Defensive Facilities Research Articles

Temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of the Ming Great Wall

The Great Wall during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644) was the most prominent engineering volume and the most perfect military defense structure in the history of China. By combining traditional historical textual research, site surveys, and GIS database analysis, this paper reveals the Ming Great Wall’s spatial and temporal distribution characteristics and the immediate causes of their formation are discussed in the nine military districts of the frontier. The results show that: (1) The general rule of the Ming Great Wall was to set up military forts, passes, piers, and other related defensive facilities before constructing the continuous wall. (2) The Great Wall spatial and temporal distribution of the phases is relatively apparent, divided into five construction phases in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1620): Hongwu to Xuande (1368–1435), unbuilt the wall; Zhengtong to Tianshun (1436–1464), the consecutive wall appeared; Chenghua to Zhengde (1465–1521), the first construction climax of the Great Wall; Jiajing period (1522–1566), the second construction climax of the Great Wall; Longqing to Wanli (1567–1620), the completion of the whole line of the Great Wall.(3)The warfare and defense posture was the immediate factor that prompted the construction of the Great Wall between the Ming Dynasty and Mongolia. This study has some reference significance for restoring the integrity and authenticity of the Ming Great Wall, and contribute to the preservation of the cultural heritage of.

Warfare, Political Economy, and Social Formations: Considering Central Andean Prehistory

Warfare is critical for anthropologists and prehistorians studying variation in human economies and societies. To view this variable comparatively, we must consider severity and regularity as documented by defensive facilities and locations, nature and frequency of weaponry, and bodily injuries likely from combat. Arkush (2022 and companion article) provides detailed documentation for explaining Andean warfare. Here, I look at war- fare as a constellations of phenomena involving raiding for wealth, competition over cor porate land ownership, and conquest warfare by complex chiefdoms and states aimed at maximizing the extraction of surpluses. My goal is to model warfare as imbedded within political economies with different goals and means based on sources of economic power. This is fundamentally a Marxist orientation, considering contrasting modes of economic organization representing competitive processes between interest groups. The Andean data suggest that warfare was elementally competition for corporately held agricultural lands intensified by facilities including especially irrigation. It varied in frequency and severity with population density increasing through time. With the emergence of institutional finance, however, overarching polities focus on conquest and intimidation to maximize surplus extraction as they imposed regional peace as documented for example by coastal EIP states and the Inca empire. Elaboration of offensive weaponry did not characterize Andean sequences in sharp contrast to Bronze and Iron Age Europe, suggesting distinctive trajectories of warfare. Key for success in Andean warfare was sizes of fighting forces as characterized by the numbers of sandals on the ground.

Gardens and walls: history and morality in urban China

This anthropological-historical paper explores the oft-neglected inner connotations of morality and history as embedded in China’s historic landscape. Situated in the heritage city of Kaifeng, it reveals how local gardens not only are architectural imitations of this ancient capital, but also are connected to the nation’s past and mediate moral lessons. A deeper textual dimension is further exposed, with an examination of a dynastic record, as well as the rich historiographical corpus lying behind it, to which garden designers refer. The arguments appearing in such a textual and intellectual dimension are then explicated with regard to the city’s old walls. The walls, which are supposed to be formidable defensive facilities, now are viewed as the symbols of learning, virtue and civilisation in contrast to sheer militarism. A further discussion about pertinent ideas in Chinese thought finally discloses the richness of this historical-moral aspect of the city’s landscape.

Российские военные инженеры в прусской кампании 1757—1762 годов

The author studies the activity of Russian military engineers operating under the command of D. I. Debosket in the army of S. F. Apraksin on the territory of Prussia during the Seven Years' War. It is shown that as the province was occupied by Russian troops, the engineering tasks were changing: there was a transition from equipping the track infrastructure to restoring defensive facilities. Restoration work was complicated by a variety of circumstances, including the lack of military engineers in the field due to their presence at the front line, the limited possibility to engage the local population in the fortifications’ restoration, as well as poor funding for construction work. The research focuses on the active involvement of V. I. Suvorov, the governor of the province, in the restoration of fortification objects, in particular the Pillau fortress. The article describes the participation of Russian engineers in the rescue operation in the Labiau area in January 1761, which included the evacuation of local residents and their property from the settlements flooded by the storm. The last chord of the military engineers activity was ensuring withdrawal of Russian troops from Eastern Prussia in August 1762.

