Ten thousand li' wall spreading along 5000 km from Shanghai Guan on the East up to Jiaguan pass in the Gobi desert became one of the main symbols of the Chinese nation - both in the eyes of foreigners and the Chinese themselves. It is almost impossible to draw the line between its reality and the stories attached; the two are coexisting and are traditionally -equally important.

The Great Wall is a construction consisting of quite a few pieces of the wall built over different periods of time from the 2nd BC to the middle ages. Its length mentioned in the various guidebooks vary from 3000-65000 km - even in 1997 new pieces of the wall were discovered via satellite.

It is worth noting that only by the end of the 18th century the wall got the etiquette "great" - in Chinese language it remained, until today, the Long Wall.

The first pieces of the wall were laid during the Warring States (5th BC - 1st BC) period when the biggest amongst the warring states started building defense walls around its territories, and in the Qin dynasty these pieces were connected into one wall. It is estimated that 800 km of the wall was build over the 20 years period, using 180 million of cubic meters of earth for the purpose.

The state of Qin was the strongest amongst the Warring States. It has conquered the rest, establishing the dynasty of Qin and unifying a number of small states into a new dynasty for the first time in the Chinese history. Qin Shihuang Di was the first ruler in the Chinese history that took upon himself the title of the 'Caesar' - Emperor, believing that he had started the dynastic cycles that would last for ever, calling him self the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty. To mark the separation from the past and the dynasties prior to his one, which, as far as he was concerned, were not legitimate dynasties, he ordered for all the books and music instruments in the kingdom to be burned; in order to mark the first ' unification' of the kingdom he launched the wall building project.

The Wall's role throughout the history

Interesting enough, the wall has actually never played the defense role, but mainly the cultural one. It served as cultural border between the Middle Kingdom and the world beyond, the border between the agricultural way of life and the nomadic one; between the highly developed Chinese civilization at the time and the surrounding tribes that have been assimilating with the Chinese and learning from their achievements throughout history.

The Wall was, in a way, the materialization of a need to defend the highly developed Chinese civilization at that time. That gap between the Han people living in the cradle of the Yellow river and the surrounding tribes was obvious already in the 5th BC.
The North was traditionally taken to be a place where the non-Chinese people habituate, symbolized by steppes and the rough terrain hostile to the agricultural way of life and the irrigation systems adopted very early in the Chinese history. From the Chinese side, compromising their way of life and highly developed institutions to the new conditions would mean loosing the identity - and the answer was the border, the wall.

From the words of Gingis Khan, we learn that " the strength of the wall depends upon the brevity of its defenders'. In other words, its defensive role was highly dependent on the military forces stationed at the outskirts of the kingdom.

Apart from the cultural role, it contributed to the trade between the Middle Kingdom and the West, being one of the main trade routs apart from the Silk Road. It served as a 'highway' of goods and ideas that were circulating along the wall from the first century BC. To the West from Jiayuguan and close to the Silk Road the customs were stationed, and merchants often engaged in 'information service'- towers along the wall served as platforms for the smoke-messages.

Buddhist religion entered the Kingdom via the Great Wall as well, molding and crafting itself towards the Chinese culture and interacting with it through centuries.

Legends and facts

Various legends are associated to the Wall and the way it was built - for centuries the Chinese people believed that Qin Shihuang flew along the line where the wall stands today, on his magic horse and wherever the horse stepped the tower was built. Historical documents say that the towers were built first at the strategic places and were connected with the wall later.
Tough terrain and hard conditions have made the construction work hard and pieces of the wall kept collapsing a few times through history. From the lawyers of stones the Wall is made of, periods of time could be clearly identified. It is believed that the stairs were build uneven on purpose - solders defending the wall would know their ups and downs well, whereas the enemy would keep falling!

It was believed over a long period of time that who ever dies beyond the area surrounded by the wall, his soul would keep wandering and never get settled at one place. Merchants would thus be hurrying back home upon falling sick just to die within the borders of the Middle Kingdom.