Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
History
The Great Wall (Chángchéng), one of the most iconic monuments on earth, stands as an
awe-inspiring symbol of the grandeur of China's ancient history. Dating back 2000-odd
years, the Wall - or to be more accurate, Walls, for it has never been one continuous struc-
ture - snakes its way from the border with North Korea in the east to Lop Nur in the far
western province of Xīnjiāng. Stretching for an estimated 8851km, it meanders its way
through 17 provinces, principalities and autonomous regions. But nowhere is better than
Běijīng for mounting your assault of this most famous of bastions.
The Wall has been adopted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which likes to stress
the unity of the Wall in its official histories. In fact, there are four distinct Walls, or five if
you count the recently rebuilt sections, such as Bādálǐng. Work on the 'original' was begun
during the Qin dynasty (221-207 BC), when China was unified for the first time under Em-
peror Qin Shihuang. Hundreds of thousands of workers, many political prisoners, laboured
for 10 years to construct it. An estimated 180 million cu metres of rammed earth was used
to form the core of this Wall, and legend has it that the bones of dead workers were used as
building materials, too.
After the Qin fell, work on the Wall continued during the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD
220). Little more was done until almost 1000 years later during the Jin dynasty
(1115-1234), when the impending threat of Genghis Khan spurred further construction.
The Wall's final incarnation, and the one most visitors see today, came during the Ming
dynasty (1368-1644), when it was reinforced with stone, brick and battlements over a peri-
od of 100 years and at great human cost to the two to three million people who toiled on it.
During this period, it was home to around one million soldiers.
The great irony of the Wall is that it rarely stopped China's enemies from invading. It
was never one continuous structure; there were inevitable gaps and it was through those
that Genghis Khan rode in to take Běijīng in 1215. Perhaps the Wall's finest hour as a de-
fensive bulwark came in 1644 at Shānhǎiguān, where the Wall meets the sea in the east,
guarding the approach to Běijīng. The invading Manchus were unable to take this strip of
Wall until the traitorous general Wu Sangui opened the gates, resulting in the fall of the
Ming dynasty.
While the Wall was less than effective militarily, it was very useful as a kind of elevated
highway for transporting people and equipment across mountainous terrain. Its beacon
tower system, using smoke signals generated by burning wolves' dung, quickly transmitted
