The Great Wall of China: A brief history

I came to Ireland not long ago. I didn’t understand Irish history, so I decided to write something from China’s history. There is a lot in Chinese history that is famous but the most famous is the Great Wall.

Part 1 Planning

Here are my aims:

1. To find out where it is in China.

2. To find how big it is and what the wall is made form

3. To find out how long it took to build the wall.

4. To find out who built it and the cost of the wall.

5. To find why it was built and to look at its historical development

The teacher said a history of the Great Wall world make a good essay. I went to the library and got some books on Chinese history. Then I found some websites. I made a plan for my essay and typed it up. Here are my sources.

Websites:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China

2. http://www.chinahighlights.com/greatwall/historry/

3. http://www.chinagreatwall.org

4. http://luyou.moonlightchest.com/china_world_heritage/great_wall.asp

5. http://www.crystalinks.com/chinawall.html

Books:

1. Alone on the Great Wall by William Lindesay

2. Great Wall: an exploration by William Lindesay

3. Great Wall by Gen Li (Chinese)

4. The Great wall: China against the World by Julia Lovell (Author)

5. The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth by Arthur Waldron

6. A ride along the Great Wall by Robin Hanbury-Tenison

Evaluation of sources:

1: One website I used was the Great Wall of China found at.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-Wall_of_China

This website had information on the history of the wall as well as looking at its characteristic and notable parts such as watch towers and barracks. It was a good source, because it covered the history of the building of the wall in detail as well as having maps and photographs.

2: One of the books I used was The Great Wall of China Form history to Myth by Arthur Waldron. The author says that the idea of an ancient and continuously existing Great Wall, one of modern China’s national symbols and a legend in the eyes of the west, is in fact a myth. His books look at the building of the walls as fortified defences, and “show its impact on nomadic and agricultural life under the Ming dynasty.[1]”

This book covers the history of the wall from ancient times to the modern day. This was a good source because it covered the history well and had stories from different times about the wall. It also had a number of photographs.

3. One website I used was the Great Wall of China.

http://chinagreatwall.org

This website is a Chinese website and was therefore easy for me to understand. The website had lots of interesting information including the history of the wall and the art of the wall. It was a good website with a plenty of information and photographs.

The Extended Essay:

The first walls in Chinese history were “probably between households, and marketed an important stage in the evolution of the traditional Chinese home.”[2] The Great Wall however is located in northern China, and is a “series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 6th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties.”[3]It runs from Shan-hai-guan on the Gulf of Bo-hai to the Gansu Province, on the west, with an inner wall running southward from Beijing to Handan. The wall is approximately 6,700 kilometres long and is probably China’s best know monument and one of its most popular tourist destinations. In 1987 it was designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The Great Wall is not a single, continuous structure. Instead, it is made up of a network of walls and tower built during different times. This leaves the frontier open in places since it was not made in one piece. Estimates of the total length of the monument vary, depending on which sections are included and how they are measured. Some long-standing myths about the wall have been disproved in recent decades. The existing wall is not several thousand years old, nor is it, as has been widely believed, visible with the naked eye from outer space.

The Great Wall is made of bricks and stones and is 5 meter high, 1 meter thick big wall. It is between 15 to 30 feet thick at the base (about 20 feet on average) and 12 feet at the top. Its average height is 25 feet. The watchtowers are about 40 feet in height and are placed at intervals of approximately 200 yards. Several hundred kilometres of the Great Wall remain intact in the eastern reaches. The amount of brick and stone employed to construct the Great Wall could go round the earth with a wall eight feet high. The Great Wall in terms of man-made construction holds several records for, its length, area, weight and so on.

From 770 B.C. through 476 B.C. was the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history. During this Period, princes turned land from the Zhou Kingdom into states. “It's generally believed that China began to build the Great Wall during the Spring and Autumn Periods when the country was in a great chaos, with rival states fighting for territory and power.”[4] Among the 149 states, the most powerful were the Qi, Jin, Chu, Qin, Lu and Zheng States. The use of iron and tools increased farming. Food production led to society developing quickly.

To conquer other states, stronger ones made wars against others. As a result only a few states survived. They continued to fight each other. These states included the Qin, Wei, Yan, Zhao, Han, Qi, Chu states known to as "the Seven Powers". In history this is known as the Warring States Period (B.C. 475 - 221).

Chinese society continued to grow during this time. Advances in agriculture gave rise to growing cities. The architecture of this time also improved and made it possible to build stronger building. On the other hand, wars went on between the states, some of which were attacked by smaller nationalities from the north. As a result the states built walls around important cities, especially their capital cities.

The city at Xiadu of the Yan State was eight kilometers from east to west, and four kilometers from north to south. “The Wall of Yan State also had two sections: the Wall of Yishui and the Wall of the North. Construction of the Wall of Yishui, from 334BC to 311BC.”[5] The capital Handan of Zhao was three and four kilometers from east to west and from north to south. The walls around the cities gave excellent defense and the states wanted to use this to their advantage. They built walls on the borders and joined them up with natural barriers and high mountain ridges. The building of walls required countless workers, and did produce impressive constructions.

