Study On Military Settlements Of Nanzhili Coastal Defense System In Ming Dynasty

The coastal defense system takes an important role of the whole national defense system of Ming dynasty.Along with the southeast coastal area of China,the system was made up of Wei towns,Suo towns and many other kinds of military facilities to protect people from the invasion of Japanese pirates.Nanzhili is an area that located in the heart of China,where Nanjing is settled.Its defense work is of high importance,accounting its political and economic status.The research aims to find out the framework of the military settlements of the coastal defense system of Nanzhili,and analyze its evolution,spatial distribution,city scale and shape.The dissertation mainly contains four parts.The first part introduces the background and the evolution of the coastal defense system,as well as the importance and the scope of jurisdiction of Nanzhili coastal defense system.The system consists three parts,that is,the naval patrols,the Zhai towns at ports and different kinds of military settlements on land.The second part analyzes the spatial and temporal distribution of Wei Suo towns,Ying Bao towns and Zhai towns,by setting up the database of Nanzhili coastal defense system and analyze its features with Geographic Information System(GIS).The third part focuses on the military settlements itself.The analyze of the scale and shape of these settlements is made after collecting the data through historical records,ancient maps,and the satellite images.As to the current situation of these military settlements,it is such a pity that few of these facilities survives after all these years.The conditions of remains are summarized.At last,a comparison is made between the coastal defense system of Nanzhili and the Great Wall defense system in northern area of Xuanfu.The structure of the defense system,the spatial distribution of the settlements and the scale and shape of the fortifications are involved.