明代“长城”与“边墙”称谓考辨

Research on Great Wall and the Border Wall in the Ming Dynasty

中国有近两千年的长城修筑史,“长城”是这一军事工程的通用称谓。明代曾大规模修筑长城,传统观点认为为了避免引起民怨民恨,明人特意将“长城”改为“边墙”。然而考诸史籍,明人不仅不避讳“长城”一词,反而赋予其更加崇高的意蕴。明人之所以将本朝所修长城称为“边墙”,是由于严峻的边防形势,“边”在有明一代有着极其重要的意义,深刻影响了明代的政治运行和历史书写。

The Great Wall is the common name,which was built on a large scale during the Ming Dynasty. It was traditionally viewed that the Ming deliberately changed the name of the Great Wall into the Border Wall in order to avoid resulting in people’ s hatred. However,the Ming people not only did not evading the term Great Wall,but also conferred a more noble connotation. Due to the severe situation of border defense,“border”had an extremely important significance in the Ming Dynasty,exerting profound consequence on the political operation as well as the writing system.