Although Xi 'an still has city walls, they were built in the Ming Dynasty. At that time, Xi 'an was no longer the national capital, but the wall of a provincial city, and all the walls of Beijing were torn down. Therefore, the Nanjing city wall is the only orphan of the ancient capital city defense, which can be said to be priceless.
Nanjing Ming City Wall is the product and symbol of Nanjing, the capital of Zhu Yuanzhang (1328- 1398), and it is the only capital city wall built in the history of China to unify the whole country in the south of the Yangtze River.
Nanjing Ming City Wall was built from the end of Yuan Dynasty to the 26th year of Zheng Zheng (A.D. 1366) and completed in the 15th year of Ming Hongwu (A.D. 1386), lasting 2 1 year. From the inside out, it consists of four walls: Miyagi, Imperial City, Beijing and Waiguo. Among them, the Nanjing capital city wall does not follow the square or rectangular old system of the ancient capital, with unique design concept, exquisite construction technology and grand scale. It winds between the beautiful Nanjing mountains and rivers in Zhong Ling, with a total length of 33.676 kilometers, which is 0.776 kilometers longer than the ancient city wall of the capital Beijing. The outer wall of Nanjing ancient city wall is 60 kilometers in circumference.
After hundreds of years of vicissitudes, the walls of Miyagi, Imperial City and Waiguo have been completely destroyed, but the tall walls of Beijing, except for wooden buildings such as gates, no longer exist, and the walls still stand. Therefore, the "Nanjing City Wall" and "Nanjing Ming City Wall" usually refer to the capital city wall.
Nanjing City Wall is a masterpiece of China's ancient military defense facilities and wall construction technology. No matter its historical value, ornamental value, archaeological value, architectural design, scale and function, the city walls at home and abroad can not be compared with it. It is another historical wonder of China after Qin Changcheng.
As early as 472 BC, after the destruction of Wu by Gou Jian, the King of Yue, he attempted to further annex Chu. He took a fancy to Changganli, which is located in the Zhonghua Gate of Nanjing today, and called Fan Li, a counselor, to supervise the construction, and named it "Yuecheng" or "Fan Li" City. At that time, "Yuecheng" was very small, only 1km, with 80 steps around the city and an area of only 60,000 square meters, so it was called "Yuetai". In 333 BC, Chu Weiwang was destroyed, and a city was built in Liang Qingshan (also known as Stone Mountain) in Nanjing, which is called "Jinling City", which is also the origin of Nanjing, also known as "Jinling" and "Stone City". In 2 1 1 BC, Sun Quan built the "Stone City" in the former site of Jinling City, which is an important historical relic in Nanjing today. This was a military fortress at that time. Surrounded by mountains and rivers, the terrain is very dangerous
Of course, the most brilliant page in the history of Nanjing's capital in the Ten Dynasties is the Ming City Wall built by Zhu Yuanzhang, the Ming Emperor, after he captured Nanjing from the end of Yuan Dynasty to the twenty-sixth year. It is connected to Shitou Town in the east, Qinhuai District in the south and Xuanwu Lake in the north, covering all the capitals of past dynasties. In order to build this capital, Zhu Yuanzhang used more than one million people of all kinds, and the scope of building the city covered the vast areas of several provinces in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, with strong national affinity and regional representation.
After recent years' rescue repair, the complete length of Nanjing Ming City Wall has reached 23.743 kilometers. The Nanjing Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government also spared no expense to build the Crescent Lake Park with the ancient city wall as the background and the moat as the support, the Shuiximen Ruins Square, which can transmit historical information, and the Hanzhongmen Citizen Leisure Square, a new building complex with the theme of Wengcheng and the city wall.
The height of Nanjing City Wall is generally between 14m and 2 1m, the width of the city base is about 14m, and the width of the top is between 4m and 9m. Most of the city walls are based on granite or limestone strips, and then the inner and outer walls and tops are built with large bricks. Bricks, gravel and loess are often used to tamp the interior and exterior walls. On the top of the city wall and in the cracks between the inner and outer wall bricks, a kind of "slurry clamping" is poured. This kind of pulp is made of lime, glutinous rice juice (or sorghum juice) or tung oil. Strong adhesion after curing makes the city wall durable.
