After years of development, Final Fantasy VII Remake was released on April 10, 2020. The reinterpretation of the acclaimed title that Squaresoft produced in 1997 has generated very different opinions among gamers, but there is no doubt that the Art direction and graphic performance have been two of its highlights, amazingly recreating and expanding the city of Midgar.
One of the most notable moments is the plotline in Wall Market, where the protagonists must infiltrate the headquarters of Don Corneo's infamous clan in order to get information. In this article we are going to use it as an excuse to talk about the wonderful urban history in ancient China.
Midgar's Wall Market in Final Fantasy VII
The city of Midgar is a large circular city planned from eight large Mako power reactors spaced equally apart along its perimeter. Eight large steel platforms rise 300 meters above ground level on which the eight districts of the upper city are built, an area intended for citizens with high purchasing power, as well as employees and senior officials of the corporatist regime established by the Shinra company.
Under these platforms, at ground level, the neighborhoods of each sector extend. With austere characteristics, they are aimed at the common population, the marginalized or exiled. They do not have a clear urban planning, many buildings have been built by the users themselves, and they lack most of the amenities that are enjoyed in the upper area.
El mercado Muro es un área localizada dentro de la barriada del Sector 6. La historia de su formación aparece relatada por el personaje de Aeris: «Hizo falta mucha gente para levantar Midgar y los trabajadores necesitaban algo de relax. Así que unos cuantos mercaderes crearon un distrito del ocio, lleno de moteles, tiendas, bares y sitios así. Se volvió muy popular. Los negocios iban viento en popa y daban mucho dinero. Y eso atrajo la atención de gente que… no respetaba la ley. Ahora, no hay ley que valga. Pero en vez de resolver el problema, el gobierno decidió aislarlo con un muro. Y así nació el mercado Muro. Como suele decirse: ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente».
Those people that Aeris speaks of are represented by Don Corneo, the head of the clan that controls the operations of the market from an elegant Chinese-style mansion with a five-bay wooden structure and a hip roof. The rest of the shops that we know in the market are: a boutique where you can buy made-to-measure dresses, a small pharmacy, a shop for materials with antique decoration, an object shop and a weapons shop. This includes places of rest and entertainment such as: inn, boxing gym, bar, a gazebo and the Honeybee Inn, an adult place where perversion and excess reign.
The city of Chang'an from the Tang dynasty
Esta pequeña historia se remonta a finales del siglo VI en China, donde el antiguo Imperio llevaba 170 años dividido en lo que se conoce como el «Periodo de las dinastías meridionales y septentrionales». En el año 589, Yang Jian 楊堅 consigue al fin unificar a las dinastías del norte y el sur en un nuevo Imperio bajo el mandato de su casa, la Sui dynasty 隋朝 (581-618). In his early years, he undertook numerous reforms in fields such as agriculture, army or political organization. Notable among these projects is the planning of a new eastern capital, built south of the old and abandoned city of Chang'an, which he would rename Daxing. According to the idea of the Sui, Daxing should represent a new type of city adapted to the image of a great unified empire after so many years of conflict.
Upon Yang Jian's death, his son Yang Guang 楊廣 attempted to continue these reforms, initially being even more ambitious than his father. However, his style was more tyrannical, suppressing the population and exhausting the resources to carry out his constructions. In addition, Yang Guang carried out a series of unsuccessful military campaigns whose economic results generated numerous rebellions throughout the country. The emperor would be assassinated by his own collaborators in 618 and soon after the brief Sui dynasty would fall to make way for the Tang dynasty 唐朝 (618-906).
Emperor Li Yuan 李淵 of the Tang Dynasty again renamed the city (Chang'an) and continued the great planning and construction work, making it his capital. From being formed by a small group of palaces, it became a huge and systematized city of 84 square kilometers, with a million inhabitants inside and another two behind the wall. Located as the end point of the Silk Road that crossed all of Asia, it was the largest city in the world and the largest in China until the industrialization of the country in the 20th century.
