Wengcheng

Laitan ancient town has three sides of cliffs, with the potential of "one man is in charge of the pass, ten thousand people are not allowed to open". In 1862 (the first year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty), the newly built urn is the only one in Chongqing and the only well preserved ancient defense facility in eastern Sichuan.

Wengcheng

Wengcheng is one of the main defensive facilities of ancient cities, which can strengthen the defense of castles or passes. The semicircular or square gate protecting small city built outside the gate (there are some special cases inside the gate) is a part of the ancient city wall of China.

The two sides of the urn are connected with the city wall and equipped with archery towers, gates, battlements and other defense facilities. The gate of the urn is usually not in the same line with the gate to be protected, so as to prevent the attack of the hammer and other weapons.

Due to the influence of industrial development, the city demolition movement swept across the country in the 1950s and 1960s, and the ancient city walls of major cities were demolished for various reasons. The most well preserved, largest and most complex fortress urn in the world is Jubao gate (today's Zhonghua Gate), the inner gate of Nanjing Ming city wall, which is second only to the demolished Tongji gate urn.

Explanation of words

Name: Wengcheng w è ngch é ng

interpretation:

[explanation] a small town outside a big city, used to strengthen defense

[English]

Overview of Wengcheng

main features

Wengcheng is one of the main defensive facilities in ancient cities. Add a small city at the outer entrance of the gate, which is the same height as the big city, and its shape is round or square. The round one is like a urn, so it is called the urn city; the square one is also called the square city. The urn is set on the side, thus enhancing the defensive ability. It is found that the earliest one is the urn built at the gate of six cities in Koguryo, and it is more common in Liao Dynasty and other cities. During the Zhaoxuan period of the Western Han Dynasty, outside the Wumen gate of the Marquis's office of Juyan Jiaqu, Gansu Province, there was a curved wall similar to the urn, which may be the rudiment of the urn. Wengcheng, also known as Yuecheng and Quchi, is a subsidiary building attached to the gate and connected with the city wall in ancient cities. Most of the buildings are semi-circular, and a few are square or rectangular. When the enemy invades the urn, if the main city gate and the urn gate are closed, the garrison will be able to catch turtles in the urn.

The largest existing city wall in China is the Ming city wall of Nanjing. Before the construction, the traditional Chinese urn was set outside the main city gate. The Ming Dynasty city wall of Nanjing reversed the old system by setting the urn inside the city gate and setting up a revolutionary "urn cave" (cangbing cave) on the city body, which greatly strengthened the defense ability of the city gate. Among the 13 gates in the capital, except Shence gate, they are all inner urn cities. Among them, Sanshan gate, Tongji gate and Jubao gate (now known as Zhonghua Gate) are far larger and more powerful than other gates.

Nanjing Zhonghua Gate is located in the south of the city. It was originally the South Gate of the capital of the Southern Tang Dynasty. It was rebuilt in the Ming Dynasty, reaching the boundary of Tongji gate in the East and Sanshan gate in the West. It is 3178 meters long and has 1202 crenels. The preserved "Zhonghuamen Castle" has four walls and 27 Tibetan caves. The outermost layer of the castle has enemy towers, three on the left and right sides of the gate, and seven in the second floor. The largest one has an internal area of 310 square meters. These caves are used to store military materials in peacetime, and can store more than 3000 soldiers in wartime. Some experts believe that the setting of the inner urn not only enhances the defense of the city gate, but also embodies the Taoist idea of "state-owned weapon, not show to people" of the designers and builders.

Historical development

The earliest appearance of urn in China needs to be proved by archaeological excavation, but it is known that Tongwan city built by Xiongnu has already appeared the rudiment of urn. From the Western Han Dynasty to the Northern Wei Dynasty, in order to pursue the magnificent visual effect, the gate towers of the city gate were mostly Chonglou with two to three floors, and double towers were set in front of the gate. From this point of view, it seems that the city in this period would not set up the urn city which destroyed the visual effect. However, some cities (such as guzang, the former Liangdu city) have wing cities, that is, small square cities are built on one or more sides of the big city (guzang is on four sides), and the two cities are connected by walls. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, there was no urn at the gates of Chang'an and Luoyang.

In ancient Chinese cities, the setting of urn City flourished in the Five Dynasties and the Northern Song Dynasty. In Zeng Gongliang's Wujing Zongyao, there is a description about the urn for the first time: "the urn outside the city is either round or square. Depending on the terrain, the height and thickness of the city, etc., only one door open, left and right as they please. According to this principle, the city of Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty set up an urn. It is recorded in Volume I of Menghua records in Tokyo The gates of the city are all three storeys of the urn City, which are bent to open the door. Only Nanxun gate, Xinzheng gate, Xinsong gate and Fengqiu gate have two straight gates. They are the four main gates, and they all leave the royal road In the Northern Song Dynasty, there were many urn cities in the capital cities, such as Pingjiang city (Suzhou) and Xiangyang City.

