Ancient cities were protected by high walls, so when the ancients wanted to attack the city, they had to break through the city gates first. However, it is interesting that whether in the ancient history books or in the current costume dramas, the attacking party often does not directly attack the city gate when attacking the city, but uses the siege ladder to climb on the city wall and attack the city from above the city wall. In this way, a very interesting question arises, since the ancient city gates are all wooden doors, why didn't the soldiers who besieged the city directly burn it?
Wood can easily catch fire, and everyone understands this truth. Therefore, it is theoretically feasible to attack the city by burning the city gates. So, why did the ancient soldiers not use such a simple method, but instead used the ladder to attack the city with great fanfare? And using a ladder to attack the city will undoubtedly be more dangerous, even if you are not injured by the enemy, you will not be killed or injured if you accidentally fall.
In fact, in the eyes of historical experts, ancient soldiers did want to burn the city gates by attacking the city, but in fact they did not dare to really do so.
In ancient times, there were also soldiers who used the method of burning the city gate when attacking the city, but practice proved that this method really did not work. In the "History of Ming", such a story is recorded: in 1461 AD, Cao Qin, the heir of the great eunuch Cao Jixiang, raised an army to rebel and sent troops to attack the Dong'an Gate of the imperial city. When Cao Qin's soldiers attacked the city, they adopted the method of burning the city gate. However, the soldiers guarding the palace took advantage of the situation to increase firewood, and the fire burned more fiercely. Although the besieging soldiers burned down the city gate, they were still blocked by fire outside the city gate. When the reinforcements of Emperor Mingyingzong arrived, these rebels could only be captured.
Moreover, even if the soldiers attacked the city by burning the city gates, they would not necessarily be able to ignite the city gates. Because in ancient times there were moats outside the city gates, if the enemy set fire to the city gates, the defenders could easily extinguish the fire. Even when the ancients designed the city gate tower, they had already thought of this flaw, leaving a gap in the city gate. Therefore, the defenders did not have to go down the city tower, and directly poured water down on the city tower to extinguish the fire.
In addition to the above reasons, there is also a reason that the ancient city gates are extremely difficult to burn, even if you take the initiative to let you burn with fire, you may not be able to burn. Because most of the ancient city gates are made of jujube wood, iron birch wood, which is particularly hard wood, and has undergone special treatment, itself has a certain degree of flame retardancy. Moreover, the ancients would also use iron sheets and rivets to strengthen the city gates, which made it more difficult to burn. Therefore, burning the city gate during the ancient siege was a thankless task, and the attacking side usually sent soldiers to hit the city gate to attract the attention of the defenders, and then used the ladder to climb the city wall to attack.
In addition to the above reasons, another more important reason why ancient soldiers did not dare to burn the city gate was to avoid throwing themselves into the net.
Many people may think that as long as the city gate is breached from the outside, it means breaking the city, but this is actually not the right idea. In the eyes of historians, breaching the city gate from the outside often faces greater danger. Because the ancients considered the results of the city gate being breached when building the city wall, they often built an urn city behind the city gate to deal with the situation that the city gate was breached by the enemy.
The ancient city wall was a large and complex system of engineering, employing many advanced design concepts. When the ancients built the city wall, they sometimes deliberately designed the city gate as a weakness, so as to lure the enemy army to attack from the city gate, and those who attacked the city gate thought that they had broken the city gate, but in fact they faced greater danger.
In ancient times, there was an idiom called "catching turtles in an urn", and this idiom was most appropriate to describe the enemy army trapped in the urn. For example, during the Qing Dynasty's Tianjing Defense War, the Xiang army under Zeng Guofan attacked the Tianjing City of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, why would they rather spend time and effort digging tunnels than attack the city gate? It is fear of the power of the urn.
Tianjing City is the name of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, which is actually the city of Nanjing. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Nanjing City was the capital of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Yuanzhang took great pains to build the Nanjing City Wall, and there were as many as 13 gates in the entire Nanjing City Wall. Behind these gates, there is a huge urn city. For example, the most complete preserved Jubao Gate is an urn city with a very complex structure, known as the "world's first urn city".
Behind the gate of Jubaomen, there are a total of 3 urns, and there are 4 ticket gates, each of which is equipped with independent gates, which are reinforced by iron rivets, in addition to which each gate is also equipped with jack gates that can be activated up and down, and there are more than 20 Hidden Soldier Caves in the city. If the enemy army once breaks through the city gate and enters the urn city, after the jack gate falls, these enemy troops will really become turtles in the urn, and they can only obediently surrender.
Therefore, in the eyes of historical experts, the ancient soldiers attacked the city not because they were unwilling to burn the city gate, but because they did not dare to burn the city gate. Because breaking through the city gate means entering the more dangerous urn city. However, urn city can only show its power in the era of cold weapons. When human beings entered the era of hot weapons, urns basically lost their role.