"Old Dragon's Head" - the starting point of the eastern part of the Great Wall, this ancient city wall extends from the coastline to the sea, as high as more than seven zhang, like a high platform standing on the coastline, like a giant dragon from the East China Sea, lying on the lofty mountains. The magnificent view of the beginning of the Great Wall has sparked curiosity about the story behind its construction. Why is the starting point of the Great Wall located in the "old dragon head"?Who built this wall?What is the purpose of the construction?
The origins of the Great Wall can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when the ancient Chinese ethnic groups mingled with the surrounding ethnic minorities. In the north, ethnic minorities conquered and merged with each other, and eventually evolved into the three major tribes of Yueshi, Donghu and Xiongnu. In response to the invasion of the northern nomads, the countries of the Central Plains began to build high walls for defense. With the changes of the times, the construction of the Great Wall inherited the spirit of "born in adversity and died in peace", and became a military defense tradition of taking precautions.
Although the Great Wall seen now is actually the "Ming Great Wall" that was rebuilt on the basis of the ancient Great Wall during the Ming Dynasty, who proposed the construction of the "old dragon head"?This city wall contains the greatest hidden danger of agricultural civilization. Ancient China has always been the main representative of agrarian civilization, and the advantage of this civilization is that it has stable production, which is conducive to the accumulation of wealth and enables the people to live and work in peace and contentment.
However, the disadvantage lies in the fact that it is heavily dependent on the weather, and once the harvest is affected and the food stocks are insufficient, the country and the people face a crisis. Nomadic civilizations were also exposed to the weather, but for animal husbandry, they did not have to work heavily and had a large number of horses, which made it convenient for them to plunder. Agrarian civilizations have warehousing and can cope with extreme weather, and China is a vast country that can provide food in the south even if extreme weather hits the north.
And the nomadic civilization itself is located further north, so there is no better means of survival than plundering. Therefore, the entire Chinese civilization was a history of struggle between agrarian civilization and nomadic civilization before modern times. During the Ming Dynasty, there were more than a thousand natural disasters, the most serious of which was the Xiaoice period. At its worst, even Chaozhou, Guangdong Province experienced heavy snowfall for several years, which shows how cold the weather is.
The Ming Dynasty itself suffered such difficulties, not to mention the Manchu people of Northeast China who lived by fishing and hunting. Under the influence of extreme weather, the Ming Dynasty was full of internal and external troubles. In order to guard against the attack of the Manchus, the imperial court mobilized Qi Jiguang, a famous general in the southeast to resist the Japanese, to the north to guard the key barrier of the Ming Dynasty - Shanhaiguan. Under the foundation laid by Xu Da, the founding general of the Ming Dynasty, the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty has begun to take shape, which should have been very beneficial to prevent Manchurians, but unfortunately the weather has become a fatal loophole.
The harsh winter months cause the sea to freeze rapidly, and the ice is unusually strong, and the vast sea turns into a snowfield. As long as the Manchurian cavalry made a detour, they could bypass the Great Wall from the sea and go straight to the interior of Shanhaiguan. Once this loophole was discovered, the defenders of Shanhaiguan were greatly alarmed and hurriedly reported it to the imperial court. The imperial court naturally felt extremely nervous, but it was helpless. At this moment, Qi Jiguang came up with a brilliant idea, he suggested that the Great Wall be expanded to the sea to prevent a sneak attack by the Manchurians.
The idea seemed apparently feasible now, but at the time it seemed incredible. The rammed earth walls of the Ming Dynasty were basically unable to withstand the attacks of the Manchus with the first attacking equipment and artillery. During the Ming Dynasty, in order to resist the invasion of the Mongols, the Ming Dynasty made improvements to the Great Wall. They used a combination of rammed earth and stone to increase the load-bearing capacity of the Great Wall, and superimposed wall tiles on the outside to withstand the onslaught of siege engines.
This optimization effectively prevented the Mongol invasion, making the Great Wall an impenetrable barrier for them, with the exception of the Tumubao Change. However, this optimization scheme is not suitable for the construction of sea walls. Because the beach is soft and the sea water is corroded, it is difficult to stabilize the rammed earth. Faced with this situation, Qi Jiguang found continuous mountains around Shanhaiguan. With an idea, he gradually built a sea wall with large boulders as the foundation.
Fortunately, the weather was cold, and soldiers and civilians could use splashing water and rolling logs to reduce the pressure of transportation during the transportation of boulders. After less than a year of work, the "old dragon head" of the Great Wall was successfully completed. Today, this maritime city wall still stands on the sea of Tiger Mountain, and hundreds of years later, it still stands. Qi Jiguang's foresight is admirable.