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Defense included ingenious features
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西安城墙 (xi’an chengqiang) The Xi’an City Wall
Besides the world-famous terra cotta warriors, the ancient city wall is one of the must-sees for anyone visiting Xi’an, the ancient Chinese capital. At more than 600 years old, the Xi’an City Wall is widely deemed as the most integral and complete ancient circumvallation in China.
Xi’an, called Chang’an before the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), is now the capital of Shaanxi Province in northwest China. Boasting a history of more than 3,000 years, the city served as the capital of 13 Chinese dynasties.
Like the Great Wall, the Xi’an City Wall we see today was built during the Ming Dynasty on the foundation of the city walls constructed during the Sui (AD 581-618) and Tang (AD 618-907) dynasties. Many Chinese architects and archaeologists would say that if the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) is known for its mausoleums and the Tang Dynasty for its pagodas, then the Ming Dynasty is famed for its construction of walls.
The Xi’an City Wall is regular in shape, stretching about 2,600 meters from north to south and 3,300 meters from east to west. And it rises about 12 meters from the ground.
However, to make it one of the most effective defense systems during its time, the wall was constructed 15-18 meters wide at bottom and 12-14 meters on top. So, military drills could be conducted and horse-drawn carts or chariots driven on top of the city wall.
It was first built with rammed earth, and the bottom of the wall was made of earth, lime and sticky-rice water, which was extremely solid. Later, the wall was enclosed with bricks and rain drainage gutters were added.
To effectively protect the city wall from enemy attacks, 98 ramparts were built. They extended out from the main walls and stood 120 meters apart, the distance that could be covered by archers guarding the neighboring two ramparts.
In addition, the city wall defense system included moats, drawbridges, watchtowers with embrasures, battlements and crenels.
The original wall had four main gates, one in each direction. Generally, the gates were regarded as the most vulnerable parts of a city wall and enemy forces usually would break into the city through the gates. Therefore, wall builders added an enceinte, or encircling fortification, called literally an “urn city” in Chinese, to each of the four main gates to provide extra protection.
Each urn city consisted of three defense lines, namely, the portcullis tower designed to control mainly the drawbridge over the moat, the arrow tower to eliminate enemies who had broken through the first defense line, and the main gate tower serving as the last-ditch defense. The embrasured tower was connected to the main city wall and the gate to form an encircling fortification.
At the each of the four corners of the city wall, there’s a tall protruding watchtower, another design to protect the wall. All but one of the four corner towers are in the shape of square, but the one standing at the southwest corner remains in a round shape, following the style of the Tang Dynasty city walls.
Improvement and restoration of the Xi’an City Wall continued in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
In 1961, it was listed as being under State protection and in the following years, millions were spent on renovating the wall and restoring its original features. The renovation project, including a complete dredging of the city moat, lasted for more than two decades. Xi’an has also issued city wall protection regulations, according to which, all buildings inside the city wall should not be taller than the walls in order to retain its ancient flavor.
In 2012, the Xi’an City Wall topped the list of candidates that China had selected for application for the status of World Cultural Heritage.
瓮城 (wengcheng) Urn city
Wengcheng, literally urn city in Chinese, was an enclosure built usually outside a main city gate as extra protection since gates were deemed the most vulnerable parts of a city wall.
The enclosure was connected to the main wall by its own walls, often built in a semicircle or square shape.
“Urn” in Chinese connotes a trap because an earthen jar often was used to store captured fish or other animals. So an urn city was a trap for enemies. If an enemy breached the outer gate, stone doors would fall, trapping them in the “urn.” There they faced attack from defenders above.
Urn cities first appeared more than 2,000 years ago and became an integral part of nearly all city walls built during the Five Dynasties (AD 907-960) and the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) as a double-gate system for extra protection.
Gates of big cities like Xi’an and Nanjing could have enclosed as many as three courtyards linked by archways.
Like city walls, they were first built with rammed earth. Later, the walls were enclosed in brick. During the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, large bricks, rocks or stone slabs also were added to further strengthen the barbican entrances to the walled cities.
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