The Great Wall of china is a brilliant art of ancient master piece. It was then used as defender (protector) for Chinese people from the foreign invaders (especially form Mongolians nomad's) and now, serving as a modern wonder of the world (a famous tourist destination).
reconstructions and expansion of smaller walls. It all started during Qin dynasty of China during 3rd century ( B.C). So, how could it withstand so many years (more than 23 centuries) is itself amusing and a topic of discussion for civil engineering.
History:
Before Qin dynasty, china was divided into several smaller regions those periods were called as "warring state period" . During such period, different smaller walls were built to protect their states from internal as well as from external invaders. The king Qin Shi Huang of Qin dynasty started a campaign to create a greater china and ultimately succeed. But there was still the fear of attack of foreign nomads. Thus, he wisely decided to unify, enlarge and strengthen the smaller walls through constructions and renovations.
Since, Qin Shi Huang created a greater and unified china , he is known as first emperor of china.
Why nomads (foreigner) used to attack china?
China is and was a prosperous country in terms of grains. The production of rice and other graneries
were higher in higher. Being, wealthy in term of grains, it was a major reason for attack (especially from northern Mongolian).
After Qin dynasty, the series of expansion, construction and re-construction continued from one dynasties to other dynasties. (Han, Qin, jin, tang, Xia, song,etc).
fig: dynasties and great wall (source:https://www.quora.com/Where-is-the-Great-Wall-of-China)
But during 13th century ,the regime of Temujin a.k.a Genghis Khan (1206 A.D.-1227 A.D.) the famous conqueror from Mongolia who was known to be fearless and conquered almost 22% of total land of earth. started his invasion on china.
It was believed that he destroyed some part of then formed so-called Great walls and attacked china.
It was just beginning of Mongol attacks on china, the battle between Mongols and china continued more than six decades and during 1276 Kublai khan (the grand son of Genghis Khan ) became victorious over song dynasty and started a regime of Yaun dynasty , (a Mongol regime in china).
Later after about 100 years, Ming dynasty conquered over the Yuan dynasty and started rule over a china. So, to prevent such foreign invasion over china (not to repeat their failing history against Mongols), they proposed the same idea of defending walls, the same that were built by their ancestors, but this time the ranges of wall would be greater in length, higher in height, tougher in strength and the wall would enough spaces for garrison of soldiers and their weaponeries. tThe gift from Ming dynasty is now what we call as an modern wonder of the world.
Brief Constructions details in Ming dynasty:
- More than 400,000 people were used for the construction of Great wall.
- constructed along the northern border along the ancient Ming dynasty and Mongolia.
- It took more than 200 years for constructions of great wall.
- Soldiers who died during constructions were buried under the ground of wall itself.
- It's believed that at least one person from each family should participate for the construction of great wall.
Engineering view points : (location, dimensions, construction materials-brick , mortar, earth).
It's the Engineering behind the construction of Great wall which has made it to withstand several centuries. Remember that i am talking about current wall which was built by Ming dynasty......so traditionally the fact and location of wall varies from dynasties to dynasties.
fig: Jiayu pass (Gansu province,
source:https://www.quora.com/Where-is-the-Great-Wall-of-China)
Liaoning province share it's border with north Korea so the actual end of great wall after Chinese border with north Korea is unknown as North Korea keeps high privacy and not let any foreign interference with it's territory. But somehow, the end of Great wall is with in inner Korea ( according to experts views).
Also the other end of great wall lies in old Dragon's head, in Hebei province where the great wall
meets the sea.
.
fig: old dragon's head. (Hebei province).
(source:source:https://www.quora.com/Where-is-the-Great-Wall-of-China)
dimension:
Width= 6- 8 m( 20ft- 30 ft)
Breadth= 5-6 m ( around 16 ft -20 ft)
total length = 8850 km ( more than 13000 miles)
ref : 1 meter = 3.3 ft and 1 km = 1.6 miles
materials:
Earth : earth ( soil) were heavily tamed so that it gets highly compacted, locally available tamping rods and woods were used form work.
Brick and stones : Brick were prepared similar to modern day techniques for preparations of brick but the size of brick used were more than double in dimension that we use today for constructions of common buildings. They molded the clay in shape of bricks , dried and finally brunt them under controlled temperature.
stones were locally quarried from lumps of rocks and were given a desired shapes.
mortar: Many researchers has claimed that mortars used for construction of great wall was of different nature. The true strength of great wall was within the construction of mortar rather than other construction materials and what was the reason behind ?
Chinese people used the same concept as today's generations use for the preparation for mortar, but some changes were made. They used the combination of sand, limestone ( binder), and slurry of rice water ( instead of only water that we use today). Slurry of rice water has sticky nature so it enhances the binding properties of mortar.
war-techniques:
- the walls were made on ridges so it would be easier to views invaders on both sides.
- there is a provision of watch towers of square and rectangular shapes (some where close and some where far to certain miles according to fear of attack ) where garrison of soldiers ( 30-40 soldiers and their weaponaries could accommodate) used to guard the great wall. Attacking signals were given from one tower to other through smoke and raising flags.
- Between watch towers there were the places built to fire canons and separate places to shoot arrows.
- Trees up to more than 3 km on both sides of walls were cut down so they could watch nomads attack freely.
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