There is no record of setting urn in Lin'an of Southern Song Dynasty and Shangjing of Liao and Jin Dynasties. However, the urn of Jingjiang mansion (Guilin) in the Southern Song Dynasty was very complete and complex. Jinzhongdu was built in imitation of Tokyo in the Northern Song Dynasty, with an urn. During the Yuan Dynasty, in order to prevent the rebellion of the Han people, they ordered the cities to be demolished. However, because the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty were not faced with the invasion of powerful enemies, there were no urn cities in Dadu and Shangshang of the Yuan Dynasty. After the peasant uprising broke out at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Emperor Tianshun of the Yuan dynasty built a large urn.

The Ming Dynasty attached great importance to the defense of cities, and set up urn cities in yingtianfu, Nanjing, Fengyang, Zhongdu, shuntianfu, Beijing, as well as in Xi'an, guide (now Shangqiu, Henan), Pingyao and other prefectures, prefectures and county-level cities, as well as Shanhaiguan, Jiayuguan and other Guancheng of the Great Wall. Among them, Nanjing jubaomen (now known as Zhonghuamen) urn is the largest and most complex.

Urn cities were also set up in important cities of the Korean Dynasty, such as Seoul and Shuiyuan. However, the difference between North Korea and China is that only one side of the urn is connected with the wall, and the other side usually has a gap. The setting of "Erzhiwan" and "Lulou" in Japanese castles is similar to that of Chinese urn and arrow towers, both of which are buffer zones after the enemy's attack on the first gate.

We should pay attention to the difference between Chinese and Korean urn cities and Western style castles. The latter refers to the fortresses and towers on both sides of the castle gate.

In 2012, the archaeological excavation of the waichengdongmen site at Shimao site confirmed the large, complex and advanced Gate site, stone city wall, pier, "menshu" and "Wengcheng" inside and outside the site, as well as a large number of important relics such as jades, murals and pottery, stone tools and bone ware from the late Longshan to the Xia period.

Historical function

In China's long-term slave society and feudal society, the city building system had played a great role. For example, the fishing city in Hezhou, Sichuan, was built to resist the attack of the Mongolian army in the late Southern Song Dynasty. Fushui is in the south, Jialing River flows through the north, Qujiang River is in the East, facing the river on three sides; the city is built on the top of the mountain, with cliffs on the north and south sides, and the terrain is very dangerous. It controls the fan-shaped area where the three rivers meet, and Chongqing, the key strategic point of the next screen, is a military important place that must be seized in attack and defended in defense. From 1243, Yu, Wang Jian, Zhang Jue and other generals of the Southern Song Dynasty made use of the favorable geographical conditions and dangerous terrain to build the fishing city along the natural terrain of the mountain, and built some peripheral strongholds outside the city, forming a solid city construction system with the fishing city as the center. Relying on it, the song army began to fight against the Mongol army and the yuan army for many times in 1259 and persisted for 20 years. For example, in the early years of Ming Dynasty, in order to prevent Japanese pirates from invading the coastal areas, the Ming government built a city building system of islands, coasts and Haikou in the coastal areas (see coastal defense city building in Ming Dynasty). The common point of these systems is that the city of Wei and Suo is the main body, and they are combined with fortress, pier and beacon. It is a kind of city building system in the inland, creatively and flexibly applied to the fortification of different geographical and topographical conditions in the sea border, which effectively protected the Ming army from and attacked the Japanese invaders for many times, and achieved the final victory in the war against Japanese invaders.

In the fourth year of Chenghua (1468), Wuzhou City was built as an urn at the East, South and north gates. In the 46th year of Wanli (1618), another urn at the west gate was built. On the one hand, it strengthened the military defense capability of the four gates, but also enhanced the flood control capability of the city wall.

Construction technology

In the early period of the city, the wall was mainly made of soil. The development of science and technology and the progress of city building technology promoted the continuous development of city building materials and technology. In the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the walls were built with bricks. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, some large cities were built with brick walls. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was common to build city walls with neat stones, blocks and bricks. In the Ming Dynasty, some of the wall materials used for bricklaying were glutinous rice lime slurry, and the arch of the city gate was cemented with tung oil mixed with lime.

Typical description

Nanjing Wengcheng

Zhonghua Gate, formerly known as Jubao gate, is one of the thirteen gates of Ming Dynasty Capital in Nanjing Ming city wall. It is the largest gate in China and the most well preserved and complex fortress urn in the world. Its architectural scale is second only to Tongji gate (now no longer exists), and it is known as "the first urn in the world". The layout of Zhonghua Gate is neat and its structure is unique. It is an important material for studying ancient Chinese military facilities. It plays an important role in military, history, culture and urban construction history. Zhonghua Gate used to be the South Gate of Jiangning mansion, the capital of the Southern Tang Dynasty, and Jiankang mansion, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty. It was expanded in 1369-1375, the second to eighth year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty. National Government in 1931

Chinese PinYin : Weng Cheng