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The
Great Wall of China (Ten
Thousand Leagues Long Fortification) is one of the most outstanding
buildings of mankind, sometimes called the eight world wonder and said to be
the only human work that can be seen from the moon (which is, of course,
not true).
The part of the Great Wall we can admire today north of Beijing, are the
reconstructed remnants of the Ming Dynasty wall. But this wall is only the
last wall-fortification in a long tradition of wall building.
The oldest fortification walls of China were erected as an instrument of
defense between the kingdoms of the Warring States period from the 5th to
the 3rd century BC, that means, to defend Chinese against Chinese, not
against "barbarians", like later. Today, it is possible to reconstruct five
of these inner-China walls: the walls of Qi (modern Shandong), Chu (modern
Hubei), Qin (modern Shaanxi), Yan (modern Hebei), Zhao (modern Shanxi), and
Wei (modern Henan).
Very famous is the Great Wall
built by the First Emperor of Qin in 215 BC who was told by a magician that
barbarians from the north would be able to attack his empire. The work to
throw back the "barbarians" and to erect a defensive wall was undertaken by
his general Meng Tian. Not much is left of this wall (we know a part made
from unhewn stones near Baotou Inner Mongolia), but we are able to trace
back the course of his wall from Lintao Gansu to the Liaodong Peninsula -
Liaoning that partially used older walls, especially in the east. Thousands
of slaves and forced corvée workers are said to have died during the
erection of the Qin wall - but we can imagine that the situation during the
following dynasties was not very different.
The first very important walls are that of the Han Dynasty. The offensive
foreign politics of Emperor Han Wudi lead to the opening of the "western
corridor" to Inner Asia and the begin of an intense trade with the Central
Asian countries. A traveller named Zhang Qian was the first Chinese to
discover the importance of these Inner Asian kingdoms. The trade route to
the west is known as the Silkroad. Nomad tribes north of the Chinese empire,
in modern Mongolia, steadily attacked the towns and market places of the
border region. To prevent the nomad tribes from their raids on Chinese soil,
the Chinese government developed two kinds of political measures: tributary
presents like silk, alcohol, later porcelain and tea, or even princesses, to
appease the martial tribes; the second method was the offensive war
undertaken by Emperor Han Wudi. His generals destroyed the mighty chieftain
of the Xiongnu tribes, advanced into new territory and had erected defensive
fortification walls in the years of 127 BC and 105 BC. These walls were very
simply constructed with the main materials tamped loam, and straw. The forts
along the wall (the most important Han Dynasty fort is the Yumenguan Fort
were not only constructed to prohibit the northern barbarians to attack
Chinese border towns. Signal towers had the objective to quickly inform a
fort or the capital from a barbarian attack. The third objective of the Han
Dynasty walls was the protection of the markets along the road to the west
like the newly founded commandery of Dunhuang, or the storehouse at Hecang.
To ensure the living of the troops along the wall-fortification, the
soldiers were partially obliged to engage in agriculture, partially,
peasants were resettled into the frontier-near military colonies . The Han
Dynasty wall reached far into the west, probably until Lake Lop Nur/Xinjiang.
Less important - or less famous - are the walls of the Northern Wei Dynasty
from the 5th century AD. After repelling the Rouran nomads, walls were
erected along the norther frontier of the Wei empire, a dynasty whose
founders were barbarians themselves only a few centuries before. An official
named Gao Lü demonstrated the advantages of a fortification wall: stationary
defense instead of mobile defense; better reconnaissance of military attacks;
no more robbing of kettle along the borders; better economical growth by
less raids and less defense spendings; and less tied up political work by
better protection of the borders. The short-lived Northern Qi and Sui
Dynasties also erected provisory walls against the Eastern Turks.
The cultural openness of the Tang Empire was followed by a political and
military openness. The whole period of Tang, from about 600 to 900 AD,
showed an economical prosperity by the open trade routes to Inner Asia. No
fortification walls were necessary.
The Song Empire - although always in a defensive political situation against
the empires of Liao, Western Xia, and Jin - did not build fortification
walls. The whole Song Dynasty had a strict orientation to appeasement
politics and made intensive use of tributary presents (or rather, in fact,
real tributs to the neighboring empires in the north). A second reason why
the Song emperors did not build fortification walls, was the advancec
military technology of the Liao and Jin empires. The old nomad tribes like
the Xiongnu or Rouran made use of cavaly and bow and arrow. Their
undertakings were raids of the borders towns, their target was kettle and
other valuables. The modern rulers of the Liao and Jin empires were no more
nomads, but real emperors of a empire modeled after the Chinese Song empire.
Their target was territory, their technology was armored cavalry.
After the Jin Dynasty conquered whole northern China, they started to erect
a long fortification wall along their northern frontier from Qiqihar to
Baotou/Inner Mongolia. The technology of this wall is very different to the
old ones: it was covered with hewn stones, crowned with battlements and
parapets, and protected with moats. But even these technologically advanced
fortifications were unable to protect China from the Mongols.
The follower of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty, was not very
decisive in the question how to deal with the nomad tribes - especially the
Mongols. Only bad experience with the restrengthening of the Mongol tribes
under the command of Altan Khan lead to the construction of the famous Ming
Wall from the 1530es on (the oldest parts are from 1485), but especially at
the end of the 16th century. The Ming Walls are purely defensive and
strictly follow the hill crests in mountainous areas. The building material
is - at least in the famous eastern parts - burned brick. The Manchus were
only able to enter Chinese soil because a traitor opened the gates to them
in 1644.
From the 1980es on, large parts of the Great Wall(s) were reconstructed, and
today, the eastern wing of the Wall is one of the most important tourist
attractions of China, |