Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Travel guide - Why are the city walls in Nanjing not built in a square shape? What is the implication of this?

Why are the city walls in Nanjing not built in a square shape? What is the implication of this?

Generally, capitals in ancient times were mostly square, with very standard city wall construction and gates in the southeast and northwest. But as the capital of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, Nanjing Ming City Wall is full of weirdness. It is very irregular. Compared with other ancient cities, Nanjing Ming City Wall is basically a bit different.

Nanjing’s Ming Dynasty City Wall is 33.676 kilometers long and is currently the largest ancient city wall in the world. And historically speaking, most of the shapes of the city walls in ancient Chinese capitals were square or rectangular, while the city walls in Nanjing showed an irregular shape that was neither square nor round, because there were many sections on the entire city wall. Nanjing The city wall is based on the city walls of various generations, widening, widening, and thickening to connect and form such a large city wall. Therefore, in many areas, the original old city walls, such as Jiankang City, were built inside. ”

Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was a king, and his counselor was Liu Ji. At that time, Nanjing, as the capital of Beijing in the Ming Dynasty, was of course the brains of the whole of China and the political, economic, and culture of all parts of the country. Art Center. As an ancient person who has always believed in the unity of nature and man, it is not surprising that Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, built his own avatar in the capital, and he used his avatar as the center of the country.

The Ming City Wall, as a representative ancient building in the ancient capital of Nanjing, attracts special attention from Nanjing people. There are also various legends about the Ming City Wall. There are many legends about the unique shape of the Ming City Wall in Nanjing. and conjecture. After all, most of the city walls that have survived or are recorded in historical records are square, and a fief has four main gates: east, west, and west. There are very few other forms of fief buildings in our country. The Ming Dynasty City Wall is the most intact in its history, and its unique shape that is neither square nor round has aroused deep interest in later generations.

The Nanjing City Wall is 35.267 kilometers long and winding, which is different from other cities. The city wall is square. Professor He Yun'ao of Nanjing University introduced that Nanjing's landforms are complex and its geographical environment is diverse. Under such circumstances, it is necessary to achieve the goal of constructing my country's capital while at the same time At the same time, we must pay attention to the natural resource endowment of the local area. “That’s why the city wall was built so curved to fully demonstrate the harmony between man and nature and the so-called unity of nature and man.