Why has the Nanjing City Wall remained standing for 700 years?

Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang is definitely a person who can’t rub a grain of salt into his eyes. If Zhu Yuanzhang is really more sincere, he will end up in the Lan Yu case and the Hu Weiyong case. In the eyes of the people, Zhu Yuanzhang is indeed a good emperor and poor. Born as a monk, he knew the sufferings of the people best. After he ascended the throne, he hated corrupt officials the most, and took strict anti-corruption measures to eliminate corrupt officials in the court. The common people applauded and won Zhu Yuanzhang high prestige, but among the officials It seems that Zhu Yuanzhang is simply a tyrant. The ministers are very cautious when going to court every day, for fear that they will never see their wives and children again if they do something wrong. The number of officials involved in the Lan Yu case and the Hu Weiyong case reached more than 30,000. This figure is very frightening. This means that almost all officials in the imperial court were treated as leeks by Zhu Yuanzhang. Officials who later committed crimes There were too many, and the court could not fill the vacancies at all, so it had to escort the officials to the lobby to work, and then take them back to the cells at night after the work was done. The poor Ming officials lived in fear every day, but there was nothing they could do.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang took harsh measures to control corrupt officials in the country, he still could not put an end to the problem of corruption. In the 26th year of the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang captured Nanjing and used this place as his base. In order to prepare Xu Tu to claim his hegemony, Nanjing has been a famous ancient capital since ancient times. Many dynasties in history have established their capitals here. Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang also selected this geomantic treasure land and planned to build a strong city wall here to serve as the capital of the Ming Dynasty in the future. At this time, Zhu Yuanzhang had not yet proclaimed himself emperor, because he adopted the advice of counselor Zhu Sheng to "gather grain widely and build walls high". After that, he spent 21 years building the strongest city wall in the history of Nanjing. This city wall** * It is 35.3 kilometers long, and the most solid brick-and-stone wall construction method at the time was adopted, making the city wall even stronger.

As we all know, building a city wall is a very huge project. To make the city wall indestructible requires a lot of manpower and material resources. According to incomplete statistics, it takes hundreds of millions of city bricks to build a city wall. , so Zhu Yuanzhang prepared for three years to build the Nanjing City Wall. So how did Zhu Yuanzhang prepare during these three years? First, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered people from all over the country to share the task of building the Nanjing city wall and raise funds. The army and the Battalion and Repair Department of the Ministry of Industry were responsible for the task of burning bricks. After rigorous planning, the Nanjing wall-building plan was finally realized.

However, there is still a very important problem in the process of building the city wall, and that is the quality of the city bricks. If the quality of the city bricks is not up to standard, once an enemy invades in the future, the Nanjing city wall will be almost useless. Without any resistance, Zhu Yuanzhang hated corrupt officials most in his life. Therefore, in this matter, Zhu Yuanzhang first thought of what to do if someone cut corners during the construction of the city wall. After thinking hard, Zhu Yuanzhang finally came up with a good idea. The method is to have each craftsman and local prefecture, state, and county officials carve their names on the city bricks. If there is a quality problem with the city bricks in the future, they can be held accountable according to the names engraved on the city bricks.

As soon as this decree came out, officials from all over the country became more cautious about the project of building the Nanjing City Wall, because they all knew Zhu Yuanzhang’s temper. Once a brick was not fired well and there was a quality problem, not only I can't keep my black gauze hat, and I guess my head will have to be moved. Many local officials and contractors want to take this opportunity to make a lot of money. This rule is certain, and no one will dare to make any decisions from it. Of course, there is a more severe one. It is said that Zhu Yuanzhang even issued a death order that if anyone dared to cut corners on the city bricks, he would be built in the city wall. It is these two laws that have made the Nanjing City Wall the best quality today. We are traveling to Nanjing today. Standing on the Nanjing City Wall built by Zhu Yuanzhang hundreds of years ago, even though there are thousands of words in our hearts, they are also accompanied by the smoke and dust of history. It has drifted away, but the names on those city bricks are still deeply engraved in them, giving people an infinite reverie of traveling through history.