Chongwen Gate – The Capital Tax Office

Chongwen Gate is a gate on the southern side of Beijing's inner-city wall. It is located at the southern end of Chongwenmen Inner Street in today's Dongcheng District. First built in 1267, it served as a city gate through the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, when Beijing was the capital. 

The main gate tower of Chongwen Gate is five bays wide, measuring 39.1 meters across, and has a depth of 24.3 meters. The platform on which the tower stands is 35.2 meters high. The tower has two stories and a double-eaved, xieshan-style roof, with gray cylindrical tiles and green glazed tiles along the edges.  

During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Chongwen Gate was one of the Nine Gates of the capital. It was a busy hub for merchants and travelers. It also housed the Capital Tax Office, which ranked first among the eight major tax offices in the country, and was well-known for its harsh tax policies. 

The archery tower of Chongwen Gate was destroyed by artillery fire during the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900. The main gate tower was torn down in 1959 when the road in front of Beijing Railway Station was being built. Today, the site is covered by a wide, clean asphalt road that carries heavy traffic day and night, with hundreds of thousands of people passing through each day. Compared to the old Great Capital of the Yuan dynasty seven hundred years ago, it is a world of difference.