Datong City Wall is located in today's Datong City. Because the remains of the city wall are still obvious, they are still marked on most modern Datong maps. Datong has a long history of building a city. As early as the Northern Wei Dynasty when Tuoba was the capital city, a large-scale city had been built. In the early Ming Dynasty, because it was a Pingfan of Gyeonggi, its military position was very dangerous. So in the fifth year of Hongwu (A.D. 1372), Xu Da, the general, built on the basis of the old city, forming the Datong town that the world sees today. The final Datong Town is roughly square, with side lengths of 1.5km and 1.75km, perimeter of 6.5km and area of 2.63km2 The inner core of the wall is compacted with concrete, and each brick weighs 17kg. The wall height is 14m, and the stack wall is 5m long. There are four doors in Datong Town: Donghe Yangmen, Nanyongtai Gate, Xiqingyuan Gate and Beiwuding Gate, and each door has its own urn. Today, only the names Yongtai and Qingyuan are used by two nearby buildings. As for so many gates, there is no trace.
Under the careful planning and strict supervision of Xu Da, the architecture of Datong City has reached the most exquisite level in history: there are turrets at the four corners of the city wall and a "dry building" at the northwest corner, which is tall and magnificent and is one of the "Eight Scenes of Great Harmony". There are 54 watchtowers and 96 wopu around the city wall. Outside the city wall, the horse faces are convex and concave, arranged in an orderly way. The prominent part is the buttress of the city wall, with 12 buttresses on both sides and 4 corner piers, making a total of 52 buttresses. Pier spacing 1 13m, and the pier is trapezoidal. A control platform with a width of 16.6m, a longitudinal length of 15m, and a distance of 6.6m from the corner pier is built outside the corner pier, and the pedals on the shelf are connected with the city wall. Outside the four doors is an urn. The entrance to the gate of Wengcheng is about 30 meters deep, and there is an arrow tower or plaque building on it. A moat was built outside the city wall, about 5 meters deep and 10 meters wide, commonly known as the moat. It once undulated and had a suspension bridge on it. There are 4 streets, 8 lanes and 72 lanes in the city, with regular streets extending in all directions. The first floor is built at the middle intersection of each street, with Taiping Building in the east, Drum Tower in the south, Bell Tower in the west and Kuixing Building in the north. There are four exquisite archways in the city center, which are called four archways. Nowadays, most of these buildings have been destroyed by modern times, and only the Drum Tower remains, which still stands in the center of the street. "Sipailou" has just become a name, and its block is the most prosperous commercial center in Datong.
According to the historical data we can see today, there is a unique phenomenon in Datong. It is not a single quadrangular fortress city. The metropolitan pattern consists of four parts: the main part is a tall and solid town, and there are separate quadrangular towns outside the south, east and north walls of the town, which are called Nanzhen, Dongzhen and Playground Town respectively. Each town also has its own urn and moon city, which are not separated from the towns. In this way, if you want to enter Datong town, you must first pass through one of the three small towns, and you need at least four or six gates to pass. Even if we entered the peripheral town, the suspension bridge in the main city didn't take the initiative to put it down, so we still couldn't enter Datong town. This defensive measure makes Datong Town truly become an impregnable safe place, and it is a famous town with distinctive features in ancient military architecture in China. Because Datong folklore says that this is the place where the phoenix landed, this orderly arrangement of four cities is called "Phoenix spreads its wings". Today's Datong map only depicts the former sites of Datong City and Playground City, but never marks Dongzhen and Nanzhen with the same marking line. In fact, these two Guancheng can still find some traces, but these towns were built in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, not by Xu Da.
