What are the historical allusions of the Great Wall in Beijing?

The Great Wall of Wan Li, as a huge military defense project, is mainly aimed at defending the nomads from the north from invading the south, protecting the people in the Central Plains from a stable and peaceful production and living environment, and preventing and avoiding the catastrophe of war.

In many periods in China's history, the military forces of the Central Plains Dynasty were unable to control the vast grasslands and deserts in the north. In this case, the best way to prevent the invasion of nomadic tribes in the north and protect people's lives is to build a tall barrier and have a strong defense system.

Building the Great Wall is the knowledge of politicians and military strategists in China. Some of them have made great achievements in building and guarding the Great Wall. Qi Jiguang, the company commander of Jiyun Town in the late Ming Dynasty, was one of the outstanding representatives.

On the other hand, the construction of the Great Wall was opposed by many people, from ordinary people to emperors. The story of Meng Jiangnv crying on the Great Wall can be described as a household name, which is well known to all women and children. It reflects the true thoughts and feelings of the people to a great extent.

In order to build the Great Wall, the rulers of many dynasties levied all kinds of corvees and taxes on the people, which made the people suffer unbearable sufferings, including the separation and death of husband and wife mentioned in Meng Jiangnu's story. This is the main reason why the bottom people oppose the construction of the Great Wall.

In fact, Meng Jiangnv's story only reflects one aspect of historical tragedy. On the other side of the historical tragedy, the northern nomadic fighters flooded into the Central Plains, plundering people, property and livestock at will, burning and looting, and the people in the Central Plains were devastated.

Such a disaster caused social unrest and economic depression. From this perspective, building the Great Wall to resist foreign aggression is not so much the emperor's personal will as the conscious choice of the whole nation.

Another important reason why people vilify the construction of the Great Wall is that it is not worth the loss to spend a lot of manpower and material resources to build it. They believe that the enemy should be influenced by kindness, not by force or obstacles. The most representative figure who holds this view is Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty. One year, Cai Yuan, the commander-in-chief of Gubeikou, wrote a memorial saying that the section of the Great Wall under his jurisdiction had collapsed a lot, so please build it.

Kangxi said that every dynasty has been building the Great Wall since the Qin Dynasty. However, the Great Wall, which took manpower and material resources to build, is still unable to resist the invasion of the border by foreign enemies. At the end of the Ming dynasty, our Taizu soldiers marched in and the road collapsed, and there was nothing we could do. We can see ways to defend our country, but we live in Xiu De.

Kangxi also said that during his inspection, he found many damaged places in Gubei and Xifeng. If it must be repaired, it may waste people and money. Besides, the Great Wall stretches for thousands of miles. How many soldiers will it take to hold it?

Kangxi's decision not to build the Great Wall was correct because great changes had taken place in the border situation at that time. Northeast China is the birthplace of the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing government adopted a policy of unity and appeasement to Mongolian princes and nobles. There was basically no military force north of the Great Wall, so Beijing really didn't force the construction of the Great Wall at that time.

On the other hand, he saw that the rulers at the end of the Ming Dynasty only knew how to recruit soldiers, increase their salaries and suppress the people, but they didn't know how to keep them in Xiu De. So the repression intensified, and the torrent of peasant uprising finally overthrew the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

In the early Qing Dynasty, the rulers learned this historical lesson and adopted a series of policies related to the people's solidarity after entering the customs, which restored the severely devastated social productive forces, gradually won the support of the people and laid the foundation for political rule.

But Kangxi turned a blind eye to their nation's repeated violations of the Central Plains before the Ming Dynasty. At least for them, Xiu De's Daughter didn't succeed. The Qing army broke through the Great Wall several times in history, but it was not the problem of the Great Wall itself, but the low morale and lax defense of the Ming army. At the same time, the defending battles of Ningyuan, Jinzhou and Beijing commanded by Yuan Chonghuan proved that relying on the strong city and being of one mind, we can go hand in hand and bring out the best in each other.

In fact, no one, whether Kangxi or other emperors, can maintain the rule only by protecting the people in Xiu De. Kangxi used the Eight Banners to level San Francisco and annihilate galdan in Junggar. At that time, the Qing army was strong and the battle was mainly offensive, so the Great Wall was not used. If the enemy takes the initiative to attack, the Great Wall will certainly play a great role.

The underestimation of the role of the Great Wall by the Qing emperors also lies in the fact that they maintained the peace of the frontier by means of religious and ideological rule, and adopted the appeasement policy towards Mongolia and ethnic minorities in the western regions, all of which achieved good results.

The Summer Resort and Waiba Temple were built in the years of Kangxi and Qianlong. The emperor of the Qing Dynasty met senior figures of Mongolian and Tibetan minorities here, and carried out religious and political activities by the way, so that the leaders of ethnic minorities could communicate with the Qing court without going to Beijing.

In this way, the Qing government achieved the goal of consolidating the rule and stabilizing the frontier by relying on the correct religious and political policies.

However, what we should see is that temples were built in the Qing Dynasty because the Ming and Qing Dynasties were different and the historical conditions and surrounding environment were also very different.

The success of Huairou policy depends on strong military strength. Without this premise, Huairou policy will also be a complete failure. It is also the Qing government. When the western powers' strong guns appeared in the coastal areas of China, the Qing government carried out the policy of helping the foreign countries anyway, and finally it could only cede land for compensation, which made the people of China suffer great humiliation.

As a matter of fact, the Great Wall built in the Ming Dynasty is very ingenious in conception and reasonable in layout. The eastern part of the Great Wall in Ming Dynasty was an important barrier for Beijing. The Great Wall in Fu Xuan Town, northwest of Beijing, is at the crossroads where Mongolian fighters go south, so there are two Great Walls inside and outside. The Great Wall is divided into two roads on the east side of Badaling, all the way through Zhangjiakou to Datong in the northwest, which is called the Outer Great Wall.

The other road in the southwest passes through Juyongguan and goes along Hecheng, Yixian County, Hebei Province to Fuping County, which is called the Inner Great Wall.

Pianguan, Ning Wuguan and Yanmenguan, the foreign ministers of the city, are collectively called "the outer three passes".

Juyong Pass, Zijing Pass and Daoma Pass on the Inner Great Wall are collectively called "Inner Three Passes".

In this way, a defense system in depth is formed, in which the outer Great Wall covers the inner Great Wall, the inner Great Wall guards the inner three roads, and the inner three roads guard the capital. In this way, even if the enemy broke through the defense line of the outer Great Wall, the Ming army could still quickly assemble its troops on the front line of the inner Great Wall and reorganize its effective defense.

Judging from the utility of the Great Wall, it is not only a military facility, but also a lever to promote the economic development in the northern region.

In order to solve the problem of guarding the city, the imperial courts of past dynasties implemented military camps, private enterprises and immigrants to guard the border, which stimulated the economic development along the Great Wall.

In peacetime, it is also a place to carry out border trade. With the passage of time, the Great Wall, as a military defense facility, has completed its historical mission, but its historical and cultural value will last forever.

The Great Wall is an extremely arduous and complicated project completed by the ancestors of the Chinese nation with relatively primitive tools under extremely backward productivity conditions. It can be said that the Great Wall is a monument built by China ancestors and a miracle in the history of human architecture and military affairs.