The Great Wall stretches
for 4,160 miles across North China. It is the only man-made
structure that can be seen from the moon with the naked eye.
Its construction started as far back as the Spring and Autumn
period (770-476 B.c.) and the Warring States period (475-221
B.C.). Rival feudal kingdoms built walls around their territories
to keep out invading nomadic tribes from the north. When Qin
Shihuang unified China, he started to link up and extend these
walls. Prisoners of war, convicts, soldiers, civilians and
farmers provided the labor. Millions died for this cause and
many Chinese stories speak of parted lovers and men dying
of starvation and disease. Their bodies were buried in the
foundations of the wall or used to make up its thickness.
The Great Wall crosses loess plateaus, mountains, deserts,
rivers and valleys, passing through five provinces and two
autonomous regions. It is about 20 feet wide and 26 feet high.
Parts of the wall are so broad that 10 soldiers can walk abreast.
Materials used were whatever could be found near by-clay,
stone, willow branches, reeds and sand. Parts of this wall
can still be seen in remote parts of China. What most visitors
see of the Wall now was restored in the Ming dynasty, when
stone slabs replaced clay bricks. It took 100 years to rebuild
and it is said that the amount of material used in the present
wall alone is enough to circle the world at the equator five
times. |