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, especially in the Ming Dynasty, Datong was famous as a military town. Because it occupies a very important position in the northern border defense, it has played an important role in many military struggles, which is the so-called "screen the whole Shanxi and arch Beijing". In addition, its strict defense, solid facilities and tall buildings are also rare in the history of China ancient city defense construction. Imprisoned here, he has always enjoyed the reputation of "important town" and "key to the north"
At this time, Datong Town was slightly square, with a length of about 1.5km from east to west, a length of about 1.75km from north to south, a circumference of 6.5km and an area of about 2.63km2 ... The Datong City Wall was built tall and majestic, solid and steep, and various urban defense facilities were complete, forming a defense system. The city walls are all based on regular stone strips, slates, stone carvings and stone pillars. The wall is rammed by "three concretes" section by section, and the periphery is made of blue bricks. There are three kinds of blue bricks: large, medium and small, which are selected according to different parts. According to field investigation, medium-sized city bricks are generally about 40 cm long, 20 cm wide, 10 cm thick and 18 kg heavy, which is equivalent to 7 times the weight of modern ordinary bricks. From this, we can imagine the difficulty of building the city in those days. Datong City Wall is about 14m high, and its widest point is about16.6m. Among them, the main wall of the big wall is about12m high, and the stacked wall (also known as the female wall) is about 2m high. Brick piles are built on the pile wall, about 0.8 meters high, about 0.5 meters thick and about 5 meters long. The distance between the stacks is about 0.5 meters, and the crib mouth is called the crib mouth, which is the observation hole and shooting mouth of the defensive soldiers in order to better hide themselves and attack each other. According to legend, more than 580 pairs of piers were built on the four walls, representing the number of villages under the jurisdiction of Datong at that time. On the flat wall, there are sixty-two magnificent gatehouses, watchtowers and watchtowers standing at intervals. The gatehouse, also known as the gatehouse, has four gates, which are located in the center of the four walls and are in a convex shape on the plane. The towers are all double-eaves and nine-ridge roofs. There are colonnades around, facing the road. Among them, the South Gate Tower is the most spacious and magnificent, with three floors, 6 1 m wide and 23.35 m deep. Like the Ximen Tower, it is a typical northern wooden structure building in the early Ming Dynasty. At the four corners of the city wall, there are four beautiful and exquisite turrets, which can not only observe and attack the enemy in wartime, but also provide tourists with magnificent weather and beautiful scenery outside the Great Wall in peacetime, and the two can be skillfully combined. Among them, the northwest turret is particularly tall and majestic. This building is called "dry building" because it is located in the "dry" position at the head of the 12 directions of the Eight Diagrams. Because it is the tallest pavilion in the city, as a "thing in the town", it is also called "town building"; It is also called "octagonal building" because it is octagonal. Because tourists often climb here to watch the victory, it has the reputation of "the town is cool in autumn". Many famous scholars in Ming and Qing Dynasties wrote many poems when they boarded this building.
In addition, there are 54 watchtowers standing around the city wall and 96 wopu, which are quite spectacular. Among them, Hongzilou, the watchtower to the east of Ganlou, is the watchtower with the most beautiful structure and shape. The architecture of watchtower is rare in the wall buildings of other famous ancient cities in China, and it is a precious object to study the wall buildings.
Many balcony buildings standing on the city wall played an important role in the war, such as observation, concealment, maneuvering, shooting, receiving, height control and front command post. At the same time, they are also a group of extremely precious architectural art groups in the Ming Dynasty.
One of the characteristics of Datong City Wall is that its outer contour is not as straight as usual, but like a gear, it is arranged in a concave-convex order. The prominent part is the wall pier. Twelve on each side, plus four corner piers, fifty-two * * *. The pier spacing is generally 1 13m. Each wall pier is trapezoidal, with a bottom length of about 23 meters, a top length of about 20 meters and a top area of 400 square meters. On the periphery of the four corner piers, there is also a military control platform (or observation platform), which is about 16.6 meters wide, about 15 meters longitudinal and about 66 meters away from the corner piers. The upper pedal is connected with the city wall. This is also rare in the walls of various places. The setting of these piers and abutments is mainly considered from the perspective of war, which can play a good role in sidelight, coordination and observation and prevent the emergence of "dead corners"; Moreover, according to the observed changes in the enemy situation, emergency measures can be taken quickly to enhance the stability and emergency capability of the city defense.
Another feature is that in the east of the south wall, there is a "Wild Goose Pagoda", commonly known as the watchtower. This is also unique in the history of building walls in China. Built in the apocalypse of the Ming Dynasty, the tower is about17m high, and it is an octagonal seven-level brick tower. Its shape is dignified, steady, beautiful and exquisite, and each stone tablet at the bottom is engraved with the names and fame of the past dynasties of the city, inspiring future generations to forge ahead. There is a brick ladder in the tower, and you can climb to the top floor to see Yuan Ye in the suburbs. Wartime is also an important observation point.
