The
Qin Wall was the first of the Great Walls. This Wall was made of earth and stone. This Wall alone is equivalent to
30 pyramids. Early
builders used local materials and beaten clay to make the Wall.
Tapped
earth was the first option because stone was not always available.
The Wall
stretched from Mount Geshi to Lintao. It took
10 years to build 3,000 miles (The equivalent of 25 miles per month- almost 1
miles a day). The Wall runs along the entire northern border of China and
travels through marshes,
quicksand, deserts, and elevations of 8,000 feet above sea level. Builders
worked in different places every day, moving quickly from one site to another.
In its
“glory” days the wall was 20 feet high and had 26 foot high beacon (guard)
towers.
The Wall
was constructed below mountaintops so that the Chinese soldiers could retreat
and hold the high ground making it easier to launch a counterattack on their
attackers.
Because of the constant attacks by the Xiongnu and later the
Mongolians, Qin
Shihuangdi (left) had to invent new weapons and war tactics to
exploit weaknesses of the wall.
However, The Wall caused many problems and the costs of the building were great.
The
human and economic costs were enormous (in modern day money it would cost 26 billion dollars with slaves).
Today The Wall would cos
t about 260 billion
dollars( because we would not use slaves). Many people
died and suffered while building The Wall and criminals
and individuals who went against the Emperors were forced to work on the wall
for four years and were branded on the forehead (this process was called Chang Dam).
The dead workers were buried in ditches near The Wall (if they were buried in
The Wall, like the myth says, the decaying bones would effect the stability of
The Wall).
The
death toll on the wall was in excess of 1 million people (for every person a
further 6 were needed to bring supplies etc.). 3.5
million people were involved in the building of this Wall which equaled
about 70% of China. The
Wall was the most hated imperial project in Chinese history. In 209
BCE (one year after Qin Chi Wong’s death) peasants rose against the Qin Dynasty and
the dynasty collapsed. Later the Qin Wall
began to decay due to neglect. In 1996 an earthquake nearly destroyed this Wall.
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