The top of the wall of Nanjing City Wall is paved with bricks to form a "crib" (referring to the serrated low wall outside the top of the wall), and there is a stone drainage trough to drain rainwater. There are also drainage holes on the foundation of the city at regular intervals to drain the accumulated water in the city wall out of the city. Therefore, the foundation engineering and protection engineering of Nanjing City are relatively solid, so it can stand for more than 600 years. The existing city wall is 2 1.35km, which is still the largest brick city in China and has been designated as a national key cultural relic protection unit.
The existing Ming City Wall in Nanjing is Yingtianfu City, that is, the capital city, 13 Gate and 2 Watergate. There are also 136 16 cribs on the city wall, and 200 bunks are used for military defense. There are also bell tower and drum tower in the city center.
This 13 gate has towering towers, and Jubao Gate is the most magnificent. The three gates of Jubao, Sanshan and Tongji each have four city walls, and the space between each two is called "Wengcheng", which can be used for wartime defense. Jubao Gate is the strongest of these gates. The lower part of the tower is basically intact, and there is a special facility called "Tibetan Army Cave". In fact, the "Tibetan Army Cave" is a brick door with a closed inner end, which can be used for soldiers to rest and store military supplies in wartime. There are two layers of *** 13 "Tibetan Army Cave" on the southernmost wall of Jubaomen, and there are seven layers on the lower part of the left and right walls, totaling 27 layers. It is said that each cave can accommodate 100 soldiers, and * * * can hide more than 3,000 soldiers. This facility was extremely rare in other big cities in ancient China.
Every city gate has two doors, inside and outside, and the outside is a "thousand-pound gate" descending from the top of the city, which has a solid defensive role; There are two doors made of wood and iron inside. Usually, pedestrians, cars and horses all pass through the hole in the city gate.
The waterproof and drainage system of Nanjing Ming city wall is scientific and applicable, and its functions include self-waterproof and drainage of the city wall and urban area. The upper part of the wall filling layer is capped and tamped with mixed mortar of tung oil, lime and yellow work, with a thickness of about1-2m. For city bricks above 5- 10 floor, mortar shall be plastered on the top and along both sides of the wall until the foundation of the wall. The top surface of the wall is provided with an open stone drainage ditch, and a stone outlet tank is arranged about 50 meters in the open stone drainage ditch to discharge the water in the wall. Waterproof and drainage systems in urban areas mainly use sluices and culverts set at the bottom of city walls.
Dongshuiguan and Xishuiguan were built at the entrance and exit of Qinhuai River, with three gates, two wooden doors in front and back, and an iron gate in the middle to prevent the enemy from sneaking into the city. There are also 33 urn holes in Dongshuiguan, which are divided into three layers (the upper two layers are hidden soldiers' holes) and the lower layer (the middle hole can be filled with water). In addition, there are many culvert gates, such as Jinchuan River Gate, Tongxin Dam of Xuanwu Lake (namely Wumiao Gate), Banshanyuanmen of Qianhu Lake, Pipa Gate of Biwa Lake, etc. These culverts are all equipped with copper, iron pipes and copper gates, so they can only enter water but not people. They are ingenious in design and reasonable in structure.
Zhu Yuanzhang invaded Nanjing and carried out large-scale reconstruction from 1366 to 1386. The largest city wall in Nanjing's history took 20 years to build. After more than 500 years, the Nanjing city wall has basically maintained the pattern since the Ming Dynasty. Since June 1955, some city walls have been demolished for various reasons. 1983 Nanjing Municipal People's Government issued a notice to protect the city wall, which was confirmed as a national key cultural relics protection unit in 1988 and 1 year. For more than 20 years, the Nanjing Municipal Government and non-governmental organizations have been committed to the restoration and protection of the Nanjing City Wall.
