Hwaseong Fortress - World Cultural Heritage in Korea

Hwaseong Fortress (Flower City) This is a work built by King Jeongjo (Truong Patriarch), the 22nd king of the Joseon Dynasty to show his filial piety to his father, Crown Prince Sado (Si Dieu, 1735-1762). Crown Prince Sado was locked in a rice barrel by his father, King Yeongjo (Brother An, 1694-1776) of the 21st generation of Joseon and starved to death.

English name: Hwaseong Fortress
Location: Gyeonggi Province
Year of recognition: 1997
Criteria: (ii)(iii)

Immediately after ascending the throne, King Jeongjo moved his father’s grave to Hwasan Mountain in Suwon. He also changed the name of Suwon city to Hwaseong, building Hwaseong into a new city to relocate people there.

Hwaseong Fortress is considered as a military work converging the quintessence of East-West science and technology in the 18th century. commercial capacity.

After ascending to the throne, King Jeongjo (Truong To) acquitted his father, Crown Prince Sado (Si Dieu, 1735-1762) by giving the king’s father the title Jangjo (Zhang Zu), moving his father’s grave to the mountain. Hwasan belonged to the city of Suwon, which was said to be the most auspicious land at that time, and named the area Hwaseong (Flower City).

Hwaseong Fortress was built in the 18th year of Jeongjo (1794) and completed in 1796. In addition to the symbolic meaning of filial piety, Hwaseong also represents King Jeongjo’s wish to strengthen his throne. established a strong political foundation and developed a military spearhead in the southern area of the capital.

Hwaseong Fortress (Flower City) is the most brilliant result of the Silhak (Buddhist) line of the late Joseon Dynasty.
Botany criticizes the rigidity and formality of Confucianism, and values the sciences with high applicability to life.

Joseon’s foremost scholar at that time, Jeong Yak-yong, studied the introduction of Western strongholds, took advantage of the advantages of East-West citadel, invented the Geojunggi machine and the pulley for transportation. big rocks. It is thanks to these advanced equipment that the construction period has been shortened from 10 years to only two years and nine months.

Hwaseong Fortress converges advanced military defense capabilities. Hwaseong’s architecture makes full use of the natural terrain and is highly scientific. The four outer gates are built in a double-walled structure, with the main inner wall protected by a semicircular wall called Ongseong on the outside.

The Gongsimdon cylindrical observatory area (No Tam Don) is built of stone, can only be observed from the inside out, but cannot be viewed from the outside, there are many holes with guns and cannons available, ensuring there is a can both defend and attack from within the city. Not only that, the stones in the citadel are arranged in a zigzag pattern, helping to strengthen the citadel against the attack of bullets and artillery from the outside.

After building Hwaseong (Flower City) as a standard innovation city, King Jeongjo piloted a model of a state farm for production outside the city and established a large-scale market to serve trading needs. at home and abroad within the city. Another special point when building Hwaseong, different from the usual compulsory military service, the king issued a regime of earning as much as he could to mobilize support forces from the people. This is a new point, appearing for the first time in the history of citadel.

True to the meaning of the name “city of flowers”, Hwaseong Castle with architecture that makes the most of the surrounding terrain conditions, harmoniously connecting with streams and mountains, as an inherent part of nature.

The entire construction of Hwaseong Castle is recorded in Uigwe (Repentance Fund). “Hwaseong songyeok uigwe” is a book that meticulously records the details and illustrations of the construction process of Hwaseong fortress such as the number of workers mobilized from design to inauguration, where these workers come from. , the total cost of construction, the origin of the wood and stone used, the machinery used or the method of construction… This bibliography was completed after the construction of the citadel was completed, ie 1801, and in 2007 recognized by UNESCO as Memory of the World.