Join correspondent Tom Wilmer for a visit to Yulin in Northern Shaanxi Province with Great Wall sections constructed with rammed earth; Mao’s mountain headquarters, and a premier relics museum
We traveled seven hours north from Xi’An to explore Yulin and the surrounding region, literally bordering Inner Mongolia
Our first stop is with Susie at the Petro China International Energy Company—a Coal, oil, natural gas and petrochemical processing facility.
Suzie shares insights about life in Yulin. She also provides insights as to why, if you want to succeed in the society, it’s pretty much mandatory to become a member of the Communist Party--if want to succeed. Membership isn’t mandatory, but if you don’t join, you’ll readily be passed over for promotion or selected as a new hire.
It was a seven hour train ride north from Xi’An to meet up with Ana Mitrovic, at the time a doctoral candidate in archeology at Northwest University in Xi’an.
Come along and join Anna as she shares cool insights about the Great Wall of China. In the northern reaches of Shannxi Province there’s a dearth of stone building materials, so they utilized rammed earth construction.
Unfortunately the earthen walls were prone to degradation due to erosion. Primary constructed during the Ming Dynasty, the Great Wall was in progress for more than 1,000 years, with some of the primary sections constructed from 475 BC to 351 AD.
Today, most of the wall sections in the Yulin region have eroded away to low slumped hills, with watch towers standing taller.
We’ll then visit Mao’s revolutionary mountain headquarters known as the, Zaoyuan Revolutionary Site just two kilometers from Yan'an
The Yangjialing Revolutionary Site covers an area of of 16.6 acres) at the village of Yangjialing, and is revered as the cradle of the Chinese Communist Revolution.
This is the site where the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was based from November 1938 until March 1947.
The Yangjialing Revolutionary Site served as the residences of the early leaders of China's communist party such as Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and others. The rooms of these leaders are frozen in time with hundreds of revolutionary relics are on display.
Last but by no means least we’ll stop in for a visit at a relatively new relics museum, ranked among the top three museums of historic relics in the entire province. The museum showcases amazing regional archeological artifacts, some reaching back more than 3,000 years.
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