Jan 29, 2022 09:00:00

Was the Great Wall really useful as a defense facility?

by

Lori Branham

The Great Wall of China is a castle wall built in China about 2200 years ago and is said to be the largest building in human history with a total length of more than 6500 km. The Great Wall of China is said to be a defense facility to protect yourself from foreign enemies, but the science news site Live Science explains whether the Great Wall was actually useful for defense.

Did the Great Wall of China work? | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/did-great-wall-china-work

At the time of the construction of the Great Wall of China, the nomadic people called Xiongnu were building power on the Mongolian plateau in northern China, and the countries of ancient China were always frightened by the possibility of being attacked from the north. The Great Wall of China was an important facility to prevent invasion by Xiongnu. It is said that the construction of the Great Wall of China began around 700 BC, but the construction began in earnest in 221 BC. It was the time when Qin Shi Huang became the first emperor of Qin to unify the world for the first time in Chinese history.

In the Great Wall of China, there are places where the walls themselves are set up intricately. According to Professor Arthur Waldron of the Faculty of History, University of Pennsylvania,

there are records that the enemy who invaded from the Mongolian plateau during the Ming dynasty in the 15th century was hunted down toward the wall, and the escape route was eliminated and then wiped out. .. This record is an example of the tactical operation of the Great Wall of China. In addition, there was a lookout at a key point on the wall, which had the advantage of being able to quickly convey information to a distant place using a grate or fire.

However, although the Great Wall is one of the largest in the world in total length, the effect of physically stopping the invasion of the enemy was weak because the walls were not connected. In fact, in the 17th century woman true group entered at once attack from the northern China and pacified the Beijing, after the Ming Dynasty destruction Qing dynasty that has laid the, this is the Great Wall of China did not stop the invasion of the woman true family Means

Allowing the invasion of the Jurchen tribe that led to the destruction of the Ming dynasty is said to be the biggest failure in the long history of the Great Wall of China. It's a stupid idea, 'he said. In addition, the Great Wall of China was built by the labor force of the people over many years, so it became a 'strong symbol of the emperor's oppression', which also contributed to the emphasis on the bad impression.

It wasn't until the beginning of the 20th century that this evaluation was overturned. In 1911, the Yin Metal Pig broke out and the Qing dynasty was destroyed, and in 1912, the Republic of China , the first republican nation in Asia, was born. With the elimination of the 'emperor,' which was previously a symbol of China's unified nation, the Government of the Republic of China was looking for a symbol that would form the identity of a 'new nation that connects different ethnic groups.' The Great Wall, which had been disliked as the biggest failure in history, is now 'the world's largest building built by hard-working Chinese people, and many people have united. It has come to be evaluated as 'a great achievement achieved.'

This image was also in line with the communist ideology of the People's Republic of China, which was established in 1949, and the Great Wall of China has become widely regarded as a symbolic building of China. Professor Emeritus Louise Edwards, a professor emeritus of Chinese history at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said, 'The Great Wall's reputation has changed completely with a little PR activity. The Great Wall's reputation in modern times depends on its symbolism. Symbolism is very important to the Great Wall of China, and it is a truly lasting force. '