1402–24 decided to withdraw to an inner line of defense and divided the northern border into the Nine Defense Areas, each guarded by a garrison along a line that eventually became the Gr
Trang 1After his conquests, Emperor Yongle (r 1402–24)
decided to withdraw to an inner line of defense and
divided the northern border into the Nine Defense
Areas, each guarded by a garrison along a line that
eventually became the Great Wall It stretched from
Shanhaiguan (Shanhaikuan) or Mountain Sea Pass in
the east to Jiayuguan (Chiayukuan) 1,500 miles to the
west It was a gigantic project Stone was used for the
lower courses, facing, and gates, while rubble filled
the core Huge kilns fired large bricks where stone
was not available; bricks were also used for the
tow-ers and crenellations
Although not uniform throughout most of the wall
measured 35 feet high and 25 feet wide at the top with
towers every half a mile or so that reach to 50 feet
Where the land is mountainous the wall followed the
crest of the ridges; it blocked roadways and damned
rivers Since the Ming capital Beijing (Peking) was
close to the wall (one day’s ride), more than a hundred
passes or barriers with monumental gateways guarded
strategic points along the eastern section to the sea
at Sanhaiguan At the western terminus at Jiayuguan
(Chiayukuan) at the northwestern tip of Gansu (Kansu)
province another formidable fortress marked the
start-ing point of the Silk Road
The Great Wall was Ming China’s inner line of
defense against the nomadic Mongols in the north
and wall building continued to the end of the dynasty
Yet it was not totally effective because the Mongols
were able to breach or bypass it Its building
exhib-ited sophisticated technology and consumed vast
resources
Further reading: Jagchid, Sechin, and Van Jay Symons Peace,
War, and Trade along the Great Wall, Nomadic-Chinese In-teraction through Two Millennia Bloomington: University of
Indiana Press, 1989; Waldron, Arthur N The Great Wall of
China: From History to Myth Cambridge: Cambridge
Uni-versity Press, 1990
Jiu-Hwa Lo Upshur
Guicciardini, Francesco
(1483–1540) historian, diplomat, and statesman
Guicciardini was born in Florence to patrician parents
After receiving a humanistic education, he obtained a
degree in civil law from the University of Padua and
be-gan practicing law in Florence In a calculated maneuver
that was designed for political advancement, he
mar-ried Maria Salviati, whose family was aligned with the Medici Within a few years of his marriage, he became ambassador to Ferdinand of Aragon for the Republic of Florence and later served in the Florentine government when the Medici family held political power
Although Guicciardini was critical of clerical
abus-es in the church, he did not habus-esitate to accept political preference from the papacy when it was to his advan-tage He was an official in several cities and territories
in the Papal States under popes Leo X and Clement VII and served as counselor and papal lieutenant gen-eral for the latter
Guicciardini’s writings on politics and history are extensive They include a history of Florence and a
cri-tique of his friend Niccolò Machiavelli’s Discourses
on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy However, today Guicciardini is appreciated primarily for his Ricordi and for his magnum opus, The History of Italy The Ricordi’s maxims offer a set of reflections on
politics, history, and the conduct of life Those that deal with Guicciardini’s sense of history demonstrate that he held a view of history that differed from that of Machia-velli and humanist historians, who perceived history
as exemplary and counseled their contemporaries to imitate ancient Rome Guicciardini stressed that the mutability of human affairs, driven by the conflicting self-interests of leaders, coupled with the unpredict-ability of fortune make it impossible to derive lessons from history To expect his contemporaries to act like citizens of ancient Rome, he wrote, was similar to expecting a jackass to behave like a horse
Guicciardi-ni believed that the value of history lies in its ability to preserve the memory of the past
The History of Italy is the product of his mature
thinking about the momentous events that he partici-pated in or was witness to from the l490s to 1534 Its scope and its stress on the self-aggrandizement of the secular and religious leaders of the time give the book
an appeal that far exceeds the parochial orientation of humanist history The book opens with the invasion of Italy in 1494 by the forces of Charles VIII of France, an event that Guicciardini regarded as calamitous because
it opened the door to repeated invasions by
Europe-an powers It marked the end of city-state hegemony
on the peninsula and the balance of power politics brokered by Lorenzo de’ Medici The discovery of the New World, the spread of syphilis in Europe, and an awareness of the impending rift in Christianity are also
features of the book The History ends with the
rapa-cious sack of Rome by the Imperial forces of Charles
V and the death of Pope Clement VII Guicciardini was
154 Guicciardini, Francesco