La planta de Chang’an se corresponde al esquema de «Ciudad cuadrada de tres capas», formada por una ciudad interior y una ciudad exterior, cada una con su respectiva muralla. La ciudad interior estaba dividida a su vez en dos secciones: al norte el Palacio Imperial, situado en el terreno más alto sobre el legendario área de Longshouyuan, y al sur la Ciudad Imperial, donde se ubicaron las principales instituciones del gobierno. En el 662 comenzaría la construcción de un segundo palacio al norte de la muralla, el Palacio Daming, donde los emperadores Tang vivirían por más de dos siglos.
La ciudad exterior está generada a partir de una retícula con nueve calles norte-sur y doce calles este-oeste, sumando un total de 110 «unidades de retícula» llamadas distritos o, a partir de ahora, «li-fang». Since one of the Sui / Tang reforms was based on the regulation of the market and business activities, two large markets were located in front of the palace, one to the east and one to the west, being the only place where these activities were officially allowed. Each of these markets was divided into a 3×3 grid, with the business administration building being located in the central unit.
Li-fang in Chang'an
One of the main characteristics of this dynasty was the strict imperial control that sought to generate a clear social order. In the urban system, each of the li-fang or districts had its own name and was separated from the street system by an earthen wall. On the other hand, the interior of the li-fang was divided crosswise by two main paths with a gate at each end, being the only point through which one could enter or leave the neighborhood.
Now, you can imagine what it must have been like to arrive in the capital: as you entered through the main gate of the wall, the Mingde Gate, a great avenue of about 150 meters wide and several kilometers long unfolded before your eyes, reaching up to the gate of the inner city, with a beautiful landscape of vegetation, water channels on the sides and the great walls of compressed earth that border the li-fang, without any visible housing from the street.
What can be the reason for such a surprising arrangement? Let's put it in context: in Chang'an a curfew had been established, so there was no nightlife in public space. Therefore, when the appointed hour arrived, the doors of the li-fang were closed and the imperial troops patrolled the streets, questioning the pedestrians. With such an organized layout and walled-off neighborhoods, it theoretically didn't take many guards to effectively enforce the curfew, as well as all manner of social and urban laws.
This martial control is the reason that the doors of most residences could only open towards the interior of the li-fang and not towards the main street. The only ones who could open a door to the street were those nobles and high officials who needed to answer the Emperor's direct call, in order to avoid being delayed due to the guards' inspection.
Night Market and Urban Revolution
The period of the Tang dynasty (618-906) has a special meaning in the history of China since many of the current customs and fundamental characteristics of Chinese architecture were established at this time, beyond the changes and improvements that they suffered later.
In the almost 300 years that this house remained in power, two major periods can be distinguished: the first is made up of the 130 years between the reign of the emperors Tai Zong 太宗 (626-649) and Xuan Zong 玄宗 (712-756), considered a golden age of culture and the moment in which China consolidates itself as a great empire with a deep geopolitical influence in the world. The second period, with its lights and shadows, will be marked by the development of a structural corruption of the regime that will end up causing the collapse of the dynasty in the year 906.
En el periodo tardío de la dinastía Tang ya aparecen signos que revelan la fuerte erosión del sistema urbano de barrios amurallados. Uno de ellos son los «qinjie» 侵街, traducido como «invasión de la calle», que son puertas privadas puntuales horadadas en los muros del li-fang, en ocasiones acompañadas de estructuras que sobrepasaban el límite del distrito. Además, las actividades comerciales comenzaron a animarse en la ciudad y en la parte trasera de algunos callejones aparecen los «linludian», que eran tiendas orientadas a la calle y fuera de los dos mercados oficiales.
The edict of the Zhide era (756-758) prohibited the opening of private doors to the street, but it does not seem to have had much effect since another decree was promulgated in 767, adding to the prohibition those structures that extended beyond li-fang boundaries and threatening the people with harsh punishments and the demolition of their buildings. Things did not change, and the government decided to employ a more political strategy in the decree of 773, pointing to the sorry state of Chang'an's official market buildings and gates and calling for their repair.
