The construction of the Great Wall as it is known today began around 1474. Under the strong hand of the Ming rulers, Chinese culture flourished, and the period saw an immense amount of construction in addition to the Great Wall, including bridges, temples and pagodas. In 1421, the Ming emperor Yongle proclaimed China’s new capital, Beijing, on the site of the former Mongol city of Dadu. Like the Mongols, the early Ming rulers had little interest in building border fortifications, and wall building was limited before the late 15th century. Wall Building During the Ming Dynastyĭespite its long history, the Great Wall of China as it is exists today was constructed mainly during the mighty Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). ![]() Though the Great Wall held little importance for the Mongols as a military fortification, soldiers were assigned to man the wall in order to protect merchants and caravans traveling along the lucrative Silk Road trade routes established during this period. The powerful Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty (1206-1368), established by Genghis Khan, eventually controlled all of China, parts of Asia and sections of Europe. With the fall of the Sui and the rise of the Tang Dynasty, the Great Wall lost its importance as a fortification, as China had defeated the Tujue tribe to the north and expanded past the original frontier protected by the wall.ĭuring the Song Dynasty, the Chinese were forced to withdraw under threat from the Liao and Jin peoples to the north, who took over many areas on both sides of the Great Wall. The Bei Qi kingdom (550–577) built or repaired more than 900 miles of wall, and the short-lived but effective Sui Dynasty (581–618) repaired and extended the Great Wall of China a number of times. The most powerful of these was the Northern Wei Dynasty, which repaired and extended the existing wall to defend against attacks from other tribes. After the fall of the later Han Dynasty, a series of frontier tribes seized control in northern China. With the death of Qin Shi Huang and the fall of the Qin Dynasty, much of the Great Wall fell into disrepair. ![]() Great Wall of China Through the Centuries It is said that as many as 400,000 people died during the wall's construction many of these workers were buried within the wall itself. In some strategic areas, sections of the wall overlapped for maximum security (including the Badaling stretch, north of Beijing, that was later restored during the Ming Dynasty).įrom a base of 15 to 50 feet, the Great Wall rose some 15-30 feet high and was topped by ramparts 12 feet or higher guard towers were distributed at intervals along it.ĭid you know? When Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered construction of the Great Wall around 221 B.C., the labor force that built the wall was made up largely of soldiers and convicts. Made mostly of earth and stone, the wall stretched from the China Sea port of Shanhaiguan over 3,000 miles west into Gansu province. ![]() The famous Chinese general Meng Tian initially directed the project, and was said to have used a massive army of soldiers, convicts and commoners as workers. Though the beginning of the Great Wall of China can be traced to the fifth century B.C., many of the fortifications included in the wall date from hundreds of years earlier, when China was divided into a number of individual kingdoms during the so-called Warring States Period.Īround 220 B.C., Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China under the Qin Dynasty, ordered that earlier fortifications between states be removed and a number of existing walls along the northern border be joined into a single system that would extend for more than 10,000 li (a li is about one-third of a mile) and protect China against attacks from the north.Ĭonstruction of the “Wan Li Chang Cheng,” or 10,000-Li-Long Wall, was one of the most ambitious building projects ever undertaken by any civilization.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |