Page 31 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - March 2012

The Great Wall(s) of China The Great Wall(s) of China by ‘X’ Chronicles Research Staff WALL-TO-WALL WARFARE Back in the 7th century B.C., the Far East was a wild and dangerous place. Seven separate warring states were spread out over the vast mountainous terrain. Nearly constantly at war with each other, the feudal kings constructed walls to defend their borders. At the same time, smaller walls were built around villages that dotted the landscape in order to keep out another threat: the dreaded Hsiung Nu tribes, known today as the Huns. They roamed the land and ransacked the villages for food. But these walls - crumbly packed with earth and rocks - were a poor defense against well-armed attackers. As the feudal wars and Hun’s pillaging dragged on, new walls were built, torn down, and replaced with slightly stronger walls. That’s the way it fully settled - were broken through. pieces of them remain today. went for 500 years. As it turned out (to the dismay of the Chinese citizens) the Great Wall did a better job WALL #3: THE MING DYNASTY WALL #1: THE CH’IN DYNASTY of keeping them in than keeping the Huns out. The 12th century brough a new threat to In 221 B.C., Ch’eng, king of Qin state, When the people realized that this was probably China: the Mongols, a group of dispartate conquered the others and declared himself Ch’in’s main goal from the outset, whispers of northern clans united by Ghengis Khan. In Ch’in Shi Huangdi, “The First Exalted Emperor revolution traveled along the Great Wall, but 1449, after 200 years of attacks, the Ming of the Ch’in.” Naming the new empire China, before anyone actually rebelled, Ch’in died. Dynasty began work on a new Great Wall, this he dissolved the feudal system and built a In 210 B.C., while on an inspection tour in one much farther south, in yet another attempt capital city called Xian. In just 11 years, Ch’in’s Eastern China, he took pills laden with mercury, to banish the invaders to northern China. new government standardized weights, believing that the heavy metal would give him Reaching nearly 4,000 miles long, a measurements, money, writing, and laws. Even immortality. Instead, it killed him. Soon after, work force that rivaled Ch’in’s worked with all of his improvements, however, Ch’in the Chinese people rose up against the continuously while the Chinese army fought off was a brutal tyrant. Those with ideas contrary to oppressive regime he had left behind. Ch’in’s the Mongols - and later the Manchus - in his were publicly executed, In his quest to wipe dynasty crumbled, but the Great Wall remained. skirmishes over the next 200 years. The out Confucianism, scholars were buried alive. strongest and most elaborate sections were And the heavy taxes Ch’in levied to complete WALL #2: THE HAN DYNASTY constructed around Beijing (now called his ambitious projects - including a life-size From the ruins of Ch’in’s reign rose the Beijing), the capital of the Ming Dynasty. This army made of terra-cotta - left millions Han dynasty, and with it comes a new period of new wall, built of large granite blocks overlaid impoverished. enlightenment that saw the return of with marble, dwarfed the previous two. But one group that Ch’in couldn’t Confucianism the invention of paper and steel, In these nearly constant times of war, the control was the Huns, who continued to invade lower taxes, and a less-centralized government. Ming Great Wall was an imposing structure. from the northern lands, now called Mongolia. After a brief quiet period, attacks from the north Looking over steep terrain - sometimes a pitch Just keeping the out of the villages, wasn’t good resumed... and grew more intense. In 127 B.C., of 75 degrees - the ornate structure was manned enough - Ch’in wanted to banish them to the the Han Emperor Wudi began a campaign to by more than one million soldiers, who kept frozen lands forever. His solution: connect the fortify an defend the barrier, creating China’s constant watch on the lands to the north. existing walls in northern China into one long second Great Wall, which extended Ch’in’s wall Watchtowers were placed at strategic intervals, barrier. Rounding up what was perhaps the hundreds of miles west into the Gobi Desert. some less than a mile apart, others much further, largest workforce in history - soldiers, Building a massive wall through a desert depending on the line of sight. Climbing two dissidents, forced laborers, even convicts - presented a unique challenge. With few building stories high, the lower sections were used as Ch’in employed over one million people, nearly supplies available, workers collected red willow barracks. By design, the corridors within were three-quarters of China’s entire population. For seeds and twigs, then mixed with sand and a narrow and confusing to any attackers who every worker who was building the wall, six little water to make a gravel-like mixture. A made it inside. The defenders knew the layout, more scoured the surrounding areas for building layer was laid down, then tamped down with so they could hide and then trap the invaders in supplies. feet or rocks - then another layer was added, labyrinthine passages that often led to dead then another, until the wall reached the desired ends. ULTERIOR MOTIVE? height. Again, watchtowers were built at regular Continued on Page 32 After a decade of nonstop construction, intervals to house soldiers and store supplies. 3,000 miles of the Great Wall was completed. As the second Great Wall took shape, it The cost to the Chinese people was devastating: becomes a major thoroughfare for travelers More than a million workers died - an average along the Silk Road, which carried Chinese of about 300 deaths per mile. Because the walls goods to the rest of the Western Hemisphere. It were built along the ridges of mountains in couldn’t keep new groups of invading nomads order to give the sentries the best possible line out, but even with the consistant threat of attack, of sight, weak building materials and nasty millions of citizens would successfully travel weather led many workers to wither freeze or the Wall and Silk Road during the 400-year rule fall to their deaths. As if that wasn’t bad enough, of the Han Dynasty, during which China’s they were still being attacked by the Huns, who population grew to more than 55 million. took advantage of the many missing sections by By the end of the first millennium, most simply traveling around them. And newer of the remains of the first and second Great Wall sections - where the stones and earth hadn’t yet had been washed away by nature or stolen by villagers in need of building materials. Very few