Decades later, the edict of the Changqing era (821-824) introduced two memorials that showed how critical the situation had become. The first memorial complained of commoners opening gates in the walls, defying curfew, and making it difficult for guards to apprehend criminals. In the second memorial, the citizen patrol inspector complained that commoners and even officials were building in the middle of the avenues, which complicated the maintenance of public order. An edict was promulgated ordering the demolition of these constructions in a period of less than three months.
The aforementioned is only a brief summary of the many events and happenings that were taking place in urban life, but it can already be said that what we are seeing is the beginning of an uncontrollable urban and social rebellion against the regime.
Some li-fang were very successful in attracting commerce and business within them, usually due to their proximity to official markets, palaces, or main avenues. This is how the night markets were born in the districts of Xuanping, Shengping and, especially, Chongren, which operated within the li-fang breaking the curfew.
The li-fang of Chongren (Chongren fang 崇仁坊), became the busiest night market in the city. Due to its strategic location, at a crossroads next to the Imperial City and the Eastern Market, it was the favorite district for the temporary residences of provincials who were called to court for political or commercial matters. In ancient writings, the existence of places such as carpet stores, pastry shops, or a store specializing in the manufacture of instruments has been recorded, as well as this brief phrase that explains the atmosphere that was breathed in the night market: “The noises lasted all night and the candlelight never went out”. Es decir, se encendían las linternas y los ciudadanos de Chang’an comerciaban, bebían vino y se entretenían.
There came a time when these activities attracted the attention of the authorities and the Emperor Wen Zong 文宗 (826-840) was scandalized, claiming: «La feria nocturna en la ciudad capital debe estar prohibida». An imperial decree from the year 840 warned that the activities in the night market should cease, but the lack of forcefulness with which it was presented may suggest that the most powerful merchants had already established an order, probably mafia, that was beyond the control of city palace authorities.
One night Wang Shi 王式, the City Prefect, approached the market with the intention of acting against what the emperor wanted to prohibit. What he found was a musical performance in the middle of the street, next to a local shrine, that went on until the wee hours of the morning. Not only did he fail to bring order, but upon his arrival he was greeted by the shaman who officiated the show, who knelt before him and offered him a cup of wine, which Wang Shi accepted. The Prefect probably did not tell the whole truth in the Palace about nightlife in the city, as his subsequent attitude encouraged night market activities.
At this point in the story, the reader will have already been able to appreciate the connections between the Wall market of Final Fantasy VII that we described at the beginning and the night markets hidden behind the walls that separated the districts of Chang'an. With this I do not intend to establish a direct relationship or an explicit reference, simply invite an exercise of imagination about the environment and the life of people in a city more than a thousand years ago.
Imagine perhaps a young man from the suburbs of Chang'an looking for work, sneaking through the city for the first time to escape the control of the guard, arriving at the night market and discovering an underworld outside of law and order. A world of lights and colored buildings, barter and illegal trade, money and mafias, musical shows and competitions, drunks and outcasts, prostitution and depravity, filth and luxury, all under the light of the moon.
Paradójicamente, cuando la dinastía Tang colapsó en el año 906 el país volvió a dividirse y un periodo de guerras e inestabilidad se alargó durante décadas en el conocido como «Periodo de las cinco dinastías y los diez reinos». A partir del 960 comenzó el trabajo de reunificación tras la fundación de la dinastía Song del Norte, que consiguió aglutinar el poder iniciando una nueva fase imperial.
Throughout the Song dynasty the city changed completely: the curfew was abolished and the construction of buildings taller than the li-fang wall was allowed, as well as all kinds of constructions in the very wide streets of the city. Although the walled li-fang was still there, it was a li-fang in name only, its practical concept no longer existed and it was just another partition of the city.
Por último, el mercado nocturno se convirtió en una característica común de la vida urbana en las ciudades Song, siendo retratado en 1187 por Meng Yuanlao 孟元老 en su libro «The Eastern Capital: A Dream of Splendor» con estas palabras: «La mayoría de tabernas, tiendas y salones de entretenimiento abrían día y noche a pesar de las condiciones climáticas, ya fuera viento y lluvia, frío o calor».