Hwaseong Fortress

Put your hand on the wall. The lower courses are granite, cut into large, uneven blocks and fitted tightly together. Higher up, the stone gives way to grey brick, laid in neat rows along the battlements. Somewhere below, traffic hums through modern Suwon. Up here, the loudest sounds are wind in the pine trees and footsteps on the walkway that runs along the top of the wall.

You are standing on Hwaseong Fortress. It was built in the late eighteenth century, in only a few years, from 1794 to 1796. The walls loop for nearly six kilometres around the old heart of Suwon. They climb a hill, drop into the valley, cross a stream, and climb again. Few fortresses anywhere are this complete, and in 1997 UNESCO added Hwaseong to its World Heritage list.

The story behind these walls is not mainly about war. It is about a son and his father. The fortress was ordered by King Jeongjo, a ruler of the Joseon dynasty, the royal house that governed Korea for about five centuries. His father was Crown Prince Sado. In 1762, Sado was sealed inside a wooden rice chest on the orders of his own father, King Yeongjo. He died there after several days.

Jeongjo was a child when this happened. When he became king, he worked to restore his father's honour. He moved Sado's tomb to a site near Suwon. Then he built this fortress to protect the tomb and the new town around it. Historians also see a political plan here. A strong new city outside the capital gave the king a base away from the court factions in Seoul.

Now look at how the wall is put together. Hwaseong mixes stone and brick, which was unusual in Korean fortresses of its time. Brick is lighter and easier to shape into curves, arrow slits and gun ports. Stone gives a heavy, stable base. Notice too that the wall follows the land instead of cutting straight lines through it. The builders let the hills decide the shape.

Here is a detail many visitors miss. The scholar Jeong Yak-yong, also known by his pen name Dasan, helped plan the construction. He was interested in Western science, which reached Korea through books from China. He designed a lifting device with pulleys, often called the geojunggi, to raise heavy stones. Tools like this helped workers finish the fortress far faster than anyone expected.

The second surprise is a book. After the work ended, the court produced a detailed record called the Hwaseong Seongyeok Uigwe. It listed materials, methods, workers, costs and drawings of almost every structure. Much of the fortress was damaged during the Japanese colonial period and the Korean War. In the 1970s, restorers used this record to rebuild the walls and gates. So what you see is a careful reconstruction, guided by plans drawn more than two hundred years ago.

Four main gates mark the directions. Paldalmun stands to the south and Janganmun to the north. Hwaseomun faces west, and Changnyongmun faces east. Each main gate has a curved outer wall in front of it. This half-moon wall forced attackers into a narrow space, where defenders above could shoot down on them. Walk around one of these curves and you can feel how exposed an enemy would have been.

Where the Suwoncheon stream passes through the wall, look for Hwahongmun. It is a water gate with seven stone arches. The stream runs beneath, and a pavilion sits on top. When the water is high, it pours through the arches with a steady roar. Just above it, on a small rise, stands Banghwasuryujeong, a pavilion that served as a watch post. Its windows frame the pond and the willows below. It shows that the builders cared about beauty as much as defence.

If you climb Paldalsan, the hill on the western side, you reach Seojangdae. This was a command post for watching over the whole fortress and the town. From here, the wall curves away on both sides, and you can trace its full line through the city. Nearby, on the eastern side, look for the beacon tower. It has five chimneys. Smoke from these chimneys sent signals, and the number of fires showed the level of danger.

At the foot of the hill lies Hwaseong Haenggung, a temporary royal palace. A haenggung was a residence where the king stayed while travelling away from the capital. In 1795, Jeongjo came here with his mother, Lady Hyegyeong, Sado's widow, to celebrate her sixtieth birthday. The journey from Seoul was a vast royal procession, and painted records of it still survive. The palace you visit today was rebuilt in recent decades.

Today, the fortress is part of daily life in Suwon. People jog on the paths below the wall. Families walk the grassy slopes in the evening. Near the eastern side, an open field once used for military training now hosts traditional archery for visitors. Small shops and restaurants fill the old streets inside the walls. Suwon is also known across Korea for its marinated grilled beef ribs, called galbi, so the smell of charcoal often drifts up from the streets nearby.

Before you move on, stop for a moment and look along the wall. Watch how the brick battlements rise and fall with the ground, like a line drawn by hand. Somewhere ahead is a gate, a watchtower, or a pavilion over water. All of it began with a king who wanted to honour his father. As you walk away, listen for the wind in the pines, and notice how quickly the city returns around you.