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China Great Wall

Ⅰ About the Great Wall:
During the Chinese history of 5000 years, Chinese people have been viewing the emperors and the whole country as great dragon and regarding themselves as the Descendants of the Dragon. The Great Wall, which winds up and down across mountains, deserts, grassland and rivers stretching over 6,700 km from east to west, was like a dragon majestically sitting on the mountain ridges for the protection of all Chinese people. The Great Wall then, becomes the symbol of China.
The Great Wall of China is the greatest architecture achievement in the world history. It was first built in the Spring-Autumn and Warring States Periods in more than 2000 years ago for the purpose of protecting themselves from the threat of neighboring countries. Later when Qingshihuang (the first emperor of China) unified the whole country, he joined together all the walls of different states and extended it longer in 221 B.C. The Great Wall was repaired and rebuilt in a large scale during Han and Ming dynasty (1368-1644). It was built as the barriers defending the capital and the whole central plain of China from the attacking of northern invaders. The Great Wall extended from Shanhaiguan in the east to Jiayuguan in the west with the total length of 6,700 km. The whole project of the Great Wall building was incomparable. It was said that almost a million people including soldiers, civilians, farmers and prisoners (one twentieth of the whole nation population) were asked to build the wall and most of them lost their lives in the project. It was the thousands of years of blood and sweat of numerous people that left us with the majestic and spectacular Great wall.
The Great Wall of China, as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was enlisted by UNESCO in the World Heritage in December 1987. The Great Wall is not only the treasure of China, but also the treasure of the world.

Ⅱ The history of the Great Wall of China
The Great Wall is the largest and longest ancient defense project in the world. An old Chinese saying well described how huge project is: over the course of more than 2000 years the Great Walls reaching the distance of more than 100 thousand li (2 Chinese li equals 1 kilometer). The first great wall was built in 7th centre BC and the project had never stopped since then. During the course of over 2000 years, the Great Walls built by different ancient states scattering in northern and middle China had reached 50 thousand kilometers.
In 7th and 8th century BC, battles happened frequently among the states of the Spring-Autumn and Warring States dynasty and in order to defend themselves they began to built walls and towers on the borders. It was the state Chu who first built the wall. Since then the states Qi, Han, Wei, Zhao, Yan and Qin all began to build walls successively for the defense. The walls built in this period had the following features: extended in different directions and short-lengthed (varied from hundreds of kilometers to two thousand kilometers). In order to differ it from Qin Great Wall, these walls were named by historians as Pre-Qin Great Wall.
In 221 BC, Qinshihuang conquered the other 6 states and unified China. He became the first emperor of united China and stopped the war rages in the country. So as to consolidate the unity and safety of the whole country and defend against the invasion of northern nomads and barbarians, emperor Qinshihuang began to assemble the strength of whole country to build great walls. Based on the original walls built by the states of Yan, Zhao and Qi, Qinshihuang connected these walls together and extended it longer. The wall of Qin dynasty finally extended from Linyao of the west to Liaodong of the east stretching more than 10,000 li (5,000 km). Since then the wall got its name by Chinese people as Wanli Changcheng( The Great Wall of 10,000 li).
After Qin dynasty, almost all emperors in the following dynasties who had the control over the central plain region of China repaired and built the great walls on different scales, among them Han, Jin and Ming dynasty great walls were on a much larger scales with the total length of 5,000 km to 10,0000 km.
The building of great walls didn’t stop until the Kangxi period Qing dynasty, so far the Great Wall project which had lasted for over 2,000 years came to an end.

Ⅲ The structure of the Great Wall
The Great Wall which stretched for thousands of kilometers were not just walls. The Great Wall were actually a complete defense system with various defense projects which consist of walls, watchtowers, pass, beacon towers, slanting slopes and trenches etc.
During the 2,000 years’ Great Wall building, emperor Qin summarized a series of experiences represented by “build according to local topography and make forts on strategic points”. In selecting the building materials, Qin followed the rule of “use local materials” and created many new structuring methods. Rammed earth, block stone, rubbles, bricks and tiles were used in most area while willow branches, reeds and sands were used and laid to walls in deserts.
Walls were the main part of the Great Wall. Walls were usually built on the mountain ranges with very important strategic function for defense. The walls in plain area or strategic points should be very high and fortified built with block stones while those walls in dangerous mountain tops were made very low and simple. In some places walls are just the cliff or slit rocks.
The walls are 8 meters high and 5 meters wide in average. There are  crenel walls on the outer side and parapet walls on the inner side. The crenel walls are on the top which have defensive gaps of 30 cm tall and 23 cm wide. There are also holes at the button of the walls for shooting the arrows. All the structures were made for the purpose of easy defense on the people inside the war and easy offense on the enemies outside the war.
Guan Cheng (frontier pass city): it was the centralized defense point of the great wall. The location of Guancheng was very important. It should be built in a decent position for defending and most often this Guancheng could allow them defend the invasion of strong enemies with bare armies. A Chinese sentence well tells the importance of the pass city: If one man guards the pass, ten thousand are unable to get through. There were nearly a thousand pass city along the Great Wall, among them Shanhaiguan Pass, Huayaguan Pass, Juyongguan Pass, Jiayuguan Pass and Yumenguan Pass etc were most famous ones.
Beacon towers were also the necessity for defense because armies should use it to pass on information. When there were an emergency and enemies were about to attack certain sections of the Great Wall, soldiers would burn smoke during the day and give the fire at night up on the tower to pass information to the other soldiers in distant towers. During that time, this was the quickest and easiest way to pass on information to people in a distance when there were no phones and telecommunication to use. Apart from this function, beacon towers were also the places for providing safety, accommodation, food, transport supply and services for envoys from other countries.