The fortified mountain pass (guan 关, or 關 in the Traditional form) has always been highly strategic in Chinese military history, since many regions of the empire were separated by mountain ranges that would probably serve as state borders in Europe. The Tong Pass 潼关, the Xiao Pass 崤关, the Jianmen Pass 剑门关, the Jiayu Pass 嘉峪关, the Yumen Pass 玉门关, the Juyong Pass 居庸关, and the Shanhai Pass 山海关 have all been the scene of major battles at different periods of Chinese history.

Here's an article about the various famous passes: http://www.chinavoc.com/life/gallery/guan.asp

Oh, I forgot to clarify that some of the passes, like the Shanhai Pass and the Jiayu Pass, were not really mountain passes but rather passes on a "man-made mountain range" - i.e. gates on the Great Wall. The article also mentions the "southern Great Wall" that many of you may not know about: a long wall built in Hunan to separate the Han population from the Miao tribes who often rebelled during the Ming and Qing dynasties: http://hmongunivers.angelcities.com/news08042000.html

Also mentioned in the article is the famous RTK story about Guan Yu fighting his way through five passes and killing six of Cao Cao's generals while trying to get back to Liu Bei. In case anyone is wondering, no - it never happened in history. In fact, it makes no sense at all geographically, as one of my books informed me.

Firstly, in the novel Guan Yu has to go up north to Hebei (Yuan Shao's base of operations) to find Liu Bei. But according to the Sanguo Zhi, Liu Bei at this time had been sent by Yuan Shao to Runan, south of Xuchang (Cao Cao's base), to mount operations against that area and thus split Cao Cao's forces. Indeed, during the Battle of Guandu, Liu Bei was only about 150km from Xuchang, a distance that could be crossed by foot within 3 or 4 days.

Secondly, in order to show how loyal and persistent Guan Yu was, Luo Guanzhong invented an imaginary journey for him that is ridiculously circuitous. Guan starts out from Xuchang, and instead of heading straight north and crossing the Yellow River to get to Hebei, he goes through Dongling Pass (a fictional place) and then heads northwest to Luoyang. He then turns back east and goes through Sishui Pass (also known as Hulao), followed by Xingyang, before finally crossing the Yellow River at Huazhou (probably the same place as Baima). The whole trip to Luoyang was redundant - Luo Guanzhong was just roping in all the passes in the area to give Guan Yu more work to do.

What about the 'Hang-ku' or 'Hang-gu' pass? (and forgive me if you mentioned it above by a name I didn't recognize). Wasn't it important, too? For example, I read that an important reason for choosing the location for the cities of Xianyang and Chang-an was because of it being strategically located inside this pass.

Yes, Hangu Pass was east of Tong Pass, and one had to get through both passes (there was a valley linking the two) to get to Chang'an from the east. That's why the Chang'an region was known as Guanzhong, the "land within the passes". As the article mentions, the Qin built Hangu Pass to get at the states in the east (although it also served after that to defend against the attacks of the other states), while the Eastern Han built Tong Pass to protect Luoyang from an attack from the west. This was actually in 196 AD - Cao Cao needed a defense against Ma Teng's forces in the west, and abandoned Hangu Pass in favour of a position nearer to Chang'an. When Ma Chao later captured Chang'an, Cao Cao's troops did withdraw to Tong Pass before counterattacking.

Another note: Xiao Pass is actually the same pass as Hulao Pass or Sishui Pass. It served to defend Luoyang from attacks from the east.

A good website (in Chinese) to check up geographical names in Chinese history:
http://www.jiapu.net/GDDL/GDDL.htm

Too bad that website is Chinese-only. Yun, if you ever find a website that has this information in English, please let me know. I am really interested in the different names that cities in China used over the different centuries.

Thanks for clarification on the Hangu pass.

Hi, I though I'd jump in here. I've something put together on the Strategic Geography of China. It isn't specifically about Passes but talks about the lay of the land and it's influence on Chinese history, which includes the mountain passes.

