This book examines the earthen tubao fortresses of central Fujian, transcending conventional architectural analysis to explore the cultural DNA and ethos of dwelling embedded within these rammed-earth structures. More than military fortifications, the Minzhong tubao are organic vessels of communal life, their silent language of earth and timber encoding ancestral order, spatial ethics, and vernacular wisdom. Through longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork and theoretical synthesis, the author reveals how these living heritage sites perpetuate cultural resilience through intergenerational transmission.

Introducing a "cultural gene" framework that integrates architectural memetics and cultural semiotics, the study deciphers the deep grammar underlying tubao morphology—from axial configurations to ritual spaces, from ornamental motifs to inhabitation practices. These elements collectively form a replicable, adaptive cultural system. The tubao emerge not merely as shelters but as meaning-laden arenas: their spatial organization regulates behavior, their symbolic iconography transmits memory, and their clan-based structure reinforces identity. Within modernity’s transformative tides, how has this self-contained order endured? The book pursues this inquiry through nonlinear narrative, tracing dynamic interactions among landscape ecologies, construction technologies, and social architectures.

Ultimately, this work offers a meditation on cultural continuity through material form. The tubao’s rammed-earth walls function simultaneously as barriers and conduits—sediments of history yet embryos of futurity. Balancing scholarly rigor with narrative sensibility, the author guides readers across theoretical cartographies and field encounters to grasp what lingers unspoken yet ever-present: the fortified spirit of dwelling.