Week 39 · 27 September 2027 – 3 October 2027
Defense (2)
Chapter 52 Fortifying the City Gate
This week's question
Fortifying the City Gate assigns each fifty paces of wall to 'ten men, twenty grown women, ten old and young.' Women, elders and children are all on the roster, and women outnumber the men. What test was that arrangement checked by? By use alone, does it put non-combatants in danger or bring everyone under protection?
This week's practice
Find one 'drop-gate' item in your chapter or home this week, something unused in normal times that must work instantly when needed (fire extinguisher, spare key, first-aid kit), and check that it works now.
Introduction
The second half of Fortifying the City Gate is an engineering specification, and reads like the notes to a drawing. A tower every so many paces, and its dimensions; the timber for the gate, how to thicken the leaves, the mud plaster on the outside against fire; behind the gate the drop-gate (悬门), a portcullis hoisted in normal times and dropped when attackers rush the gateway, trapping them between two doors. On the wall, the rotating crossbow mount (转射机); the arrow screens (渠答); below the wall a ditch set with sharpened stakes. The numbers are precise: feet, inches, paces.
The numbers do not matter to a reader today. The thinking behind them does. Every device answers one of last week's twelve attacks. Everything is made ready in advance, "the defensive gear complete." Every station names who is responsible.
The passage most worth reading is the roster: "The rule of defense: for each fifty paces, ten men, twenty grown women, ten old and young, forty per fifty paces." This is not pushing the weak to the front. Each has a task: men fight, women haul, repair and cook, elders and children carry messages and guard stores. Defending a city is the whole city's work, and nobody is a spectator. The Community's 职 rests on the same idea: everyone in a chapter, whatever their age, has one thing they can do and must do.
Then discipline: the wall divided into sections, each with a leader; passwords and flags; what happens to whoever leaves a post or spreads a rumor. Commands and Orders will expand on this. For now, see the whole: a defensible city is equipment, roster and rules fitted together.
The three tests
An engineering specification is the third test taken to its limit. Every dimension is derived from whether it works, and "whether it works" comes from past sieges (first test). The roster raises an ethical question. Putting women, elders and children on the wall is, by use, employing the whole city's strength. By impartial care, it is admitting that in danger nobody can be excluded, neither from responsibility nor from protection. Which reading is closer to Mozi's intent?
For families
- 科技堂: build a cardboard gate with a drop-gate that really falls.
- Play "roles in a blackout": if the power went out for a night, who does what? Give the youngest child one job.
- Check the household's "arrow screens": window locks, smoke-alarm batteries, and replace what has failed.
For chapters
- 20 min reading · 20 min 墨辩 · 10 min 三表 review · 10 min 职 reports.
- 墨辩 motion: "Non-combatants should carry no defensive duties at all." One side argues from protecting the vulnerable; the other cites "forty per fifty paces."
- 三表 review: check the chapter's own roster. Is anyone without a 职? Is any 职 without a person? Fill the gaps on the spot.