During the early part of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), Qianmen, or Front Gate, served as the main portal to the once-walled city of Beijing.   Today, it remains an important historical and architectural landmark.   Qianmen was known as Lizheng, or Upright Justice in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), when Beijing, then known as Dadu, served as the Mongol empire's winter capital.

The largest and most important of the nine original entrances to Beijing, Qianmen was the main gate to imperial city from the Ming until the Republican period (1912-1949).   Lying on a straight north-south axis stretching from the imperial throne to the Temples of Heaven and Agriculture, Qianmen stood in the middle of the three gates within the southern city wall.

In the early Ming Beijing was called Beiping, or Northern Peace, and served a garrison town guarding the northern frontiers of China. The third Ming emperor Yongle (r: 1403-1424) relocated the capital from Nanjing to Beiping, his original power base.  On the remnants of the former Yuan capital, Yongle built Beijing as the capital city of the Ming.   When a new southern wall was erected in 1419, the central gate retained its Yuan name of Lizheng. Lizhengmen subsequently became Zhengyangmen, or Gate Straight Towards the Sun, because the gate faces due south.

Largely destroyed during the Boxer Uprising in the summer of 1900, when much of the capital lay razed and in ruins, Qianmen and its outer watchtower was later rebuilt. By the 1960s, when the Mao government took apart all the walls surrounding Beijing, only Qianmen remained standing.Beijing was built as a medieval fortress for pedestrian and animal traffic, not modern transportation, so in 1915, Curt Rothkegel (1876-1946), a Qingdao-based German architect, was asked to redesign Qianmen and ease traffic from either side of the city wall.   The enceintes around Qianmen were among the first walled structures in China removed for the convenience of motor transportation.

Between 1915 and 1969 all gates and towers were either toppled or dismantled; only the place names remained.   A small section of the city wall can still be seen not far from Qianmen. Of Beijing's old capital, only the Chenglou and the Jianguo Observatory watchtowers remain generally intact;   also still standing is the outer watchtower, Deshengmen, near the base of which is now an entrance to the subway.

Open daily from 08:30 to 16:30, Qianmen is worth seeing and can be part of any visit to Tian'anmen Square, the Great Hall of the People, Mao's Mausoleum, and the History Museum. Qianmen is open daily 8:30am-4:30pm. Tickets are RMB5.- (USD0.60) for students with identification, or RMB10.- (USD1.20) for regular tickets.