China Learn

Great Wall of China

In days when military warfare was an unknown jargon and nuclear arms did not appear in children’s books, people defended their home by erecting walls around it. The poor did it with fencing materials obtained from the forest, the middle class did it with clay and mortar, and the rich had money to spend by erecting stone walls.

Early Chinese rulers followed the same principle by erecting massive walls to protect their kingdom from enemies that included sundry nomadic tribes, Mongols, Manchurians and the Turks. However, the Great Wall of China was not built in a day or a year. Several dynasties gave shape to the wall through centuries till at last, the mammoth wall covering more than 6000 km’s or 3,900 miles, stretching from Shanghai Pass on the Bohai Gulf in the east to Lop Nur in the southeastern part of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region was completed. To illustrate it better, let us see who built what. There had been four major walls built by the Qin Dynasty - 208 BC, the Han Dynasty - 1st century BC, the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms - 1138 - 1198, and by the Hongwu Emperor until Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty - 1368-1620.

Although the Qin dynasty laid the foundation stone, their progress was short lived. Actually, it was the Ming dynasty that started the wall on the eastern end at Shanghai Pass near Quinhuangdo in Herbei province next to the Bohai Gulf, spanning several provinces and more than 100 counties. The final 500 kilometers have now been almost ruined and ending on the western end near the historic Jiayu Pass that is located in the northwest of Gansu near the Gobi Desert where the Silk Route adjoins it. During the early days when the Silk Route was used by traders, Jiayu Pass was the greeting point and the numerous watch towers built beyond Jiayu were meant to protect them as well as sending smoke signals to alert probable invasions.

The Great Wall of China has also been nicknamed “the longest Graveyard” or “the longest cemetery”. Hundreds of laborers died when it was built or were sentenced to death for disobeying their superior’s order. The hapless victims however, were not buried under the Wall for fear of reprisal and so were buried in nearby grounds.

Though picture postcard images of the Great Wall of China appear in convincingly good shape, the actual condition is far from it. Most of the Wall has turned to rubbles and in many places it has been bull dozed to accommodate new construction sites. The watch towers and signal posts that were once in control of sentries keeping 24 hour vigil for enemies lurking below are now the playground of vandals, who often remove valuable stones/ materials for their personal use.

From a practical point of view, the enormous expense needed for the maintenance of such a gigantic structure spreading over thousands of miles through cities and towns, mountains and valleys, rivers and lagoons and almost covering ‘No man’s Land’ elsewhere, may appear counter-productive to a country’s resources and therefore, may have been abandoned. Apart from the heritage aspect and a raging controversy on whether the Wall is visible from space (affirmations and denouncements galore), the ancient ‘wall of fame’ has little use in today’s world.