Nanjing Ming City Wall is not only the largest existing city in China, but also the largest city in the world (Paris is 29.5km long).
Reflections on the Construction of Ming City Wall
According to the Ming History, in 1356, Zhu Yuanzhang summoned Zhu Sheng, an old Confucian hermit, and Zhu Sheng put forward the suggestion of "building a high wall, accumulating grain widely, and slowly becoming king", which Zhu Yuanzhang readily adopted and implemented.
In A.D. 1356, the water army of the Yuan Army was annihilated by Zhu Yuanzhang in Quarry Collection, and the Yuan Army surrendered in Qing Ji City, and Zhu Yuanzhang successfully entered Qing Ji. He changed his name to Yingtianfu, Qing Ji, and has a relatively stable and promising base since then.
However, Zhu Yuanzhang felt that his strength was not strong enough, so although Zhang Shicheng, Chen Youliang and Ming Yuzhen, who occupied Zhejiang, Sichuan and Huguang at this time, had become kings, Zhu Yuanzhang only silently strengthened his strength. In Taiping, he only set up Marshal Taiping's Mansion and Xingguo Wing. In Jinling, he was just called Wu Guogong.
In Huizhou, Zhu Yuanzhang asked Zhu Sheng, a bachelor, for his future strategic policy. Zhu Sheng said: "Building a wall is high, accumulating grain is wide, and it is slow to be king." Zhu Yuanzhang was very happy. It was under this policy that Zhu Yuanzhang completed the great cause of reunifying China step by step.
According to preliminary estimates, Nanjing Ming City Wall costs hundreds of millions of bricks. City bricks are generally 40-45cm long, 20cm wide, 10-12cm thick and10 to 20kg in weight. Because city bricks come from all over the world, the soil properties of city bricks are also diverse (clay, sand, kaolin, etc.). Most city bricks have inscriptions, ranging from one word (or a symbol or mark) to more than 70 words. This is not only a major feature of Nanjing Ming City Wall, but also an important part of its historical and cultural heritage value.
Nanjing Ming City Wall used such a huge amount of walls, which areas were provided by shooting units? Due to the lack of historical records, in recent decades, cultural relics workers or people with a heart have worked tirelessly to textual research and supplement the inscriptions on city bricks, and only then have an incomplete and accurate data: the city bricks used for Nanjing Ming City Wall come from the vast areas in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, including the capitals, prefectures and counties of Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan and Hubei provinces, as well as the imperial army, the institute and the Ministry of Industry.
In order to ensure the firing quality of city bricks for Nanjing city wall construction, the imperial court required that the names of 5-6 responsible persons, such as Fu, Zhou, County, General Jia, First Jia, Xiao Jia, Brick Maker and Kiln Worker, be fired on the city bricks produced in various places, and the unqualified city bricks should be investigated for responsibility or even beheaded. This harsh "responsibility system" ensures the high quality of Nanjing Ming city wall construction.
The writing of Nanjing city brick inscriptions can be roughly divided into "style of study" and "folk customs" The former belongs to the official literati and the squire in the government, and the font is smooth and neat, and the point, left, hook and right are all literati; The latter belongs to craftsmen who are good at writing and pen and ink, and have not even written with a pen. When the brick came out of the mold, he just picked a twig around him and carefully left his county, Jia and his own name on one side of the brick. The childish font revealed a lot of rustic atmosphere. The fonts of city brick inscriptions are all written in seal script, official script, Wei script and running script, which contains a faint stone flavor. Among them, one kind of calligraphy style has the most charm, and it is difficult to find its attribution in China Calligraphy Dictionary, but it is a folk calligraphy art that does not twist or tremble. Inscription technology can be divided into three forms: stamping, carving and writing. Among them, the double-line die printing of inscriptions requires higher quality of brick-making soil because of the fine strokes of fonts.
What's even more surprising is that simplified characters such as "Deng" and "Liu" which can't be found in Ming Dynasty dictionaries were also found on the wall bricks of the Ming City Wall.