This is not the case, the defense construction of ancient cities is beyond your imagination, if you are interested in this, you may wish to spend 10 minutes to understand, what are the military defense methods of ancient cities? What is their general layout?
Why did cities and pools be built in ancient times? Its purpose is to defend against the enemy's attack and plunder, from ancient times to the present, there have been more than 2500 years of history, the war is countless, siege and plunder, the defense construction of a city often affects the lifeblood of the entire country.
The layout of the city
First of all, the layout of the city is not only the moat and the city tower, it mainly includes the yangma city, the city wall, the city gate and the city tower, the regiment building and the hard building, the urn city, the city gate bridge and the "deer foot" and "ground bag" on the outskirts of the city.
Yangma City: It is mainly on the outskirts of the city, from the records of the ancient city pool, generally located 50 to 100 meters away from the city pool, the ancients in such a place to build a circle of city walls, of course, the scale is smaller than the main city pool, people call such a city as "Yangma City", the purpose of the establishment of Yangma City is to protect the main city pool, there is a point to understand, that is, there is no street inside the Yangma City, there is no residential housing, simply put, it is an empty city, and it is necessary to use it when defending.
City Wall: As we all know, the city wall is the city wall that we often see in the offensive battle, the attacker climbs up, and some people often complain about film and television dramas, saying that ammunition explodes in the city wall, and nothing happens afterwards. This may be a real situation, because the ancient city wall was originally tall and wide, the foundation was made of stone blocks, built with slabs, these layers of soil were compacted, and the rammed earth was very hard, especially during the Ming Dynasty, bricks were used to form a city wall, and the power of ammunition was not large, so it could not destroy the city wall.
The city wall is mostly seen in straight lines, but some of the city walls will be made into "arc walls", in the corners of the city, do not do right angles, and even many city walls are made of "rounded corners", first of all, the protection of the "arc wall" is strengthened, the defenders can eliminate the enemy army from both ends, but the "arc wall" is only set up on one side, according to the enemy face to build, or where the defense is weak, it is set up where.
City tower and city gate: it is set up according to the size of the city, in general, the city gate is divided into four gates in the southeast, south and northwest.
Tuanlou and hard building: Tuanlou is a semicircular wall of the city wall protruding outward, because there is no edge and corner, it is called the tuanlou; the hard building is the square wall protruding from the main city.
Urn City: This is a small city pool built outside the important gate of the city, mainly used to defend the city gate, the design of the urn city is more unique, the unique shape of each shape, such as square, round, semi-circular, rectangular, historical records, the road inside the urn city is tortuous, after entering the moment to change the direction.
Deer feet and ground bags: The first time I saw these two words, I didn't understand the meaning, and then I read the books to learn that these two are important defensive measures outside the city, which can be said to have the effect of delaying and blocking the enemy army, and the effect is remarkable.
The so-called deer feet, that is, the wooden stakes into the ground, the arrangement is different, the length of a wooden stake is about 90cm, into 50cm, exposing the 40cm wooden stake, because the exposed wooden stakes are as high as the legs of the sika deer, so it is called "deer feet", can play a role in tripping horses, can make up the picture, when thousands of troops and horses rush in, encounter these deer feet What is the scene, people turn over on horseback, generally deer feet are located in the open area between the moat and the city wall.
The location of the ground bag is mainly based on the construction of the city, the so-called ground bag, that is, in some key positions, such as the enemy siege must go through the road, dig a large pit here, the depth is about 2 meters, there are stairs in the pit, people below, the top is covered with wooden strips, covered with branches, leaving a gap, when the enemy passes, the soldiers in the pit will unexpectedly assassinate.
With all this, the defense of a city is half successful.
moat
The next is that everyone has been aware of but do not understand the "moat", the defense of the moat can be described as the most important, it seems that all large cities have moats, "moats" are like a person's hands, often can be turned away from the opponent, with the defense of the moat, the whole city can be regarded as impregnable, impeccable.
The moat is generally 20 meters wide and the water depth is as high as 7 or 8 meters, as high as a modern two-story building;
With a moat of this scale, it is almost difficult for the enemy army to enter, but in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Guan Yu flooded the Seventh Army, although there are exaggerated elements, so it seems that the moat is also pros and cons, but there are not many cases of flooding, unless it encounters heavy rain.
The moat itself is a defensive line, there is a moat bridge on the river, what we see is generally a flat bridge, which is also seen in the TV series, this is a fixed style, if it is an important military city, the moat bridge is not like this, but a temporary set of convenience bridges, such as pontoon bridges, are temporary, after use up, they will be disassembled; boat bridges, arranged with many small boats, used up to dismantle; tow plate bridges, suspension bridges, are so, the common in film and television dramas is the suspension bridge, after the use of the wooden board is lifted.
