Military Defence
The great wall
The great wall is one of the most amazing architectural feats and also the largest scale project for defense in Chinese history. It was built across the huge deserts and high mountains. It spans a length of more than 6,000 kilometers in northern of China from Yalu River of Liaoning Province in the east, to Jiayu Pass of Gansu Province in the west.
During the Warring States Period (476BC-221BC), the walls in northern part of China were built by Qin vassal state, Zhao vassal state and Yan vassal state in order to defend states against the invasions of Hun who were the northern nomadic tribes. It was until the Qin Dynasty, all the stretches of the wall the walls were linked up into one complete wall and some new sections of the great wall were built by the order of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi who was the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. There was the labor of almost 2 million for the construction during the Qin Dynasty. The emperors of subsequent dynasties continued to fortify and repair the existing great wall until it was finally completed after the Ming Dynasty.
To strengthen defense along the great wall, soldiers were deployed on a regular basis to the great wall and regular repairs carried out. The Ming government divided the great wall into nine defense areas, each assigned with an overall general-in-charge. There were about one thousands or more passes of the great wall, each pass consists of walls, gates, gate towers and security check area.
The great wall was not only a project of highly intensive labor, it also reflected the ingenuity of the ancient craftsmen who took into account the topography of location of the wall, and combined it with clever selection of building materials. Some parts of great cross the high mountains, some parts cross the deserts or tableland. In the normal part the great wall is wide at the bottom and narrow on top with a bottom width of 6 meters, a top width 5 meters and a height of 6.6 meters. The wall is tamped with earth at its core and fortified with outer layers of rocks and giant sized bricks. It was said that a line of 5 houses or 10 men could move a breast, along the great wall at any time. On the top to the great wall, there are shorter walls were built both sides of the great wall for protecting solders on the great wall. Battlements, shooting posts and water drainage trenches were also constructed as part of the great wall. In some area, the great wall need built on the mountains, but mountain was very steep, as such, no wall was built, only built a watch tower or tower for signal fires. The highly practice of using beacon fires as signals during the day in ancient times enabled the great wall to be even more effective as a defense mechanism.
City wall
Inside each Chinese city in the past, all had their own unique personalities. But to protect each of these cities, all of the Chinese cities were surrounded by strong, high walls. Inside those protective walls were wealthy houses which were made of wood and had tiles which were either painted with paint or a gloss. These types of houses all had their own walls to protect them.
City wall was a kind very common defense work to protect the city in ancient China. The earliest types of city walls which were used were simply wooden fences, piled rocks or tamped earth. Before the Song Dynasty, city walls of capital city and a few big cities were layered with bricks on the surface of the city walls. However, the invention of gunpowder and its subsequent use in the attacks of cities brought about unprecedented destruction. As a result, some important cities began to fortify the critical defense points of their cities with brick walls. During and after the Ming Dynasty, bricks fortified city walls became even more widespread. The height and thickness of the walls depended on the defense strategies of the cities. Battements and watch tower also differed in size and numbers, depending on how the cities were ranked, in terms of importance. On the some city walls, square shape ramparts were built on the outside the main body of the city walls, like the Xi'an city wall, there were 98 ramparts on this city wall. Today, if you go to xi'an, Pingyao or Nanjing, you can visit Xi'an city wall, Pingyao city wall and Nanjing city wall, these all were built in the Ming Dynasty.
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