Chinese Word For Great Wall example essay topic

The Great Wall of China is one of the most wondrous works of man of all time. The construction of the wall began more than two thousand years ago. At least twenty different dynasties were involved in the building of the Great Wall (Kai-wing Chow, pg. 350). The main purpose of the wall was to stop barbarians from the north from invading China and the Silk roads. The Silk roads were the main ways of traveling and for trading. Construction of the wall is dated back to 221 BC, when the Qin dynasty was under power.

The new emperor was reforming China and wanted to make a brand new start. So he had all books burned, except ones for practical use, to free the land from the harsh times in the past. Therefore, history before the Qin dynasty is unknown because there are no records to show what had gone on (Isaac Asimov, pg. 61). The emperor, Qin Shih Huang, intended to keep the Huns from invading and taking over China so he had to do something. Besides building a wall to keep out the invaders, they were also thinking about initiating an offensive campaign to drive the Huns out of the neighborhood, creating defensive garrisons, or to make diplomatic and economic ties with them. The offensive campaigns would have cost too much and it would have been too risky.

Defense garrisons respond too slowly to counter lightning attacks on a long border. They tried making diplomatic ties with the nomads several times but the Chinese saw themselves as a much superior empire than that of the nomads. So the final decision was to build a wall to keep out the neighboring nomads (History of the Great Wall of China, web). Huang believed that if they could keep out the nomads' horses, then that they could take care of the nomads and that they would be fine. The watchtowers were the first things that the Qin dynasty built. Each tower was usually two bowshot's away from each other or about one hundred to two hundred feet apart.

Then they started the construction of the wall itself. The workers built wooden frames and then filled them with pieces of the earth which was then packed tightly. After the wall had started to dry up, they would remove the wooden frames and would be left with a tightly packed wall. The Qin Empire came to a downfall in the year 206 BC because the people of China started a rebellion which overthrew the government because of the cruel treatment and forced recruitment for the wall building. Another major contributor to the wall was the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty was one of the most powerful dynasties in Chinese history.

They too were trying their own ways to deal with the Huns. The tried to make diplomatic relations, but that did not work. They even tried some offensive campaigns, which did result in some success, but was too expensive. So they came to the result of expanding and repairing the Great Wall. The Han dynasty used the same methods for the building of the wall as the Qin. Their main objective was to protect the Silk Roads which had flourishing markets all along it.

Soon later, the Han dynasty came to an end because of another rebellious group trying to overthrow the government. Probably the greatest wall builders were the Ming dynasty. The Ming dynasty was ruled by a house of Chinese men that began in the year 1368 AD. Most of the wall that we see today was built by the Ming dynasty. Most of the wall that was built by them was made out of brickwork and some was made by remnants of the earth. The Ming dynasty did not want to be overthrown by another nomadic group so they did not have any foreign contact or trading for a while in the sixteenth century.

The Ming dynasty finally came to an end in 1644 AD when the Manchurian had invaded the land (History of the Great Wall of China, web). China had become a less vulnerable land because of the building of the Great Wall. Armies were garrisoned on and in front of the wall to provide for a better defense. Through the years, the Great Wall had withstood a lot but parts of it have collapsed. Part of the wall was destroyed when Genghis Kahn and his men broke through the wall, but they were eventually defeated by the Chinese army.

The only reason that Kahn and other armies were able to break through the wall was because the Chinese government had become weak, and not the weakness of the wall. The Great Wall is the longest structure made by man. It stretches from Shanghai-kuan in the east four thousand miles to the Gobi Desert in the west. The Chinese word for Great Wall means "The wall of twelve thousand Li".

The main part of the wall stretches through all sorts of mountains and is about two thousand five hundred miles long. The wall is thirty feet high and twenty-five feet thick at its base. The wall is one of the most significant pieces of work built by man. It is the only man-made structure on earth that is visible to astronauts in outer space. It is the only human work that outdoes the mystifying pyramids, which were built some twenty-five centuries earlier (Isaac Asimov, pg. 62). It is said that the view from the wall is amazing, with mountains in the background and souvenir shops all around.

You can get many items from the souvenir shops such as shirts that say I climbed the Great Wall (Discovering the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, web). At some spots, the wall can be as steep as seventy degrees, which makes it horrendous to climb and walk upon. One of the highest sections of the wall is at the point of Mount Bada ling. Some sections of this wall reach higher than thirty-five feet (Kai-wing Chow, pg. 350). Some sections of the wall have crumbled, either because it has become so old and is not supported or because of earthquakes that have destroyed it, but the Chinese Communists, who began to rule in 1949, have been restoring the wall ever since (Kai-wing Chow, pg. 350). On the wall, there are nearly twenty-five thousand watchtowers.

Each watchtower is nearly one hundred to two hundred feet apart so that they are two arrow lengths apart. On top of each watchtower is either a flag or a torch to signal if an enemy is sighted. There are architectural features such as Buttresses on the wall that aided the soldiers. Buttresses are blocks that stick up from the wall at regular intervals where troops could store equipment. There were also holes in which soldiers could fire arrows upon an upcoming enemy trying to invade the land. During construction of the wall, there were many fatalities from the cold weather and over exhaustion.

The bodies of these workers were actually built into the wall as somewhat of a memorial to them and how they dedicated part of their lives to the construction of the Great Wall. One old myth recollects a story of woman helping out her husband. Her husband was ordered to work on the construction of the wall. So the wife was knitting him a jacket because the winter season was approaching. When she was finally finished knitting the jacket, she set out to find her husband and deliver him the jacket. When she caught up with the people from her village, her husband was nowhere in sight.

Then they told her that her husband had died during the construction of the wall and they showed her where they had placed her husband in the wall. She cried there for days and then finally she decided to jump in the nearby river and drown herself. This story is just an example of how many lives were lost during the construction of the wall, and how they overcame it (Discovering the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs, web). The Great Wall is the unofficial national symbol for the Chinese. The wall itself is a symbol of the Chinese genius and how dedicated the people of China are.

The Great Wall of China is also one of the most popular tourist attractions today. You see all sorts of people on the wall: young and old women and men, little kids, and even ladies wearing high heels. People from all over the world come to see the Great Wall. Many scholars believe that the wall may have actually done more harm than good for the Chinese.

They feel that the Chinese wall builders are responsible for the border unrest. Since the nomads could not farm on that area of the land they needed to get crops some other way. They wanted to trade with the Chinese, but the Chinese refused to trade with them, so the nomads had to raid other neighboring towns. The nomads then formed better and larger organizations which then led to China's downfall. But now it is accepted that the Great Wall was a successful wall to build. The Great Wall of China has played an important role for China for some two thousand years now.

China was not made invulnerable by the Great Wall, but it did make it less vulnerable to the neighboring nomadic invaders (Isaac Asimov, pg. 61). The wall was seen differently at different times. The Chinese emperors who built it saw it as a secure border defense, as it protected them from nearby invaders. The nomadic people saw it as a threat to their survival. They all had to move west and started a chain of events that eventually brought the downfall of the Roman Empire. The westerners saw it as a marvelous masterpiece, which they thought had signified Chinese isolationism.

The Chinese people today see the Great Wall as a symbol of pride of their ancient ancestry.