The defense method of the moat, according to the historical records, can be traced back to the prehistoric Longshan culture era, and there are not many early cities and pools that have been preserved, only the capital city of the Chu State, many cities with moats, because the silt is too deep, and the traces of the moat are difficult to see now.
Of course, not only large cities and pools have moats, small cities are no exception, such as Runcheng in Yangcheng County, Shanxi, which is a small city during the Ming Dynasty, and there are moats outside the city, but with the help of natural environmental factors, it is especially proposed that the water of the moat is not the drinking water of the people's lives, but generally the water or well water introduced into the big river.
The capital of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the moat of Beijing City, has now become the second ring road, and the moat of Jilin Cheng has been developed into a ring road.
With these, the basic defense of the city is completed, such a city, if there are enough troops, the general is not faint and incompetent, the success rate of defending the city should reach ninety-five percent.
watchtower
Although the military defense of the above city has been completed, it is only some of the city itself and the external construction, and the defense of a city pool is always inseparable from the internal design, and the internal design is particularly important, such as the watchtower, which is also an important part of the city's defense.
The watchtower is set up in the higher part of the city, but the watchtower of the large city pool is basically the so-called bell and drum tower, and the watchtower was originally set up in the residential area, because in ancient times there was a tall wall, and the residents could not see the outside, so the watchtower was set up in the relatively high part of the yard, so that the situation outside could be understood.
With the continuous expansion of the residential area, gradually becoming a small city pool, and then forming a large city pool, the watchtower has always existed, as the scale becomes larger, the watchtower will put a drum, if necessary, you can ring, inform others.
Lookout tower regardless of regional differences, south and north, take the southern Guangdong Kaiping County, almost every household is expected to build, especially between the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, bandits run rampant, the establishment of watchtower can timely understand the bandit movements; there are also northern Shaanxi Yulin, there are many buildings, according to statistics, there are eight observation buildings, namely the South City Gate Tower, Wenchang Tower, Ten Thousand Buddhas Tower, Xinming Tower, Kaige Tower, Drum Tower, North City Gate Tower, these pavilions belong to the watchtower building to strengthen the defense of the city, but also the street center landscape architecture.
The watchtower is equivalent to a "reconnaissance plane" that observes the dynamics of the enemy army, and can understand the situation at any time and will not be caught off guard, which is one of the indispensable military defense measures.
PingliangFu City
The front is only a general explanation of what is the composition of the military defense of a city, but it is difficult to make a deep impression, and then take the "Pingliangfu City Map" as an example, and go deeper again, a map takes you to understand the layout of the city defense!
Map of Pingliang Province
Pingliang Fucheng in Gansu Province, during the Ming and Qing dynasties, the design of Pingliang Fucheng should be extremely complex, the main city is square, the northeast corner is a curved arc wall, the whole city has five city gates, the south, east and north are equipped with different shapes of the urn city, the way 16789 are irregular shape of the urn city, is responsible for defending the city gate.
There are many gates in the city, the five gates of the main city are not opposite, after each gate enters, the road is not direct, and each road will appear T-shaped street entrance and corner intersection.
The reason for this situation is mainly because under the influence of military defense ideas, the original ancient city gates and gates are relative, the road is also direct, but because of the needs of military defense, the principle of "the city gate is not relative, the road is not direct" as the basic criterion for building the city, such as the east and west gates of pingliangfu city are not relative, nearly 20 meters wrong, and the roads between the north and south gates are even more inconsistent, mostly T-shaped streets.
There are moats outside the city, and there are 4 rivers, and the river flows from the northeast to the south, although the role of the city defense is not shown in the picture, but in the actual topography, these rivers have different roles.
There is a watchtower on the easternmost side of the city, and the watchtower is always on duty by soldiers, who can observe every move of the outside world.
Concluding remarks
Through some of the above understanding, whether you have a clearer and more intuitive understanding of the military defense construction of ancient cities and pools, ancient siege warfare has always been a war with large casualties and a high difficulty coefficient, so there are generally few siege battles, the art of war has clouds "siege for the bottom, attack the heart for the top", the reason why I believe that everyone can also know through this article, the defense construction of the city is too solid, and it is almost impossible for the attacking side to win under the same strength, and most of what we often see are battles with absolute force suppression Of course, it is not excluded that a very small number of wars won by outsmarting or strong attacks are not ruled out.
【Plagiarism must be investigated, welcome to pay attention, comment, like, forward, update wonderful and interesting historical knowledge every day, your recognition is my greatest motivation! 】 The copyright belongs to the original author, if there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. 】