QINHUANGDAO — An avid brick collector. An amateur poet. A passionate photographer who uses a drone to capture images of the Great Wall.

All three have a common occupation: patrolling the 223 kilometers of the eastern end of the Great Wall in Qinhuangdao, a coastal city in Hebei province.

Qinhuangdao was the first city in China to employ full-time guards to protect the Great Wall in 2003. The practice, rapidly adopted by other cities, was included in the regulations for the protection of the Great Wall by the State Council, China's Cabinet, in 2006.

Xu Guohua, born in Banchangyu village in 1954, ran a coal pit in his younger days.

After the mine was closed over depletion concerns in 2000, he worked to protect mountain forests and promote tourism, taking advantage of the Great Wall, a famous attraction for Chinese and international tourists.

Banchangyu was believed to be a major producer of the gray bricks used in the wall's construction, but archaeologists had never found traces of a kiln.

A shrewd businessman and excavator, Xu perused historical documents for clues and mobilized villagers to hunt for artifacts.

His efforts contributed to the discovery of a cluster of 66 kilns buried in the area and helped him find his own ancestral roots. Stacks of bricks found inside the ruins were the same as those used to build the Great Wall during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

Many were inscribed with the names of people and places, indicating that people from many different parts of the country were involved in production.

On a stone tablet unearthed in the village in 2004, Xu found a detailed account of his forefather Xu Dahong, an army officer who moved from the family's ancestral home in Yiwu, Zhejiang province, to Qinhuangdao to oversee the building of the Great Wall.

"When I was a child, my grandmother told me our ancestors moved here from Yiwu to build the Great Wall in the 16th century. Now I've found evidence of what she said," said Xu Guohua, who, driven by this bond, devoted himself to protecting the centuries-old military fortress.

He started collecting bricks and producing films to promote the kilns to tourists. With his own savings, he founded an exhibition showcasing the Great Wall and its history, including the old bricks.

When he visited his ancestral home in 2010, he donated a brick to the city museum.

The cluster of kilns was listed as a cultural heritage site for special protection in 2013, drawing crowds of tourists to the village each year.

Poetic patroller

Zhang Heshan, also a descendant of Great Wall builders from Yiwu, included 22 poems in a book on the Great Wall he published last year.

The book consists of folk tales about the Great Wall and thoughts and experiences Zhang has had while patrolling the wall, a job he has been doing for 20 years.

Patrolling unfrequented sections is a potentially lonely experience, but Zhang likes chatting with the wall and its bricks as if they are old friends.

In one of his poems, he wrote:

"My wife was in hospital, leaving me home alone.

Anguished, I found no one to share my solitude.

With half a cup of liquor and two streams of tears,

I sat alone at the Great Wall and forgot to go home."

Zhang grew up in Chengziyu village near the Great Wall and became a farmer after he finished high school in 1973. A passionate reader and writer, he published his first essay in a local newspaper in 1975 and befriended several editors, who would drop by to visit him and tour the remnants of the wall.

He found a stone tablet along the wall in 1975, but two years later he saw that it was no longer there.

This ignited Zhang's passion to protect the heritage built by his ancestors. He started patrolling the wall in his spare time, dissuading villagers from herding or digging for herbs nearby.

In 2003, he became one of the first full-time guards.

In his spare time, he writes poems, takes photos and videos of the wall and publishes them on social media.

"I want to do all that I can to raise people's awareness of heritage protection and keep the Great Wall intact for generations to come," he said.

At 68, Zhang has 400,000 followers on his social media account.

Drone dissuader

Zhang Heshan's story inspired Zhang Peng, a sporty 36-year-old, to follow in the poet's footsteps and become a volunteer patroller in 2014. The two have the same family name but are not related.

Zhang Peng grew up near the Shanhai Pass, on the easternmost end of the Great Wall, and has loved hiking and climbing since he was young. As a volunteer, he hikes into the most unfrequented corners to clean up garbage and dissuade people from damaging the wall or getting themselves into danger.

He bought a drone in 2016 to take photos and videos.

Sometimes, he uses his videos to show fearless climbers what the hidden, dangerous parts really look like to discourage them from entering areas that are off-limits to tourists.

Because of his drone flying skills, Zhang became a full-time guard in 2017.

His job involves patrolling the Sandao Pass, the least accessible part of the wall, which perches on a cliff.

"I was excited and challenged, too," he recalled.

The data he collected using the drone has complemented efforts to lay a solid foundation for the wall's preservation.

The Great Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, consists of many interconnected walls, some dating back 2,000 years. The existing sections extend for over 21,000 km.

Xinhua