Why did ancient Europeans like building castles so much?

Around a.d. 1 1 century, "castles", as the personal defense of nobles, sprang up like mushrooms after rain in Europe. From then on, "Castle Culture" began to influence Europe from the aspects of economy, culture, military affairs and ideas, even today after 1 0,000 years.

Similar to Europe, things like European castles were also built in ancient China, such as Fujian Tulou and Yu Xiang Castle, but the difference is that the mainstream of China's ancient military defense is not "castles", but larger and stronger cities and walls.

Why was China not as keen on building castles as Europe in ancient times? The reason is actually very simple!

1, related to the scale of the war.

The wars in ancient Europe were very small. Usually, the battle of thousands of people is considered as a big battle, and the battle of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people is very few, so the defense of the castle is basically enough. However, the scale of wars in ancient China was much larger than that in Europe, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. As far as the scale of the war is concerned, the defense of the castle is almost negligible.

2. Related concepts

Europe mainly pays attention to individualism, so in order to protect themselves, their families and wealth, European nobles in the Middle Ages built castles biased towards personal defense. At that time, China was mainly inclined to collectivism, so most of the defense facilities were built in cities.

In addition, as early as 2000 years ago, Qin Shihuang started the era of great unification in China, and the concept of great unification was deeply rooted in people's hearts. Although China has experienced numerous upheavals and divisions during this period, in the end, we can rely on the city to rebuild order and reunite.

However, the castles in Europe are just the opposite of those in China, because, to a certain extent, the castles in Europe are actually symbols of urban collapse. The long-term existence of castles shows that European countries have been divided for a long time. Therefore, from the concept of "great unity" and "collectivism", China is indeed worthy of pride.

It is of little significance to build a castle.

After reunification, the defense center of ancient China was mostly the border, so it was meaningless to build castles in China, so we chose to build a city integrating economic and cultural exchanges and defense. Because of this, it is no exaggeration to say that a city is the carrier of China's ancient civilization. Without it, China's civilization would be eclipsed.

Generally speaking, castles in Europe are limited to protecting aristocratic families, while China wants to protect all citizens, so it only needs to build bigger cities instead of castles! What do you think of this?