A Study On The Types And Distribution Of Chu Enclosure Settlement In The Eastern Zhou Dynasty

The Eastern Zhou period was the peak of fortification in Chinese history.The Chu state gradually developed from a small country with no difference in land to a country of thousands of miles,and built a large number of cities in the process of continuous expansion.The academic circles mostly study the urban archaeology from the layout and scale of the enclosure settlement,and summarize the architectural technology and urban layout at that time.However,the construction of a enclosure settlement can also reflect the conquest and domination of a region by a country.It can be found from the literature that enclosure settlement has a large number and a wide distribution range.For the archaeologically discovered Chu Kingdom,it can be classified from two aspects: the nature of the city and the scale of the city.With regard to the nature of the city,from the literature,we can get the knowledge that the Chu people took the lead in the county,and the county is directly controlled by the monarch,and the enclosure settlement has a higher status.Some small enclosure settlement with small area and important strategic position have a single function and strong defensiveness.They belong to military castles.Therefore,Chu enclosure settlement can be divided into capitals,counties,and military castles.In addition,some enclosure settlement have been researched and proved to belong to production management centers and Fengjunyi,with a small number,can be unified into these cities.Regarding the scale of the enclosure settlement,according to Xu Hong ’s classification of the enclosure settlement in the Eastern ZhouDynasty,the enclosure settlement of Chu can be divided into super large,large,medium and small enclosure settlements.Under the two classification standards,it can be seen that there are certain levels in the enclosure settlement of Chu.The enclosure settlement is much larger than the other enclosure settlement.The county capital basically uses the capitals of other princes,with large scale and high rank,while the military castle has a small area and functions.It is also relatively clear that there are handicraft workshops in a few enclosure settlement.On the basis of dividing the types of cities in Chu Kingdom,it can be seen that there are obvious strategic layout consciousness in the distribution of various types of cities in Chu Kingdom.The county towns in southern Henan are dense,which was caused by the Chu people moving northward to the Central Plains,and the strategic goal of "want to watch the politics of China";The fortress formed a county distribution area in the Huaihe River Basin.In the area of East Hubei,copper mines are rich in resources and many mining and smelting sites are distributed.In the east of Hubei,the Chu people formed a mining and smelting area centered on the ancient city of Wulijie,and Tonglu Mountain of Daye.In addition to the existence of military castles in the eastern mining and metallurgical area,military castles are concentrated in military areas and border areas,such as the Yunmeng enclosure settlement in the Suizao Corridor and many small enclosure settlements in Hunan.The different characteristics of the construction of Chu Kingdom in different periods are consistent with the changes in Chu’s strategic layout.In the early Spring and Autumn Period,the Chu people focused on opening up the passage from north to China,successfully controlled the Shen and Xi countries,and set up county troops to fight for the Central Plains.In the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period,the Chu people entered the Central Plains on the one hand and established a county defense group in the northeast around Xixian.In the late spring and autumn,the construction of the Chu Kingdom continued to develop in depth,and the outer defense county towns of Chen,Cai,and Weng were established outside the Fangcheng,and they went down the river.basis.In the early and middle period of the Warring States period,the Chu people began to build large military castles on the passages adjacent to the core area,and gradually developed eastward to establish county towns in the Anhui region.In the late WarringStates period,there were only sporadic enclosure settlement.With the Qin State’s attack on the Chu State,the Chu State enclosure settlement transitioned into the Qin State enclosure settlement,and some continued into the Han Dynasty.Studying the distribution of different types of cities in Chu Kingdom,we can find from the location of the enclosure settlement that Chu people have built a set of defense systems that are "sense in all four areas".In the core area of Chu,there are fewer cities and towns,and Jinan City is large in scale,radiating the entire Western Hubei Plain.Around the north,south and east of the core area,the Central Plains county cluster,the large military passage in the core area and the military castle in Hunan area were established in the main roads and border areas.