Study On The Protection Of The Castle-type Villages Of Ming Dynasty Great Wall In Yanqing District Of Beijing

Yanqing locates at the northwest of Beijing City,adjacent to the deserts to the north and Juyong Pass to the south,which has been a place with strategic military importance since ancient times.With such special geographic location,it is also the integration zone of grassland culture and Central Plains culture.Since the Ming dynasty moved its capital to Beijing in the Ming Yongle nineteen years(AD 1421),as a frontier of consolidating the capital,Yanqing has been stuck in the maelstrom of national political and military struggle for more than two hundred and seventy years under the rule of the Ming Dynasty.An epoch-making defensive project,the construction of Great Wall in Yanqing area,emerged at that period,resulting in a large number of castles distributed inside and outside of the Great Wall.Under the military management of the Ming Dynasty,the castles played an important role as a subsystem of the Great Wall defense engineering,with clear organizations,hierarchy and functions.In the Qing Dynasty,however,as the border had become stable and the military function of the Great Wall had deteriorated,the castles had lost their original role in military defense.As a result,some castles had been gradually abandoned,while some of them had been developed because of the stability of the garrison life,thus forming a unique castle-type village.In modern society,war is no longer the main theme of current peacetime life.With the rapid development of economy and society,it has also brought some new problems to the castle-type villages.Their historical value has been largely invisible,which can not adapt to the development of society.Additionally,there is lack of protection for their historical relics and features,as some of them have been destroyed to some certain extent yet.Herein,this thesis is basically aiming at exploring the cultural resources and characteristics of castle-type villages,so as to reproduce their historical value and arouse people's sense of belonging,identity and protection on them.Firstly,this thesis summarizes the generation environment and evolution process of the castle-type villages in Yanqing,and emphasized on their historical performance and function in military defense systems.It indicates that the castle-type villages act as an important union sharing the same cultural background and witnessing the military defense history of the Great Wall.Meanwhile,they are also individuals with their particular duties and characteristics.Secondly,the value and necessity of protection of castle-type villages are discussed from the perspective of groups and individuals,which provides the basis to build up a group-individual dual protection system in the castle-type villages.Finally,the protection strategies from groups and individuals in the castle-type villages are proposed separately.In this case,the castle-type villages are protected as a whole firstly,and then divided into different groups having some characteristics in common.For each group,its development is generally guided by the unique space,culture and other conditions.Then,the villages are overall protected from their historical environment,spatial pattern and architectures individually.Therefore,it is expected to promote the overall protection and sustainable development of the castle-type villages in Yanqing area through multiple ways,and they would serve as a good reference for the protection of the same type of villages.