The Great Wall winds up and down across deserts, grasslands, mountains and plateaus, stretching approximately 6,700 kilometres (4,163 miles ) from east to west of China. With a history of more than 2000 years, some of the sections of the great wall are now in ruins or even entirely disappeared.
The Period of the Warring States (476 BC - 221 BC) was an era when the seven states (Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, Qin) were busy engaging in wall-construction for self-defense. Instead of one line, their walls stretched in the four directions and varied in length from several hundred miles to one or two thousand miles. In the Qin Dynasty (221 - 206 BC) the Emperor Qin Shihuang ordered his laborers to connect these scattered walls and create some new sections, thus forming a Great Wall in northern and central China in the true sense....
He's the same crazy emperor who had the terra cotta warriors built in Xi'an to protect his lavish mausoleum. He sent 500,000 laborers (mostly prisoners of war) to build the Great Wall of China and watched seven out of ten die from hunger and exhaustion. http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/
One could walk up the mountain side, but it woold have taken hours, so most people, including my tour group took the cable cars to the top. We had to pass from a large parking lot through throngs of vendors, who attacked us coming and going to buy their cheap tourist souvenirs. The views going up were spectacular, and I eyed the slide trail below us, which was an alternate way of getting down. Of course, that's the way I chose.
The construction of the Great Wall, drew heavily on the local resources for construction
materials, was carried out in line with the local conditions under the management of contract and responsibility system. A great army of manpower, composed of soldiers, prisoners, and local people, built the wall. Any who died along the way, were built into the wall without a second thought.We were advised to only go as far as three towers and turn back again in order to get back on our bus. I only went to the second one, but I stayed there for a long time observing the landscape, the construction and generally enjoying the views and the peaceful ambience. It was a very comfortable place to be....perhaps I had lived in the area or had something to do with the wall in a past life!
The winding Great Wall is not merely a wall but instead a complete and rigorous defense project composed of countless passes, watchtowers, garrison towns, beacon towers and blockhouses. These fortifications were arranged in certain ways under the control of the military command system at all levels. For example, there were about 1,000,000 soldiers guarding the Ming’s wall. The chief military officers were stationed in garrison-towns, while lesser officials and soldiers were stationed in Guan Cheng (the defensive beachhead) and other smaller fortifications. The eleven garrisons were set up along the wall in order to guard the precinct or subsection. The average height of the Ming wall measures 33 feet and the width is about five yards. In low, flat areas the wall was built high and more defense lines were added. In the lofty mountains, the wall was a little lower in order to save the human and financial cost. Sometimes, even steep cliffs served as natural walls to thwart enemies.