It's in html and uploaded on my site. I'll try and cut and paste it here. I hope this works. :-)

<<< DELETED >>>

Liang Jieming
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DragonSeedLegacy

Oops, sorry it didn't work. I though I could just paste html directly into the field.

Jieming
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DragonSeedLegacy

Ok, here it is again in it's full glory! hehehehe

http://www.act.com.sg/dominion/strategicgeography.html

Jieming
DragonSeedLegacy

WOW! That map is great and very informative! Very excellent!

You should add more info about where ancient and medieval kingdoms, duchies, etc. resided in each area, like how you listed the Duchy of Qi is in the Shandong peninsula, and Shu Han was in Sichuan. And maybe a few more areas (like the northwest frontier, and Yunnan), since those areas were pretty important to ancient and medieval China. That'd be awesome!

Hi wuTao, glad you like it.

Ok, I'll try and add in more stuff. I actually haven't finished with the "extended empire" portion. Maybe I'll make another section that zooms into the central plains area and write an analysis of that as you suggested.

:-)

Jieming
DragonSeedLegacy

Is it me, or was the Pass-Fortress a concept unique to China? Maybe I'm just ignorant, but I don't seem to recall as big of a focus on guarding passes in other cultures. For example, while I've read about the Khyber Pass on the Indian subcontinent that often served as an invasion point of Middle Eastern people into India, but I don't think I recall there being any significant contesting of these invasion forces at the pass (where you think they would be best stopped). A certain cynical Indian friend of mine also told me that the pass was for some reason, never fortified either.

So is my indictment correct? Or am I simply ignorant? If this is correct, was it due to a unique geography and political situation? Or was it something that others never really got to doing despite benefits? I think the former, but could someone explain the certain geographical peculiarities that made Pass-Fortress building so useful in China?

Also, these fortresses were specialized military installations, right, and not mini-towns? For some reason, I just have the feeling that in medieval times, it was not the norm in many other cultures to have fortified areas that weren't cities or castles or other not specifically military centers.

Aside from playing a part in defensive strategy, what other functions happened at Pass-fortresses? Were they also checkpoints? How big of a garrison did they hold in peacetime (and could they hold in wartime)? Did they all live in the structure, or were men encamped outside? Would there usually be a general stationed there, or some lower kind of base commander or captain? What would his peacetime responsibilities and powers be?

Maybe its b/c China is a more centralized government while Europe and India were more feudal.

For example, the Chinese army were commanded by central authority, and regional powers have little control over army; so if someone manage to went through a fortress and break into China proper, then you have an army roaming in China with few to stop them.

In feudal Europe, if you want to stroll in the country side, you will probably face multiple feudal lords whose army control these regions and almost every region have some sort of military that would be better then your average Chinese provincial governors in peace time.

So the strategic consideration would be its easier to guard strategic passes where you get o funnel the enemies and force them to make some attack on good defensive position and preventing enemies from roaming the country side

I think.

I think all cultures tend to defend communication routes. Majors valleys, in Europe, are commanded by modern forts, which tend to be built in the same place as a medieval fort, which itself was built over a roman tower... Of course, some passes are very high (and unacessible part of the year) so the fort would tend to be in the lower valley, rather than on the top. This is very common in the Alps, but I think this is a pretty universal practice.

Francois

I think what was relatively unique to China was not the fortifying of strategic mountain passes per se, but the fact that so many of these fortified passes lay well within the empire's borders. Some had their origin in Spring-Autumn or Warring States borders, for example the Hangu Pass and Xiao Pass, while others originated from later periods of civil war, for example Tong Pass and Jianmen Pass in the context of the late Eastern Han conflict between Cao Cao, Ma Teng, and Liu Bei. But once the passes were established and fortified, the fortifications were maintained and guarded in later periods of unification, probably to prevent rebels from seizing control of them.