The Yan State rose to power when Yan Zhao Wang became king. He gave some of his people important jobs across the country. This made Yan a strong state. The Yan State bordered the Qi State on the south, the Zhao State on the west and the Han State on the northeast. The Yan State neighbored aggressive minority nationalities much as the Donghu, Linhu and Loufan. They attacked Yan's borders and to guard against them, in the year 290 B.C. The Yan State built a wall along the Yanshan Mountain Range. The wall started from Huailai County in Hebei Province, and ended in the Liaoning Province. The whole route ran for 500 kilometers. It was the North Wall of the Yan State and the last wall built in the Warring States Period.

During this time the Yan state attacked the Qi State. For fear that they would fight back, Yan turned the embankment of the Yishui River into a wall.

The Zhao State set up Handan as its capital. Zhao neighbored the Wei State on the west, the Yellow River and Zhanghe River on the south, the Qi State on the east and the Yan State on the north separated by the Yi'shui River. It also bordered minority nationalities of Hun, Loufan and Linhu on the northwest. The minorities attacked Zhao all the time. The King Zhao Wulin, in the year 366 B.C. beat the state of Zhongshan. He soon beat another two enemies of Hulin and Loufan and forced them to the far north.

By 302 B.C., Zhao's territory had grown to include the present areas of Tuoketuo and Wulateqianqi in Inner Mongolia, and the Great Bend area of the Yellow River, where immigrants developed agriculture. “The whole wall was about 200 kilometers (124 miles) long and its site can now be found in Linzhang County and Cixian County of Hebei Province.”[6]

To protect its northern-border defense, Zhao began building a wall on its north in 300 B.C. The wall started from Wei County of Hebei Province, ran west and passed through the north of Shanxi, entered Inner Mongolia, went along the Yinshan Mountains and down to the present Langshan County of Inner Mongolia.

To defend against the Wei State, Zhao built another wall on the south. As wars between the two states usually took place on the banks of the Zhangshui River, Zhao extended the north embankment of the River and made it into a wall.

The Qi State established Linzi as its capital. And “The Great Wall of Qi is the oldest existing great wall in China. The building of the wall started in the year of 685 B.C for the state of Qi to defend the invasion of the kingdom of Chu. It starts at the nowaday city of Jinan and ends at the city of Qingdao.”[7] Qi was already a powerful prince before the Spring and Autumn Period. It neighbored the Chu, Lu and Song States on the south, the Yan State and the Bohai Sea on the north, the Zhao State and the Qinghe River on the west and the Yellow Sea on the east. King Qi Xuanwang built a wall in its south part. The wall ran more than 500 kilometers from west to east.

Wei was also a powerful State. And “It spanned more than 200 kilometers (124 miles). The longest and best preserved part ran about 2.1 kilometers (1.3 miles), with a height of 2.2-11.4 meters (7.2-37.3 feet) and a width of 6-16 meters (19.7-52.4 feet). Today, only one or two sections remain including a fortress and beacon tower at a height of 7-11 meters (23-36 feet).”[8] After King Wei Wenhou became ruler, the states grow stronger. Wei for years fought wars upon the Qi, Chu, Song and Zhao States, but kept being defeated by the Qin State. Wei expanded the wall of the Luoshui River near the west boundary and built it into a fortified wall. It ran more than 500 kilometers from south to north. It was the West Wall of Wei.

Later under King Wei Huiwang, the kingdom was losing power and kept losing wars to other states. To resist Qi and Qin, Wei built another wall near the capital Daliang. It was the South Wall of Wei. The length was about 200 kilometers.

The Chu State was slow in developing agriculture. It had a large army used it to expand its territory to the banks of the Changjiang River. It bordered the Qi, Song, Wei and Han States on the north, the Qin and Ba States on the west, Bai'e on the south and a vast sea on the east. Its land was the largest among the Seven Powers.

Chu began to fall in the late Warring States Period. It failed in many wars after King Chu Huiwang became the new ruler. Chu later expanded the embankments of Mianshui and Bishui Rivers and linked them to mountain ranges and high lands by building walls. The whole line was the Wall of Chu, and it ran more than 400 kilometers from east to west.

It shows that the Great Wall is one of the greatest human constructions in history. It began more than 2,000 years. It remains one of the greatest treasures of the ancient world. As Arthur Waldron says whatever the future brings, the Great Wall, useless militarily even when it was first built, seems guaranteed to keep its position as a multivalent symbol of Chinese ness, and to mirror for the rest of us our fantasies about that society.[9]

Great Wall’s map:

Picture of Great Wall:

---

[1] Arthur Waldron, the Great Wall of China, back page

[2] Arthur Waldron, the Great Wall of China, page 13

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China

[4] http://www.chinahighlights.com/greatwall/history/

[5] http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/history/zhou/

[6] http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/history/zhou/

[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_Qi

[8] http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/history/zhou/

[9] Arthur Waldron, the Great Wall of China, page 226