The Wonder of the Great Wall

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The Great Wall is one of the wonders of the architectural history of the world, well-known for its long history, magnificence and tremendous construction. As we all know now the earliest part of the Great Wall at a length of hundreds of kilometers was built by the Chu state during the Spring and Autumn period, known as the Square Wall in present-day Fangcheng county in Henan province. During the Warring States period, Wei, Zhao, Qi, Yan and Qin states built up their own defending walls in succession. In 221B.C, the Qin empire unified the whole of China. In order to defend the country from aggression by the Hun in the north, the first emperor Qinshihuang ordered approximately 300,000 laborers to renovate and extend the walls constructed by Qin, Zhao and Yan states over a period of 10 years. In the end the 5,000 km-long Great Wall was completed, from Lintao (present-day Minxian county) of Gansu province in the west to Liaoning province in the east.

During the dynasties following the Qin, additional repairs and construction works for the Great Wall were carried out. For a successive period of over 100 years fromthe early Ming dynasty, renovation and reconstruction on anever larger scale was completed reaching the peak in terms of its extended length of over 7,350 km from the Yalu River in the east to the Jiayu Pass in the west. Most of the presently extant part of the wall was built during Ming dynasty. In those years there were nine key garrison townsconstructed along the Great Wall for purposes of defense.

The Great Wall consists of castles, passes, beacon towers and walls, now world famous as the largest defence project in ancient China as well as a systematical, complete military defending facility rare elsewhere in the world.

The Great Wall was built on vast areas with high mountain ranges, quicksand, and canyons; the scale and difficulty of the project were unprecedented in architectural history home and abroad. Many beacon towers, made of tamped earth or adobes, now still stand high above the open fields after experiencing 2,000-odd years of erosion from wind, frost, rain and snow, which indicates the high level of the architectural technology at that time. The part of the wall added during Ming dynasty, especially the eastern section (in the east of Shanxi province, and the western section is the part west of Shanxi province) was built with bricks(partially with block stones) and lime slurry for joint sealing (while the western section was built with tamped earth), which also showcase the new developing phase of Chinese technology in brick structures. The route selectionof the Great Wall also showed the cleverness of the people involved in its planning; for example, most of the easternpart was built on lofty mountain ranges, some sections ofwhich were at the slope of 70 or 80 degrees with majesty and difficulty of access. The representatives of the location selection included several typical sections of the Great Wall respectively named Shanhai Pass, Badaling Pass, and Jiayu Pass.

Standing majestically over the mountains and rivers innorth China, the Great Wall played an important role indefending the nation from assault from northern nomads and ensuring smooth access along the Silk Road on land, thus fulfilling multiple functions of national defense and promotion of economic and cultural development. The wall manifests fully the strong will and striving spirit of the Chinese people in safeguarding their own environment for living and growth, showcases prominently the wisdom and majestic emotions and attitudes of the Chinese nation, and mirrors the high level of the technology of survey and construction, planning and design, and project management of that time.