The sound of swallows

It is said that in ancient times, a pair of swallows built a nest in the Rouyuan gate of Jiayu pass. One day, two swallows left the gate. At dusk, the female returned first. When the male flew back, the gate was closed and they could not enter the gate. So they died by touching the wall. For this reason, the female swallow was so sad that she made a sound of "chirp" from time to time, and she cried until she died. When he died, his spirit did not disperse. When he hit the wall, there was a "chirp" sound of the swallow. From then on, visitors came here to hit the wall and listen to the sound of the swallow, even the wall was full of marks. In order to protect the city wall, now we have changed the wall striking to stone striking. We can still hear Yan Ming.

The sound of swallows

Yanming is one of the legends in ancient times. The reason of "Yanming" is the particularity of Jiayuguan building structure

Scientific explanation

From the perspective of architecture, we can know that the reason of this magical phenomenon is caused by the particularity of Jiayuguan building structure. In these places, the wall corners are built of bricks with tight structure. The surface of the wall is flat, and the wall is inclined upward in a trapezoid shape. The wall corners are trumpet shaped, small at the bottom and large at the top,

Because the distance between people's standing position and the wall is not the same, when the stone strikes the wall or two stones strike each other, there will be a continuous chirp echo, which will change from fast to slow, from low to high, and finally disappear in the air, making people hear a kind of "chirp" sound of the swallow.

In ancient times, people regarded the sound of Yan Ming that can be heard in Jiayuguan as auspicious sound. When the general went out to fight, his wife struck the wall and prayed. So later, before the officers and soldiers left the customs, they took their families and children to the corner of the wall to strike for good luck.

Address: rouyuanmen, Jiayuguan, Gansu Province

Longitude: 98.225023

Latitude: 39.803129

Chinese PinYin : Ji Shi Yan Ming