The Analysis and Characteristics of the Stone Culture of Jeju Island seen in Old Literatures

본 논문에서는 고문헌 속 제주도 돌문화에 대한 내용을 관 주도형과 주민 주도형으로 구분하여 그 특징을 살펴보았다. 그 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 관 주도형 돌문화는 방어유적(읍성, 진성, 연대, 환해장성)과 잣성, 돌하르방에 대한 내용이 확인되는데 이는 조선왕조실록 외 16개의 문헌에서 살펴볼 수 있었다. 이들 문헌에서는 방어유적에 대한 내용이 가장 많이 확인되었다. 한편, 주민 주도형 돌문화는 주로 돌담(밭담, 원담, 산담, 집담)과 머들에 대한 내용이 확인되는데 이는 조선왕조실록 외 21개의 문헌에서 살펴볼 수 있었다. 이들 돌문화는 다양한 종류에 비해서 대부분 돌담과 관련된 내용만 확인되고 있었다. 둘째, 문헌 속 관 주도형 돌문화의 특징으로는 돌문화의 유래인 축조 시기, 배경, 관련 인물과 함께 위치, 규복 시설현황 등이 비교적 명확하게 기록되어 있었다. 또한 방어유적과 잣성은 시기에 따른 변화모습도 살펴볼 수 있었는데 이 내용들은 현재 많은 돌문화가 문화재로 지정됨에 있어 중요하게 작용하였다. 셋째, 문헌 속 주민 주도형 돌문화의 특징으로 1230년대 밭담의 유래는 당시 제주도의 사회상을 재조명할 수 있는 중요한 단서가 되고 있었고, 지리적 환경은 제주도 돌문화가 오랜 기간 제주를 대표하는 경관임을 보여주고 있었다. 또한 1939년 다양한 돌담의 축조 규모, 돌 채취, 보수비용에 대한 기록은 당시 돌담과 관련된 점을 조명하는데 중요한 단서로 작용하고 있었다.This study classified the stone cultures of Jeju Island seen in old literatures into government-led stone culture and inhabitant-led stone culture, and analyzed the contents and examined the characteristics. The results are as follows: First, the contents of government-led stone culture mainly consist of defensive facilities(e.g. Up-seong(castle of town), Jin-seong(castle of military camp), Yeon-dea(heights to send the signal of smoke), Hwanhea-Jangseong(coastal fortress)), Jatseong(stonewall for government-installed ranches), and Dolharubang(standing stone statue). This was confirmed in 16 literatures including the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty. In these literatures, defensive facilities were the most abundant. The contents of inhabitant-led stone culture mainly consist of Stone walls(e.g. Batdam(dry field wall), Wondam(intertidal stone fish trap), Sandam(tomb-surrounding stone wall), Jipdam(stonewall for fence)) and Mudle(stone piles). This was confirmed in 21 literatures including the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty. Compared to various types of stone culture, most of these stone walls have been identified Second, the characteristics of government-led stone culture seen in old literatures are as follows: The time and background of the stone walling, and the related figures are clearly recorded together with the location, scale and facility status； defensive facilities and Jatseong showed the changes over time. These are all greatly contributed to designating a lot of government-led stone culture as cultural assets. Third, the characteristics of inhabitant-led stone culture seen in old literatures are as follows: the origin of the 1230s Batdam became an important clue for understanding the social aspect of Jeju Island at that time, and the geographical environment seen in the records showed that the stone cultures of Jeju Island have been a landscape representing this island over a long period of time. Moreover, the records made in 1939 on various types of stone wall, stone mining, stone walling and repair cost became important data for understanding at the time of stone walls.

State and irrigation: archeological and textual evidence of water management in late Bronze Age China

