Great Wall

Great Wall

Also known to the Chinese as the '10,000 Li Wall' (one li is roughly 500m), the Great Wall stretches from Shanhaiguan on the east coast to Jiayuguan in the Gobi Desert.

Standard histories emphasise the unity of the wall. The 'original' wall was begun during the Qin dynasty (221-207 BC), WHEN China was unified under Emperor Qin Shihuang. Separate walls, constructed by independent kingdoms to keep out marauding nomads, were linked up. The effort required hundreds of thousands of workers, many of them political prisoners, and 10 years of hard labour under General Meng Tian. An estimated 180 million cubic metres of rammed earth were used to form the core of the original wall, and legend has it that one of the building materials used was the bodies of deceased workers.

The wall never really did peform its function as a defence line. As Genghis Khan supposedly said,'The strength of a wall depends on the courage of those who defend it'. Sentries could be bribed. However, it did work very well as a kind of elevated highway, transporting men and equipment across mountainous terrain. Its beacon tower system, using smoke signals generated by burning wolves dung, quickly transmitted news of enemy movements back to the capital. To the west was Jiayuguan, an important link on the Silk Road, where there was a customs post of sorts and where unwanted Chinese were ejected through the gates to face the terrifying wild west.

During the Ming dynasty a determined effort was made to rehash the whole project, this time facing it with bricks and stone slabs-some 60 million cubic metres of them. This project took over 100 years, and the cost in human effort and resources was phenomenal.

The wall was largely forgotten after that. Lengthy sections of it have returned to dust and the wall might have disappeared totally had it not been rescued by the tourist industry. Several important sections have been rebuilt, kitted out with souvenir shops, restaurants and amusement park rides, and formally opened to the public. The most touristed area of the wall by far is Badaling; a magnetic levitation train is already in the planning stages. Also renovated but less touristed are Simatai and Jinshanling. But to truly appreciate the wall's magnificence, seeing the wall au naturel, such as at Huanghuacheng, is well worth the effort.