Built during the Ming dynasty, Zhengyangmen once consisted of a gatehouse and an archery tower connected by side walls and flanking gates, forming a massive barbican that controlled entry into the imperial city from the south. At 42 meters, the gatehouse is the tallest of all surviving gates in Beijing's city wall. Colloquially known as Qianmen -- literally 'Front Gate' -- it guarded the most direct approach to the emperor's domain. The city's first railway station, Qianmen Station, was built just outside, making the gate both a literal and symbolic threshold between old Beijing and the modern world arriving by rail.

During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, Zhengyangmen became a battlefield. The Hui and Dongxiang Muslim Kansu Braves under General Ma Fulu fought ferociously against the Eight-Nation Alliance at the gate during the Battle of Beijing. Ma Fulu and 100 soldiers from his home village died in the fighting. His cousins Ma Fugui and Ma Fuquan, and his nephews Ma Yaotu and Ma Zhaotu, were also killed. The gate sustained considerable damage during the assault. After the rebellion, the Qing government violated the terms of the Boxer Protocol by having a tower rebuilt at the gate -- a small act of defiance from a dynasty in its final years.

The gate complex was extensively reconstructed in 1914, and the barbican's side gates were torn down in 1915. After 1949, the People's Liberation Army occupied the gatehouse as a garrison post until 1980. But Zhengyangmen's greatest survival came in the late 1960s, when the construction of the Beijing Subway consumed most of the remaining city walls. Other gates were not so fortunate: Deshengmen in the north lost its gatehouse, keeping only the archery tower. Xibianmen retains only part of its barbican. Zhengyangmen survived intact -- both gatehouse and archery tower -- making it one of the most complete remnants of a defensive system that once encircled the entire city.

Today Qianmen Avenue cuts between the gatehouse and the archery tower, and a subway station sits in the space that the barbican once enclosed. The avenue proceeding south from the gate, Qianmen Street, has been a commercial center for centuries, though a 2000s redevelopment by SOHO China replaced local businesses with international brands, leaving the strip oddly deserted. The neighboring Dashilanr street retains more character, and the famous Peking duck restaurant Quanjude still occupies its spot. The area also claims Beijing's narrowest hutong, the Qianshi hutong. But it is the gate's position on the central axis that gives it enduring significance: looking north from Zhengyangmen, the eye travels past the Monument to the People's Heroes and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, through Tiananmen Gate, past the Meridian Gate to the imperial throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and onward to the Drum and Bell Towers. Every major structure is aligned. Qianmen is the hinge.