The Comprehensive Research Of The Datong Town Military Settlements Along The Great Wall In Ming Dynasty

In the north of Shanxi Province,the Datong Greatwall military settlements,which belong to the Ming Dynasty Greatwall’s Nine Line Eleven Town system,located in Datong Basin and the mountains surrounded.There are a large number of defense facilities remains the Ming Dynasty Great Wall.Great Wall can not be built without the military settlements.In Datong, these military settlements with different scales and grades,form the distinctive settelment pattern.After about 600 years, these settlements evoled to living villages or farming towns, widely distributed in the northern Shanxi region. Most of these military castles retain its past shape and pattern and imply lots of military information, because of the region’s slow economy development.Unfortunately, these precious cultural heritage is gradually disappearing.This paper attempts to study the integrity of the defense system of Datong, Datong military settlement of the historical evolution and spatial characteristics. The article first to understand the military geography of the region, the Great Wall and the Ming Datong described the establishment of the background. Then, describes the two main military system in the Ming Datong formed under the management level and hierarchical military defense system.Discussed Datong military settlement, development, change processes and influencing factors in chronological order.Analysis of the Datong zone distribution of the castle siting, scale-scale, city defense layout, construction characteristics and other aspects in space order.These analysis help us to deepen the study of the Ming border system, to identify common northern settlements and military characteristics, record the current status of the castle, drawing the attention of the Great Wall protection and use.