Grat Wall of China History
Most people who have been to the Great Wall will not only be surprised by the greatness of the structure, but also be attracted by its history and legends.
The Great Wall is the largest and longest ancient defense project in the world. An old Chinese saying well described how huge project is: over the course of more than 2000 years the Great Walls reaching the distance of more than 100 thousand li (2 Chinese li equals 1 kilometer). The first great wall was built in 7th centry BC and the project had never stopped since then. During the course of over 2000 years, the Great Walls built by different ancient states scattering in northern and middle China had reached 50 thousand kilometers.
In 7th and 8th century BC, battles happened frequently among the states of the Spring-Autumn and Warring States dynasty and in order to defend themselves they began to built walls and towers on the borders. It was the state Chu who first built the wall. Since then the states Qi, Han, Wei, Zhao, Yan and Qin all began to build walls successively for the defense. The walls built in this period had the following features: extended in different directions and short-lengthed (varied from hundreds of kilometers to two thousand kilometers). In order to differ it from Qin Great Wall, these walls were named by historians as Pre-Qin Great Wall.
In 221 BC, Qinshihuang conquered the other 6 states and unified China. He became the first emperor of united China and stopped the war rages in the country. So as to consolidate the unity and safety of the whole country and defend against the invasion of northern nomads and barbarians, emperor Qinshihuang began to assemble the strength of whole country to build great walls. Based on the original walls built by the states of Yan, Zhao and Qi, Qinshihuang connected these walls together and extended it longer. The wall of Qin dynasty finally extended from Linyao of the west to Liaodong of the east stretching more than 10,000 li (5,000 km). Since then the wall got its name by Chinese people as Wanli Changcheng( The Great Wall of 10,000 li).
After Qin dynasty, almost all emperors in the following dynasties who had the control over the central plain region of China repaired and built the great walls on different scales, among them Han, Jin and Ming dynasty great walls were on a much larger scales with the total length of 5,000 km to 10,0000 km.
The building of great walls didn't stop until the Kangxi period Qing dynasty, so far the Great Wall project which had lasted for over 2,000 years came to an end.
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