Pingyao City Wall: Cultural History of Ancient War

Pingyao City Wall: Cultural History of Ancient War

"Dim the swords and shadows and stay away from the drums and horns." With the rolling forward of the wheel of history, the function of the city wall that once blocked the invasion of Jin Ge Tiema and fought against the enemy has gradually changed. Today, it is no longer a deep ditch and a high base for the rulers to defend against the enemy, a fortification to protect the people from living and working in peace and contentment, and a bloody place with countless lives and mountains of corpses. It has become a crowded tourist attraction. However, the smearing of business can't cover up its mottled traces and change its vicissitudes. In fact, you don't need to be beautiful, you don't need to dress up, as long as you appear as it is, it is amazing enough.

Almost all the ancient city walls that people see now were built in the Ming Dynasty. Pingyao ancient city wall is no exception. Pingyao ancient city wall has a long history, which can be traced back to the Western Zhou Dynasty 2700 years ago. At that time, Zhou Xuanwang's minister Yin Jifu stationed troops here and built city walls in the west and north as fortifications. Later, Yin Jifu died in Pingyao. In order to commemorate him, later generations not only built the Yin Jifu Ancestral Temple in the city, but also built the "Yin Jifu Coach" on the East Wall. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang was worried that the remnants of the Yuan Dynasty, whom he had driven out of the Central Plains, would fight back. In addition to building the Great Wall in the north, he also ordered the local government to repair the Great Wall and strengthen its defense. It is against this background that Pingyao ancient city wall was expanded on the old site of Yin Jifu. The fortifications with a circumference of 6 163 meters that people see today were built in this way. At that time, it was built with rammed earth mixed with lime, which was stronger than the previous plain earth pile and could make the city wall more towering. It is said that it has reached the height of 12 meters. It's a pity that the wall people see in Pingyao today is only eight or nine meters high. Because, due to the transformation of the ancient city road, the road surface has been raised and the bottom of the city wall has been buried. Now this phenomenon can be easily found from the north or south gate of Pingyao ancient city.

The city wall was originally a fortification in the cold weapon era. When strong bows and arrows and riprap levers are put into siege battles, the soldiers who command the defenders will be obviously exposed on the top of the city wall, which is easy to cause casualties. So we need to build a bunker outside the top of the city wall, called the "parapet". There is a sad story about the origin of this name. It is said that a craftsman took his six-year-old daughter with him when he built this bunker. The daughter watched her father sweat, fanned around him with a fan, accidentally stepped on the air and fell off the wall, and died. The craftsman was extremely sad and won everyone's sympathy, so he named his own fortification "breast wall" The parapet is just high enough to cover the horses patrolling the wall, so it is also called the horse wall. In the mid-Ming Dynasty, Pingyao was invaded by Walla people many times. In order to better protect the city guards, the retaining walls are all made of bricks.

Although the reinforced breast wall gained the upper hand for a while, it could not stop the endless stream of Vala soldiers. Those Vara cavalry with spears and bows on their backs come like lightning and go like meteors. They not only attacked the city, but also looted the people outside the city. In the first year of Qin Long in the Ming Dynasty, namely 1567, Vara cavalry invaded Pingyao again. Guarding city officials witnessed the murder of people outside the city. What is even more outrageous is that they are white-eyed and bold, and openly rape women. According to the Records of Fenzhou, Wang Tingming's wife, Shi Lining, died unyielding. As the saying goes, "the enemy will block you, and the water will cover you." Since you will defend against the enemy whether you send troops or not, you can still strengthen the city defense and protect yourself. So, a year later, Lingyue of Pingyao County mobilized local rich people to donate money, and at the same time used his own "reclamation and redemption" money to build a six-door urn city, widen and deepen the moat, and add a suspension bridge. So it is more difficult to attack the city. Although various fortifications will temporarily deter the enemy, the earth wall will always be a naked defect. This is also the place where defensive officials have to worry. In the third year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, that is, in 1575, after asking the superior, all the outer sides of the city wall were reinforced with masonry. That is what people see outside the ancient city wall of Pingyao today.

Anyone who studies history knows that the Ming Dynasty was the land of the Han people, and it became the land of the Manchu people in the Qing Dynasty. After the Manchu people entered the Central Plains, unlike the Ming Dynasty, there was no threat from nomadic people in the north. Of course, the imperial court does not need to send people to build the Great Wall, and local governments do not need to consolidate the city defense all day. However, as an official, there must always be some achievements. 1703, Emperor Kangxi traveled westward through Pingyao, and when the local officials who were bent on pleasing the saints got the news, they immediately built four towers on the city wall. These towers are two-story buildings, with double eaves and nine ridges on the upper floor and single eaves cloisters on the lower floor.

Because the rulers of the Qing Dynasty copied the political system of the Ming Dynasty and adopted Confucianism to govern the country, they won the support of the Han elite, so the world was peaceful and the world was stable. During the Xianfeng period, there was a county magistrate named Liu Xu in Pingyao. In order to strengthen Confucian culture, he wrote inscriptions for six city gates, naming the south gate Yingxun, the north gate Gong Ji, the upper east gate Taihe, the lower east gate Qin and Han Dynasties, the upper west gate Yongding and the lower west gate Fengyi. Now the bluestone plaques at all the gates are still clearly visible, but the people don't buy the good intentions of the county magistrate's adults. Today, the locals still insist on calling the door in the direction.

To describe the characteristics of Pingyao city wall, there are 3000 battlements and 72 watchtowers on the wall. Speaking of this, many people will think of Confucius' 3,000 disciples and 72 sages. So what is the relationship between them? It is said that in the first year of Xianfeng, twenty-four businessmen in Pingyao donated money to repair the city wall. At the same time, a large-scale Taiping Rebellion broke out in the south. The sign of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement is to worship God, and its main leaders claimed to be related to God, and destroyed the Confucius Temple in the occupied areas and abandoned etiquette as our shoes. Shanxi merchants, both Han Chinese, had to choose the road of respecting Confucianism in order to show their attitude of respecting Confucianism. Confucius is the founder of Confucianism, and respecting Confucianism means respecting Confucius. Because Confucius is the capital of Lu, Pingyao used to be called Zhongdu. In this way, Pingyao merchants cleverly used this clue to invite Confucius to Pingyao, including his 3 thousand disciples and 72 sages. So three thousand battlements and seventy-two watchtowers were built on the restored city wall. It has also been pointed out that opening Confucius' signboard means praising Wu Xiuwen and praying for peace.

From the structure of Pingyao ancient city wall, we can feel the development history of ancient war culture. Nowadays, the fog of history has long since vanished, and the former Jinge Iron Horse no longer exists. Only a section of the city wall stands in several places, as if telling the past tourists about the rise and fall of the ancient city.