query: When was the Great Wall of China built?

title: Great Wall of China

text: Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe with an eye to expansion. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC; these, later joined together and made bigger and stronger, are collectively referred to as the Great Wall. Especially famous is the wall built in 220–206

title: Great Wall of China

text: the erroneous but ubiquitous claim that the Ming Walls were the same ones that were built by the First Emperor in the 3rd century BC. When China opened its borders to foreign merchants and visitors after its defeat in the First and Second Opium Wars, the Great Wall became a main attraction for tourists. The travelogues of the later 19th century further enhanced the reputation and the mythology of the Great Wall, such that in the 20th century, a persistent misconception exists about the Great Wall of China being visible from the Moon or even Mars. Although a formal definition

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: elaborate but atypical stretches of the Great Wall and generalized such fortifications across the whole northern frontier. Furthermore, Martini erroneously identified the Ming Wall as the same wall built by Qin Shi Huang in the 3rd century BC, thereby exaggerating both the Wall's antiquity and its size. This misconception was compounded by the "China Illustrata" of Father Athanasius Kircher (160280), which provided pictures of the Great Wall as imagined by a European illustrator. All these and other accounts from missionaries in China contributed to the Orientalism of the eighteenth century, in which a mythical China and its exaggerated Great Wall

title: Great Wall of China

text: the optics much better, rendering photographic evidence irrelevant to the issue of whether it is visible to the naked eye. Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China is a series of fortifications made of stone, brick, tamped earth, wood, and other materials, generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern borders of China to protect the Chinese states and empires against the raids and invasions of the various nomadic groups of the Eurasian Steppe with an eye to expansion. Several walls were being built as early as the 7th century BC; these, later joined together and

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: Great Wall failed to stop enemies, including in 1644 when the Manchu Qing marched through the gates of Shanhai Pass and replaced the most ardent of the wall-building dynasties, the Ming, as rulers of China. The Great Wall of China visible today largely dates from the Ming dynasty, as they rebuilt much of the wall in stone and brick, often extending its line through challenging terrain. Some sections remain in relatively good condition or have been renovated, while others have been damaged or destroyed for ideological reasons, deconstructed for their building materials, or lost due to the ravages of time.

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: brought back the first reports of the Wall to the West, European scholars were puzzled that Marco Polo had not mentioned the presumably perennial "Great Wall" in his "Travels". Some 17th-century scholars reasoned that the Wall must have been built in the Ming dynasty, after Marco Polo's departure. This view was soon replaced by another that argued, against Polo's own account, that the Venetian merchant had come to China from the south and so did not come into contact with the Wall. Thus, Father Martino Martini's mistaken claim that the Wall had "lasted right up to the present time without

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: Bishop Juan González de Mendoza (15501620) reported a wall five hundred leagues long, but suggested that only one hundred leagues were man-made, with the rest natural rock formations. The Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci (15521610) mentioned the Great Wall once in his diary, noting the existence of "a tremendous wall four hundred and five miles long" that formed part of the northern defences of the Ming Empire. Europeans first witnessed the Great Wall in the early 1600s. Perhaps the first recorded instance of a European actually entering China via the Great Wall came in 1605, when the Portuguese Jesuit brother Bento

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: identify the Great Wall in China with the walls of the Alexander romances. Soon after Europeans reached Ming China in the early 16th century, accounts of the Great Wall started to circulate in Europe, even though no European would see it with their own eyes for another century. The work "A Treatise of China and the Adjoyning Regions" by Gaspar da Cruz (c. 152070) offered an early discussion of the Great Wall in which he noted, "a Wall of an hundred leagues in length. And some will affirme to bee more than a hundred leagues." Another early account written by

title: Great Wall of China

text: borders extended beyond the walls and Mongolia was annexed into the empire, so constructions on the Great Wall were discontinued. On the other hand, the so-called Willow Palisade, following a line similar to that of the Ming Liaodong Wall, was constructed by the Qing rulers in Manchuria. Its purpose, however, was not defense but rather migration control. None of the Europeans who visited Yuan China or Mongolia, such as Marco Polo, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, William of Rubruck, Giovanni de' Marignolli and Odoric of Pordenone, mentioned the Great Wall. The North African traveler Ibn Battuta, who also visited China

title: Great Wall of China

text: BC by Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. Little of that wall remains. The Great Wall has been rebuilt, maintained, and enhanced over various dynasties; the majority of the existing wall is from the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Apart from defense, other purposes of the Great Wall have included border controls, allowing the imposition of duties on goods transported along the Silk Road, regulation or encouragement of trade and the control of immigration and emigration. Furthermore, the defensive characteristics of the Great Wall were enhanced by the construction of watch towers, troop barracks, garrison stations, signaling capabilities through the

