Study On The Military Castles Of Great Wall In Shanxi-zhen

Basing on collecting and analyzing numerous local reports in Ming dynasty andold maps and site researching, the author presents the studies on the military castlesof Great wall in Shanxizhen. It is summarized the architectural size of military townsas a part of Great wall in Ming dynasty and their inside defense installations with thechange of time.Because of the wideness of correlation materials and the limitation of studyingtime, it is very difficult to the deal with the every castle of Great wall through wholeperiod. So the author chooses the early HongWu period (A.D.1368~1399) and theWanLi period (A.D.1573~1620) as periodical range, and chooses the boundary ofShanxizhen as regional scope for this study, which have produced most importantchanges for the defense system of Great wall.In the Introduction, the scope, the back ground, the purpose, the significanceand the framework of this thesis are explained, and the present study situation andtechnical terms are given as wellIn the chapter two, WeiSuo system and the nine military town system as themilitary organization of Ming dynasty is introduced, and the strategic importance ofShanxizhen and the process of its establishment in are explained.In the chapter three, the military castles of Great wall in Shanxizhen are dividedinto four classes, "ZhenCheng", "LuCheng", "BaoCheng" and "BaoZhai". And thesimple expatiation is given for the each classes.In the chapter four, the most important chapter of this thesis, at first the authorexplains the castle placement, the construction of castle wall, the wall insideinstallations etc for the every single case, and through the assaying the size of castlewalls, the direction of castle gates and the sorts of attached installations, tries to findout a kind of rule on each classes.In the chapter five, consulting the architectural feature of the military castles ofGreat wall in Shanxizhen.