Baimaguan Fort

Baimaguan Fort, built during the Ming Dynasty, rests north of Beijing city not far from the Miyun Reservoir of the Great Wall. The fort features more than 500 stunning guard and beacon towers, and the area also boasts famous forts such as Qiangzilu and Gubeikou. Centuries after their construction, however, ruins are all that remain of most of these structures including Baimaguan.

The Chinese characters “Bai Ma Guan Bao” are inscribed on a stone tablet above the arch, one that is rather unique from those found at other forts, in that the 4 characters are arranged vertically in 4 lines: "Bai Ma" on the right and "Guan Bao" on the left. Other stone-inscribed characters are typically set horizontally and read left to right. Baima means "white horse."