How beautiful the East Wall Castle in Datong is under construction! The wall of Datong is so high that you can overlook the whole city from any part of the wall. The four main streets in the east, south, west and north form a cross shape, which divides the urban area into four blocks, each of which is divided into four blocks by the quilt cross street, and each block is divided into several small blocks by the two-story cross street. Therefore, the regular intersection road with four main streets is the main feature of the street pattern in the same city. As the saying goes, "four streets, eight lanes and seventy-two endless lanes" refers to this pattern. There is a first floor in the middle of the Fourth Street, such as Bell Tower, Drum Tower, Taiping Building and Kuixing Building. At the intersection of four main streets in the city center, there is an archway consisting of four archways, which is called "Four Archways". This is a wooden structure, very beautiful. It is said that Xu Da, the general, built the wall of Datong to show off his exploits after the completion of the "bonus". Every street leads to the gate. The east gate is named Heyang, the south gate is named Yongtai, the west gate is named Qingyuan, and the north gate is named Wuding. These four streets are named after the city gate. Outside the four doors is an urn. The construction area of each urn is about 17600 square meters, which is convex with the city wall. There is a side door next to the urn, and the depth of the doorway is generally about 30 meters. Outside the urn, an arc-shaped wall was built to enclose the urn, which is called "Moon City". The moon city has a gate. In this way, you have to go through three access cards when you go out of town or into town. There is also an "Arrow Tower" or "Archway Tower" on the second floor above each door.
For more effective defense, a moat was built outside the city wall, about 5 meters deep and 10 meters wide. Every summer and autumn, the moat surrounds the big city like a ribbon, and ripples with the reflection of the city wall. Its magnificent momentum and beautiful scenery are enough to make people forget the smoke of war in military towns and stay for a long time.
In Datong city, except for the government offices and county offices, which are responsible for local administration, justice, finance and public security, the main defense tasks are undertaken by the "commanders of all cities". The highest officer is the company commander, who is also the former general print in the west. His title can reach second class, and his surname is Senior Wu Zhi. The total town government is located in the northwest corner of the city, at the northern end of Shuaifu Street today, with135,000 troops, including the Eight Guards, Seven Armies and the Front Army, and the total number of troops stationed has reached one twelfth of the national troops.
In the 24th year of Hongwu (A.D. 139 1 year), in October, Zhu Yuanzhang changed the thirteenth son, Yu Wang Zhu Gui, to Dai Zheng in order to strengthen the defense force against Datong and supervise the military and political finance of Datong town and government. Dai Wang is actually the supreme ruler and commander-in-chief of Datong area. He got on and off the horse, exercising his power on behalf of the emperor. The majestic Daiwangfu stands in the northeast corner of the city.
Dai Wangfu sits facing south, covering an area of about150,000 to 200,000 square meters. There are four gates: Donghuamen, Xihuamen, Beihouzai Gate and South Gate Li Duan. Li Duan Gate is the main entrance to Wang Fu. Now the four streets of Huangcheng Street, Donghuamen, Xihuamen and Houzaimen are all named after this. The palace is surrounded by high walls made of rammed earth bricks, which makes it an independent land isolated from the outside world. At that time, the fourth surname called it "Imperial City". There is still a section on the north wall of the imperial city. The plane outline of the imperial city is basically square, and the main buildings in the city are spread along three axes and divided into three groups: left, middle and right. Among them, the building scale of the middle group is the largest, and from south to north, it is Li Duan Gate, Yun Yun Gate, Yun Yun Hall, Chongxin Gate, Intention Hall, Changchun Hall and North Gate. On the left are Guangzhancang, Changchun Palace, Wangqinlou, Qingbu Hall, Zongmiao Hall and Yanju Hall. In a group of halberds on the right, there stand the altar of society and the altar of thunder, followed by Dacheng Hall and Jinde Hall. Today's main hall street is the former site of "Helaine Hall" (the main hall of ancient imperial palace, commonly known as Helaine Hall). In front of the palace, there is a resplendent screen wall-Kowloon Wall, which is extremely majestic and prominent.
Looking at the military layout and garrison setting in the same city, it is undoubtedly a fortified city with strict defense and proper cooperation, and it can be said that it is one of the most outstanding models in the planning and construction of military towns in past dynasties in China. These numerous city defense facilities are integrated together, like a chess game, in good order, which is a rare "lofty town" in the history of China.
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