Wugang City Wall

Wugang ancient city wall

synonym

Wugang City wall generally refers to the ancient city wall of Wugang

The ancient city wall of Wugang began with Dou Yingming's "cutting down the barbarians to build the city". In the Northern Song Dynasty, for the purpose of "stationing troops to hold grain and controlling barbaric tusks", the city wall was built with rammed earth plates in the "military department" office, with a total perimeter of about 10 Li. There was a "Jiao tower" on the gate.

Historical evolution

Construction start time

It began with Dou Yingming's "cutting down the barbarians and building a city" by Han HengDi. In the Northern Song Dynasty, for the purpose of "stationing troops to hold grain and controlling barbaric tusks", the city wall was built with rammed earth plates in the "military department" office, with a total perimeter of about 10 Li. There was a "Jiao tower" on the gate. It was destroyed by war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. In the fourth year of Hongwu reign of Ming Dynasty (1371), the imperial court sent Wuyin Marquis Wu Liang to build Wugang City. He changed the Earth City into a stone city. He built the wall with hundreds of square blue stones weighing thousands of kilograms or even tons. The inside and outside of the wall are stone, and the top is also stone troweled. "The length is 774 Zhang, the height is 2 Zhang, and the top width is 8 feet. It was a pure stone wall rarely seen in the world at that time.

Renovation and reconstruction

After moving to Wugang, minzhuang King Zhu Hui (the 18th son of Zhu Yuanzhang), began the period of the central court, vassal kings and local government building the city together: in 1548, Minkang King Zhu Yurong built a "Little King City" with a length of 270 Zhang;

In the first year of Longqing in the Ming Dynasty (1567), Duan Youxue, Tongzhi of Baoqing Prefecture, and Jiang Shimo, Zhizhou of Wugang Prefecture, built the outer city. It was 736 Zhang long, 1 Zhang high, 8 feet wide at the top, 4 feet high at the top, and 3 drums. The whole stone city wall with a total perimeter of 5874 meters, consisting of "inner city" (including big and small King City) and "outer city" three rings, 13 gates and many towers, was formed. In the late Qing Dynasty, 52 big and small fortresses were set up in the inner city to resist the Taiping army.

City Wall Site

Wugang City Wall today survived four sections (two sections of inner city and two sections of outer city), with a total length of 1450 meters. The wall is divided into three parts: wall base, wall wall and battlements (crenels). The foundation of the wall is 0.5 to 2 meters underground. The walls are 6 to 6.6 meters high. They are built in four layers. They are surrounded by soil moisture inside and outside. There are parapets on the walls and horses. The original notches and square holes on the walls, which can not only hide, but also look out and shoot, have been destroyed. There are four gates: Jichuan gate, Qingqu gate, Yingen gate and Qingcheng gate. Each gate is divided into two layers. The base of the city wall and the gate are well preserved, all of which are built with square blue stone.

building structure

Architecture Overview

The sturdiness of Wugang City Wall is comprehensively optimized from the aspects of architectural structure, construction technology and Engineering Technology: Architectural Structure: whole stone structure. In the fourth year of Hongwu reign of Ming Dynasty, Wu Liang, the Marquis of Jiangyin, made a major optimization project for the city wall of Wugang: "both inside and outside are stones, and the top is also a stone trowel.". The materials used are square boulders weighing hundreds of kilos or even tons, and the battlements are built with special min brick (35 × 19 × 9cm). If we say that the ancient city wall of Pingyao, Shanxi, with a history of more than 2700 years and a total perimeter of 6163 meters, and an urban area of about 2.25 square kilometers, is "the oldest and largest existing (plain soil tamped, outsourcing green brick) city wall in China", then it has a history of more than 2200 years and a total perimeter of 5874 meters The city wall of Wugang, with an area of 1.84 square kilometers, is the oldest and largest city wall in southern China. Wugang City Wall is the only one in China and even in the world.

construction technology

It is constructed by stacking inside and outside boulders, mixing lime, tung oil and glutinous rice juice with mortar, and tamping soil and sand in the middle. Because of the whole boulder structure, and the tight and solid structure between the stones, it is as firm as ever, and its anti strike strength is extraordinary.

Engineering Technology

① The double-layer design of the gate: the gate is the weakness of the city's defense line. There are four existing stone gates in the ancient city of Wugang, each of which has two inner and outer gates. The outer gate is iron gate (Qianjin gate), and the inner gate is rotating shaft iron gate ", which has a strong defensive effect. In peacetime, pedestrians, vehicles and horses pass through the gate hole.

② Shuiguan and sluice: there is an artificial canal between the outer and inner city of Wugang ancient city, which passes through the city from west to East and becomes the second barrier to protect the city. Yingenmen and qingqumen have two water gates in the East and west respectively, with "one water gate for each to connect the canal". In other places, there are only 18 Shuiguan in Fengyang, Anhui Province, which was built in the Hongwu year of Ming Dynasty.

③ To prevent the "cave" attack: the base of the city wall is two meters below the ground, all of which are built with huge square stones, which can effectively prevent the enemy from "taking the cave as the road to attack the city". According to the records of Guangxu Dongan County annals, it was in March of the ninth year of Xianfeng that the Taiping army took "Dongmen cave as the tunnel" to capture Dongan city.

Historical evidence

During the period of Ming, Qing and Republic of China, during more than ten siege campaigns in Wugang, most of the attackers faced the impregnable wall of Wugang, either fled by themselves, or broke the halberd under the city, and all ended in failure. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Southern Ming army used the strong city wall of Wugang to launch six tough tug of war with the Qing army, and killed Shang Xi, the king of the Qing army, under the city wall of Wugang. Later generations wrote: "the small city of Mo Dao is like a big battle, but the Qing Dynasty was unable to climb it that year."

The routine repair and maintenance of Wugang City Wall is also first-class. This is quite different from the records of "city defense" in some places during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. For example, in the collection of Yang Yiqing, it is recorded that during the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty, the city collapsed and the bandits "filled the city gate with soil to prevent them from breaking into the city". On the contrary, according to Tongzhi Wugang Prefecture annals, in the 10th year of Xianfeng, Wugang "repaired the walls of the four gates by 863 feet and 7 feet and 5 inches" and "built the fort", which cost 18476 Liang

Judging from the existing four gates and four sections of the city wall (1450 meters in total length), Wugang is fortunate. In the history of China, how many romantic people have been beaten by wind and rain! Generally speaking, the capital of Liaozhong and the capital of the Yuan Dynasty have lost their former glory; in a small way, for example, during the reign of Jingtai in the Ming Dynasty, Taiyuan County, 3.5 kilometers around Nanguan in Jinyang, has been built, and some of the city walls have been preserved. Therefore, even in terms of preservation, the representativeness of Wugang City wall can not be ignored.

The future of ancient wall

The ancient city and the city wall are always the symbol of human creative power and city spirit. At present, the Party committee and government of Wugang City are carrying out comprehensive restoration and maintenance of Wugang City wall, enriching and extending the Intangible Cultural Heritage related to its historical evolution, and making full use of the precious resources of the ancient city wall to build Wugang into a city which is based on the promotion of history and culture and combines cultural industry, tourism and commercial services to represent Southwest Hunan It is a famous historical and cultural city with the characteristics of multi-ethnic cultural integration.

Traffic geography

Next to Wugang municipal government

Address: Wugang City, Hunan Province

Longitude: 110.55990109359

Latitude: 26.816038390382

Chinese PinYin : Wu Gang Cheng Qiang