> Why Medieval Rulers Loved Castles.

Why do men love paper money?

Castles is a thing because it's a thing. Like Rai stones or Bitcoins hashes. They are hard to make.

Once you have a castle everyone rally's around it, they know it will be there in 200 years. When you are old you know your investment will still have the same value to give to your children.

What China is doing in the South China Sea is very cool, making islands. I'd be nice to be in a world humans did it without the power grab as an excuse, but I guess that's the value add governments need when the world is full of sad nihilists on the mainstream media train against building great things, only destruction.

I don't think castles, especially the moat and bailey types discussed in the article. Even those built of stone required maintenance to last longer than decades, especially if you want something usable and not a ruin (and at the time, any construction that's not in use would likely be dismantled, with the construction materials to be re used).

But I agree that money played a part: castles were the place from where the local lord was controlling his estate, extracting taxes from the local farms and controlling the military force that would prevent other from trying to pillage/forage on his lands.