Huai'an Travel Recommendations for 2024 (Updated in Jun)

The Astonishing Ming Dynasty Structure - Zhaohua Temple in Zhangjiakou

In a small town in Zhangjiakou, Hebei, hides an astonishing Ming Dynasty structure - the Zhaohua Temple in Huai'an. This is a place I've been longing for for half a year, and finally, on my first visit here, I successfully left my footprints. You might find it hard to imagine that this temple was built using the same construction techniques as the altar temples in Beijing. Whether it's the design, the murals, or the lifelike water and land paintings inside the hall, they all make people feel as if they've traveled back to the Ming Dynasty, leaving them in awe. Zhaohua Temple is the fifth batch of key cultural relics protection units in the country, established in the 25th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1392). Today, the mountain gate, Heavenly King Hall, Daxiong Treasure Hall, and the Three Great Men Hall in the temple all retain the early Ming wooden structure, each place is full of a sense of history. If you start from Datong and proceed from west to east along the Great Wall, you will pass through Datong Yanggao County, Datong Tianzhen County, and Zhangjiakou Huaian County. In the Ming Dynasty, they were all part of the 'Datong Town' among the nine borders. In these three counties, there is a precious Ming Dynasty temple: Yanggao Yunlin Temple, Tianzhen Ciyun Temple, and Huaian Zhaohua Temple. These temples are rare imperial temples outside the capital during the Ming Dynasty, and I would like to call them the three great Ming structures of the border.