Effective Strongholds for Defense
From the 12th century to 19th century, armed bandits plagued southern China. The people of southern Fujian first built strongholds on top of mountains as a defense. These early strongholds later evolved into Fujian Tulou.
The thick (two meters at bottom, tapered to one meter on top) outer walls of tulous were immune to arrows and gunfire. The lower one- to two-meter section of the outer wall was sometimes built with granite blocks or large river cobbles. This granite or cobble section was immune to digging, since the outer layer of cobbles was purposely laid with the smaller ends pointing outwards--it would be futile for any attacker to dig out such cobbles. Digging a tunnel under the wall was not possible either, because the cobble section wall was extended deep down more than one meter.
The earth wall section was built with rammed earth together with lime-sand-clay mixture and reinforced with horizontal bamboo strips for lateral binding. It was solid as a castle, immune even to cannon fire. In 1934, a group of uprising peasants of Yongding County occupied a tulou to resist the assault of the army, which fired 19 cannon shots at that tulou, but made only a small dent on the outside wall[7].
The weak link in a walled system was usually the gate. But the gate of Fujian tulou was specially designed for defense. The door frame was built from a large solid block of granite; the double doors were built with fire-resistant solid wood boards up to 13 cm thick, reinforced with thick iron armor plates. The main gate door was barred with several horizontal and vertical strong wood posts inserted into holes in the granite. To guard against an enemy destroying the front doors with fire, some doors were equipped with water tanks on top to quench fires set by the enemy.
Fujian Tulou residents used firearms for active defense, shooting at enemies from gun ports at the top level of the building. Some Fujian tulou are constructed with a circular corridor along the inside wall to facilitate the movement of armed men and ammunition.
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