Hwaseong Fortress
Hwaseong Fortress (Brilliant Fortress) is located in Suwon, South Korea which is 30 kilometers from Seoul. It was built from 1794 to 1796. Jeongjo of Joseon constructed the fortress complex to house the remains of his father Sukjong. King Jeongjo's father, Sukjong, was forced to commit suicide by being shut in a rice chest by King Yeongjo and Jeongjo wanted to honor his father after such a horrible death.
Architecture
The architecture of the fortress combines traditional Eastern and Western styles which makes it very distinctive from other Korean buildings.
The fortress has four gates, "Hwaseomun" (west gate), "Janganmun" (north), "Paldalmun" (south) and Changnyongmun (east). The Janganmum and Paldalmun gates are the larger of the four main gates and resemble Seoul'sNamdaemun in roof design, and stone and wood work. Paldalmun was burned down during the Korean War and was reconstruved in 1975. Janganmun survived destruction and is from the original construction of the fortress. Both the north and south gates are topped with two-story wooden pavilions while Hwaseomun, the west gate, has a one story pavilion. The main gates are also encircled by semi-circle walls which housed guards and was designed to protect the gates.
Originally, there were 48 facilities along the wall of the fortress but seven of them have been lost to flooding, wars, or were not renovated and the fortress now feature a floodgate, four secret gates, four guard platforms, two observation towers, two command posts, two archer's platforms, five firearms bastions, five sentry towers, four angle towers, a beacon tower and nine bastions.
In the past there were three watchtowers but now only two remain. They are both three-stories in height and are very distinctive because of the wooden pavilions on top of the tower and embrasures for guns and lookouts. The beacon tower is another interesting feature of the fortress. It had five chimneys to make different signals with smoke or fire. When one was lit it signaled peace, two meant the enemy had been spoted, three meant the enemy was approaching, four meant the enemy had made it into the city, and five signals lit meant that the fighting had begun.
Although the fortress does not now constitute one complete wall (the southern section has not been restored), the three-quarters that remains is well maintained and can be covered on foot. The wall is 5.74 kilometers in length. In the past, the walls enclosed 130 hectacres of land. The fortress walls were on average four to six meters in height. On flat terrain the wall was generally built higher than wall that was on mountainous terrain. This incorporation of terrain into the defenses of the fortress was rarely used in China and Japan. The parapets are made of stone and brick, like most of the fortress, and were 1.2 meters in height.
The best route is to make a counterclockwise journey from where the wall begins in the south-east near Nammun market, following the wall over Changnyongmun and Janganmun before tackling the uphill climb to the Bell of Filial Piety atop the hill. One can then descend back into the neon madness of Nammun via various flights of steep stone steps.
History
Hwaseong Fortress was built over a two and a half year period, from 1794 to 1796. The architect and designer was Jeong Yak-yong, who would later become a famous leader of the Silhak movement. Silhak, which means practical learning, encouraged the use of science and industry and Jeong incorporated fortress designs from Korea, China, and Japan and scientific knowledge into his plans. Adoption of brick as a building material for the fortress and the use of efficient pulleys and cranes also were the result of the influence of the Practical Learning School. The fortress is also a response to the collapse of the Korean front line during the Seven-Year War and tries to remedy the perceived inadequacy of the Korean fortress design. At the time the fortress was constructed, the dominant Korean fortress-building model was to make a simple wall for the city or town and a seperate mountain fortress for the people to evacuate to in times of war. However, this fortress was built to include both elements of a wall, defensive fortress, and town center. The four main gates were used as the gates for the town. The arrow-launching platforms built along ramparts with crenelleted parapets and battlements were elements of the fortress while the wall also held secret gates for offensive actions.
The fortress took 700,000 man-hours. It cost the national treasury 870,000 nyang, the currency at the time, and 1,500 sacks of rice to pay the workers. In the past, government works were built on corvee labor but in this case workers were paid by the government and this shows the influence of Silhak and of modernization.
King Jeongjo probably planned to move the capital from Seoul to Suwon and this fortress was the precursor to that move. Suwon is noted for its strategic position between Seoul and access to the Yellow Sea and China. The king wanted to leave the fracticious strife of the court to carry out reforms and believed that Suwon had the potential to grow into a new and prosperous capital. To encourage growth, he ordered people to move to Suwon at considerable expense and exempted them from taxes for ten years. King Jeongjo also ordered public works, like educational facilities, for the city.
A white paper "Hwaseong Seong-yeokuigwe"(Records of Hwaseong Fortress Construction) was published in 1800, shortly after Jeongjo died. It was ten volumes and proved invaluable for the reconstruction effort in 1970 after the fortress had been severly damaged during the Korean War. The volumes were divided by subject. The first volume was about the plans for building, such as the drawing details and list of supervisors. The next six volumes detail the actual implementation of the building, such as the royal orders and records of the wages of the workers. The final three volumes are supplements and detail the construction of an adjoining palace. The manpower was divided by specialty, such as overseers and stone masons and manual labor. The records detail the amount of materials used as well.
Arson
On May 1, 2006, an arsonist attacked Hwaseong, damaging Sojangdae watchtower. The arsonist reportedly caused the fire by lighting his clothes and underwear with a cigarette lighter. The fire caused about 1 billion won in damage (about $1 million), destroying the upper floor of the watchtower. The same building was destroyed by fire in 1996, and had undergone restoration since then.[1][2]
See also
References
External links
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