Research On Military Fortresses Of The Four Towns In The Northwest Along The Ming S Great Wall

As a precious cultural heritage in the world,t the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty is known for its military defense system featuring rigorous layers,completeness and systematic nature.Previous studies on the regions and border towns in the northwest of the Great Wall generally focused on investigation of cultural relics or discussed in the perspective of history and geography.Since their excessive attention to a specific region or of a specific type,comprehensive researches into the complete defense system of the four northwest towns in the Ming Dynasty are insufficient.In the perspective of architecture and combining theories in terms of archaeology,history and geography,this paper systematically marshals the establishment system evolution and distribution characteristics of four northwest towns of the nine major military towns in the Ming Dynasty and summarizes their distribution,site selection,shape and structure and other architectural rules.In the perspective of history,the origin,evolution,improvement and historical development vein of the military system of the four northwest towns are explored.Based on that,the major characteristics of military system in different historical periods are summarized,which lay the foundation for the in-depth study of the military fortress.After that,this paper proceeds from the geographical distribution of military fortresses to study the four military fortresses in northwestern China,reveal the time and space distribution rules horizontally and vertically,draw relevant space distribution map of military fortresses.Then,the site selection,shape and structure and other aspects of the four military fortresses are analyzed from an in-depth perspective.Following that,thispaper divides the military defense system of the Great Wall into defense,beacon to convey military messages,transportation,supplementation and other military sub-systems so as to build a systematic and rigorous networked system.At last,this paper focuses on the defensive characteristics of military fortresses to reveal the space structure of the military defense system of the four northwest towns in the Ming Dynasty and introduces the layer structure theory to put forward the layer structure and multi-nuclear structure of the military defense system of the four northwest towns.Moreover,this paper analyzes the influence of the trilateral highest office regime on the military pattern of the four northwest towns and explores the basic military defense model under the rule of the trilateral highest office regime,which makes up for the research gap of the “nine major military towns” defense system in the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty.