O. V. DYAKOVA
trances to the valleys. There are ten such fortresses: in Yashu,
Zabolotnaya, Shmyrkov Kliuch, Vas’kovskoye site, Kliuchi,
Soenskon site. So, a definite part of Koguryo residents was on
military service, and judging to location of s t one fortresses,
Pohai used them for defending his boundaries, in particular, of
North East Primorye.
By choice of location, constructing methods, a nd purposes,
stone fortresses of Primorye derive from fortification traditions
of Koguryo fortresses, often bei ng virtually identical with those.
Perhaps this tradition of arranging a fortified site was adopted
by t he Mohe and Bohai not before 7th century AD, i.e. after the
downfall of Koguryo state and Koguryo people having become
the Bohai citizens.
The Koguryo traditions in medialval town-planning in Pri-
morye. The construction technology used in northeastern Pri-
morye to erect stone fortresses (Shmyrkov Klu tc h, Zabolotnaya,
Klutchi, Vaskovskoe Ozero) obviously reproduces the Koguryo
technology and actually derives from the latter.
With Koguryo bulders, just the same way as with the Jurzhen
from East Xia State, the main criteria of choosing a building
location were precipitous mountainous landscape and presence
of lar ge ri ve r.
Of 176 Koguryo town sites found in northeastern China and
North Korea only 56 have been researched. Among them th e re
are 47 stonework fortresses and only 9 earthen ones (Sokson,
Ensonja, Thapsan, Koi, Puksansondja, Rendam, Sariho, Mokki,
Hongenno in Manchuria and Anhak in North Korea). The au-
thor have already published her stu dy of links between me-
diaeval stone fortresses of Russian Primorye and Koguryo, thus
no point in elaborating on this here. We must remember though
that construction technology used in northeastern Primorye to
build sto ne fort re sse s (Shmyrkov Klutch, Zabolotnaya, Klutchi,
Vaskovskoe Ozero) obviously reproduces the Koguryo tech-
nology and actually derives from the latter (Dyakova, 2005).
All the more so because ceramic materials from the above men-
tioned Primorye’s fortresses are comparable with the Mohe and
Bohai traditions, contemporaneous with the Koguryo culture. It
is known that military and technical innovations spread fast
enough. Koguryo’s fortified earthen mountain towns, as op-
posed to stone fortresses, are scarcely explored for various rea-
sons. For a l o ng time Korean, Chinese, and Russian scholars
worked separately in their own countries. Today we have got an
opportunity to analyze and compare the results relevant to the
problem of genesis and development of mediaeval fortifications
in the Far East. Geophysical parameters of Russian Primorye,
northeastern Korea and northeastern China are similar enough,
and this fact should have in similar way influenced the process
of choosing a location by inhabitants of these territories when it
came to building a fortified site. The choi ce woul d be dictated
by landscape. The Koguryo pe op l e as well as the Jurzhen from
East Xia preferred a s teep mountainous topography and pres-
ence of large river. Korean written sources state that, as a rule,
the Koguryo placed their mountain towns on hillto ps facing the
lowlands. “… Outside the fortresses they raised earthen bul-
warks to prev e nt the use of ladders and v isibility of actions
inside the fortress… Even if enemies fiercely attacked, their
hike from the ba se of the hill to the fortress exhausted them,
they breathed interruptedly, their ardor died away, while our
soldiers remained calm, inspired and ready to fight against in-
truders by letting big boulders roll down t he hill—enemies fell
right on the run” (Un, 2005). Kim Gi Un wrote that the Ko-
guryo mountain towns were always found in the presence of
water source. Water not only provided means of transportation,
but served as a natural border helping to control an enemy’s
movement and limiting the latter’s maneuverability (Nosov,
2001). To build mountain towns, the Koguryo chose places
near the valleys inhabited by people who could supply human
force as well as food, yet find shelter in the fortress in danger-
ous situations. Such pattern is comparable to the Jurzhen of
East Xia’s. An unconditional rule for the Koguryo to choose a
place to build a town was the presence of convenient means of
transportation, i.e. waterways and roads, permitting both ma-
neuverability and communicability with neighboring fortresses.
The Jurzhen obeyed the same rul e , as we noted before. All of
the Koguryo’s mountain towns were crossed by rivers or
streams, otherwise had ponds and wells. For example, accord-
ing to ancient scripts, the Koguryo town of Taeson had 99
ponds plus a brook. The East Xia’s Jurzhen provided t he m-
selves with water the similar way. To ensure the combatant
value of their towns the Koguryo paid ultimate attention to
reinforcement of fortress walls, the basic fortification element.
Like the Jurzhen, the Koguryo builders erected watch posts and
towers over gates. Near a gat e the fortress’ wall was usually
duplex, while in front of the gate there was a protective wall
with embrasures at sides, known as “chokte”. Watch posts, as a
rule, helped to strengthen wall corners and served as command
posts. Similar constructions are typical for mountain towns of
Jurzhen too. With Koguryo fortresses, an important defensive
role played embrasures placed so as to permit shooting at an
enemy directly or from sides. Before the invention of embra-
sure it was impossible to shoot at the troops which had made
their way right under the walls. Korean scholars believe em-
brasures to be a Koguryo’s invention while protective walls,
gates in the wall without tower, defensive lin es, and double
walls to be distinctive features of Koguryo mountain fortresses.
Having analy zed Primorye’s mountain towns belonging to the
Jurzhen of East Xia and Koguryo’s mountain fortifications, we
come to the conclusion that the influence of Koguryo’s fortifi-
cations on the development of Jurzhen type of mountain towns
was an immense one. To say the least, the Jurzhen people did
adopt Koguryo’s principles of placement of fortresses in
mountainous landscape. Those principles include the following:
protection by hills on three sides, while on one side, usually
southern, the presence of water-containing ravine; methods of
obtaining and keeping fresh water; distribution of fortification n
elements (on the wall, at gates, by corners). At the same time
Jurzhen’s mountain towns retained some Chinese fortification
traditions, Hantu earthen wall-mounds in the first place. It is
known that from the ancient times Chinese tow ns were sur-
rounded with earthen walls where the filling soil was put in
layers, each layer being rammed by special wooden rollers. As
a re su lt, the walls became ve ry firm and reached eight meters in
height. This method ha ve been known in China since 4th cen-
tury BC, and since 6th century BC the Chinese ha ve used stone
lining of curtain-walls and built the towers. Apparently the
Koguryo adopted the method of erecting earthen walls from the
Chainese as early as in antiquity, but further adapted it to
mountainous environment. On the other hand, by geomorphol-
ogy as well as fortification and constructing technologies the
stonework mountain fortresses built by the Mohe and Bohai
peoples correspond well with Koguryo traditions and appear to
be derived from the latter. Thus we are to co nc l ud e that in Pri-
morye the two types of mountain fortified sites built by me-
diaeval Tungus-Manchurians—the Mohe, Bohai, and Jurzhen
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