named it Shuiguan.
Note: The article is from Badaling Great Wall