Ancient China remains an important case to investigate the relationship between statecraft development and ‘total power.’ While important economic and social developments were achieved in the late Neolithic, it was not until the late Bronze Age (first millennium BC) that state‐run irrigation systems began to be built. Construction of large‐scale irrigation projects, along with walls and defensive facilities, became vital to regional states who were frequently involved in chaotic warfare and desperate to increase food production to feed the growing population. Some of the irrigation infrastructures were brought into light by recent archeological surveys. We scrutinize fast accumulating archeological evidence and review rich historical accounts on late Bronze Age irrigation systems. While the credibility of historical documents is often questioned, with a robust integration with archeological data, they provide important information to understand functions and maintenance of the irrigation projects. We investigate structure and organization of large‐scale irrigation systems built and run by states and their importance to understanding dynamic trajectories to social power in late Bronze Age China. Cleverly designed based on local environmental and hydrological conditions, these projects fundamentally changed water management and farming patterns, with dramatic ecological consequences in different states. Special bureaucratic divisions were created and laws were made to further enhance the functioning of these large‐scale irrigation systems. We argue that they significantly increased productivity by converting previously unoccupied land into fertile ground and pushed population threshold to a new level. A hypothesis should be tested in further archeological research. WIREs Water 2017, 4:e1217. doi: 10.1002/wat2.1217This article is categorized under: Water and Life > Stresses and Pressures on Ecosystems Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Human Water > Water Governance

A novel hybrid algorithm for solving continuous single-objective defensive location problem

The continuous defensive location problem (CDLP) is an NP-hard problem well investigated in the fields of competitive facility location. CDLP is a bi-level programming problem, where a decision maker locates defensive facilities with different capacities in the vertices of the network in order to avoid her/his aggressors from reaching core which is an important vertex in the network. In the present research, a hybrid method combining the imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) and BFGS algorithm is presented to solve the CDLP. The proposed hybrid method integrates the ICA and the BFGS algorithm, providing a highly near-optimal solution. The upper-level problem solves the optimal location of defense facilities, and hybrid algorithm is applied. The lower-level problem is the shortest path problem which is solved by the Dijkstra method. The feasibility of the proposed hybrid method is demonstrated for a number of small, medium and large instances of the problem. The test results are compared with those obtained by genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization and ICA in terms of solution accuracy and required CPU time. Simulation results reveal that the proposed hybrid method is feasible, robust and more effective in solving the CDLP than conventional metaheuristic methods.

Solving continuous single-objective defensive location problem based on hybrid directed tabu search algorithm

In this paper, we introduce a novel optimal location problem on a network, called as continuous defensive location problem (CDLP). In this problem, a decision maker locates different kinds of defensive facilities (with different capacities) on the vertices of the network in order to prevent her/his aggressors from reaching a strategic site, called core, which is a vertex in the network. This problem is a generalization of the defensive location problem, introduced by Uno and Katagiri (European J Oper Res 188:76–84, 2008). The CDLP is formulated as a bi-level programming problem in which the defender and the aggressor are the upper and lower level of decision makers, respectively. This problem is a non-deterministic polynomial-time (NP) hard problem which is derived from the equilibrium conditions. Therefore, finding a solution for this problem in the large-scale setting is very severe. In order to solve this problem, a hybrid tabu search algorithm is proposed based on continuous tabu search (TS), the so-called directed tabu search (DTS), and the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) method. This combination helps us to escape from local minima by using a global algorithm, i.e., DTS algorithm, and makes a high-speed convergence rate by employing a local minimizer algorithm, i.e., LM algorithm. We finally apply our hybrid scheme for solving several randomly generated CDLPs. Our numerical experiences show that the proposed algorithm has admirable performance in terms of both CPU time and solution accuracy and is one of the effective and robust approaches for solving these problems.

Single- and multi-objective defensive location problems on a network

Abstract This paper considers a new optimal location problem, called defensive location problem (DLP). In the DLPs, a decision maker locates defensive facilities in order to prevent her/his enemies from reaching an important site, called a core; for example, “a government of a country locates self-defense bases in order to prevent her/his aggressors from reaching the capital of the country.” It is assumed that the region where the decision maker locates her/his defensive facilities is represented as a network and the core is a vertex in the network, and that the facility locater and her/his enemy are an upper and a lower level of decision maker, respectively. Then the DLPs are formulated as bilevel 0-1 programming problems to find Stackelberg solutions. In order to solve the DLPs efficiently, a solving algorithm for the DLPs based upon tabu search methods is proposed. The efficiency of the proposed solving methods is shown by applying to examples of the DLPs. Moreover, the DLPs are extended to multi-objective DLPs that the decision maker needs to defend several cores simultaneously. Such DLPs are formulated as multi-objective programming problems. In order to find a satisfying solution of the decision maker for the multi-objective DLP, an interactive fuzzy satisfying method is proposed, and the results of applying the method to examples of the multi-objective DLPs are shown.