The Great Wall of China – Why Was It Built?

And who built it? These two questions often associate with each other. As a Chinese person, let me answer both questions altogether. It is relatively simple to explain why The Great Wall of China way built – it was a military defensive mechanism. If you have a basic knowledge about Chinese history and the geography of China, you will notice that Chinese civilization originated around The Yellow River and central China where the provinces of Hunan and Hubei are. In ancient China, people from the north were usually referred as foreign tribes. Through out Chinese history, every empire had to fight against the foreign tribes of their periods. Indeed these foreign tribes were treated as invaders and had lots of conflicts with the central empires. In the history of China, two of these foreign tribes successfully took control on the land of central China and built two empires, namely Yuan and Qing. If you ever had a chance to walk on The Great Wall of China, you must have observed the military defensive mechanisms such as watchtowers, beacon towers, ramparts, embrasures, peep-holes and apertures for archers and so on. Once enemies were spotted, signal fires will be lit and soldiers will get ready to fight. Now we have a basic idea of why the Great Wall of China was built, let's talk about who built it. In fact, it was not a matter of a person or a period, it is a matter of Chinese and Chinese history. Most of you may think that Qin Shi Huang built The Great Wall of China. This is only partially correct. However Qin Shi Huang was indeed the first person who brought the Wall to an initial phase. As early as the Spring and Autumn period (770-470 BC), state emperors started building defensive devices along the frontier. At strategic locations, they built watchtowers, beacon towers and ramparts along with a defensive wall. Their objective was to protect against nomadic tribes from the north, mainly Xiongnu. The process continued through the Warring States period. In the early history of the Wall, it was in bits and pieces, without the shape of a Great Wall and without a chief architect or designer. After Qin Shi Huang unified China (221 BC), his capital city Xianyang experienced extreme stress from Xiongnu. Qin Shi Huang saw the emergency and importance of strengthening military defense at the northern frontier. By his order, General Mengtian led tremendous forced labour to work on the Wall project. In nine years time, they connected all the existing bits and pieces, restored and extended them. Hence the shape of the Great Wall was formed. In the next 2,000 years, over 20 emperors of various dynasties had been restoring, rebuilding and extending the Great Wall. The largest-scale and most recent restoration and rebuilding was in Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Today, the most comprehensive renovation was done at Badaling in Beijing in 1957. Back to the question of "The Great Wall of China – Why was it built?" It was originally built as a military defense. Nowadays, The Great Wall is one of the most important cultural heritages, not only to Chinese, but to the whole world. I am sure the objective of restoration has become an endless task of Chinese as to maintain and protect this invaluable cultural heritage. The Great Wall of China – Why Was It Built? is a post from: Traveling China from Traveling China http://www.chinaya.org

puts the internet to work for you. via task 701390