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: the Great Wall of Qi. The State of Wei built two walls, the western one completed in 361 BC and the eastern in 356 BC, with the extant western wall found in Hancheng, Shaanxi. Even non-Chinese peoples built walls, such as the Di state of Zhongshan and the Yiqu Rong, whose walls were intended to defend against the State of Qin. Of these walls, those of the northern states Yan, Zhao, and Qin were connected by Qin Shi Huang when he united the Chinese states in 221 BC. The State of Yan, the easternmost of the three northern states, began

title: Great Wall of China

text: undertake any significant effort in the region. The Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties, who ruled Northern China throughout most of the 10th–13th centuries, constructed defensive walls in the 12th century but those were located much to the north of the Great Wall as we know it, within China's province of Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia itself. The Great Wall concept was revived again under the Ming in the 14th century, and following the Ming army's defeat by the Oirats in the Battle of Tumu. The Ming had failed to gain a clear upper hand over the Mongolian tribes after successive

title: Great Wall of China

text: Great Wall in 1644, after Beijing had already fallen to Li Zicheng's rebels. Before this time, the Manchus had crossed the Great Wall multiple times to raid, but this time it was for conquest. The gates at Shanhai Pass were opened on May 25 by the commanding Ming general, Wu Sangui, who formed an alliance with the Manchus, hoping to use the Manchus to expel the rebels from Beijing. The Manchus quickly seized Beijing, and eventually defeated both the rebel-founded Shun dynasty and the remaining Ming resistance, establishing the Qing dynasty rule over all of China. Under Qing rule, China's

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: Li Zicheng declared himself the founder of the Shun and marched towards the Ming capital from Shaanxi. His route roughly followed the line of the Great Wall, in order to neutralize its heavily fortified garrisons. The crucial defences of Datong, Xuanfu, and Juyong Pass all surrendered without a fight, and the Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself on 25 April as the Shun army entered Beijing. At this point, the largest remaining Ming fighting force in North China was in Shanhai Pass, where the Great Wall meets the Bohai Sea. Its defender Wu Sangui, wedged between the Shun army within and the

title: Great Wall of China

text: had either seen it or knew of anyone who had seen it, suggesting that although there were remnants of the wall at that time, they weren't significant. Soon after Europeans reached Ming China by ship in the early 16th century, accounts of the Great Wall started to circulate in Europe, even though no European was to see it for another century. Possibly one of the earliest European descriptions of the wall and of its significance for the defense of the country against the "Tartars" (i.e. Mongols), may be the one contained in João de Barros's 1563 "Asia". Other early accounts

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: walls. However, these efforts were based solely on written records that contain obscure place names and elusive literary references. The rise of modern archeology has contributed much to the study of the Great Wall, either in corroborating existing research or in refuting it. However these efforts do not yet give a full picture of the Great Wall's history, as many wall sites dating to the Period of Disunity (220589) had been overlaid by the extant Ming Great Wall. Western scholarship of the Great Wall was, until recently, affected by misconceptions derived from traditional accounts of the Wall. When the Jesuits

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: Manchus without, decided to surrender to the Manchus and opened the gates for them. The Manchus, having thus entered through the Great Wall, defeated Li Zicheng at the Battle of Shanhai Pass and seized Beijing on June5. They eventually defeated both the rebel-founded Shun dynasty and the remaining Ming resistance, establishing their rule over all of China as the Qing dynasty. Opinions about the Wall's role in the Ming dynasty's downfall are mixed. Historians such as Arthur Waldron and Julia Lovell are critical of the whole wall-building exercise in light of its ultimate failure in protecting China; the former compared

title: Great Wall of China

text: over the years, the Ming devoted considerable resources to repair and reinforce the walls. Sections near the Ming capital of Beijing were especially strong. Qi Jiguang between 1567 and 1570 also repaired and reinforced the wall, faced sections of the ram-earth wall with bricks and constructed 1,200 watchtowers from Shanhaiguan Pass to Changping to warn of approaching Mongol raiders. During the 1440s–1460s, the Ming also built a so-called "Liaodong Wall". Similar in function to the Great Wall (whose extension, in a sense, it was), but more basic in construction, the Liaodong Wall enclosed the agricultural heartland of the Liaodong province,

title: Ming Great Wall

text: in light of its ultimate failure in protecting China; the former compared the Great Wall with the failed Maginot Line of the French in World War II. However, independent scholar David Spindler notes that the Wall, being only part of a complex foreign policy, received "disproportionate blame" because it was the most obvious relic of that policy. Ming Great Wall The Ming Great Wall (明長城; "Ming changcheng"), built by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), forms the most visible parts of the Great Wall of China today. A comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the Ming walls measure from

title: Guangwu Great Wall

text: Guangwu Great Wall The Guangwu Great Wall () is a section of the Great Wall of China located in Shanyin County, Shanxi. The section of the wall was integral to the defensive system built around the Yanmen Pass because nomadic invaders would first attack the Guangwu section since it was to the north and west of the pass. Nearby the Guangwu section are the present day inhabited villages of New Guangwu and Old Guangwu. New Guangwu was built during the Ming Dynasty on a site first occupied during the Warring States Period while Old Guangwu was built during the Song

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: de Góis reached the northwestern Jiayu Pass from India. Ivan Petlin's 1619 deposition for his Russian embassy mission offers an early account based on a first-hand encounter with the Great Wall, and mentions that in the course of the journey his embassy travelled alongside the Great Wall for ten days. Early European accounts were mostly modest and empirical, closely mirroring contemporary Chinese understanding of the Wall. However, when the Ming Great Wall began to take on a shape recognizable today, foreign accounts of the Wall slid into hyperbole. In the "Atlas Sinensis" published in 1665, the Jesuit Martino Martini described

title: Guangwu Great Wall

text: Dynasty and Liao Dynasty. The "Moon Gate" is a distinctive arched shaped door from the ruins of a watchtower. Guangwu Great Wall The Guangwu Great Wall () is a section of the Great Wall of China located in Shanyin County, Shanxi. The section of the wall was integral to the defensive system built around the Yanmen Pass because nomadic invaders would first attack the Guangwu section since it was to the north and west of the pass. Nearby the Guangwu section are the present day inhabited villages of New Guangwu and Old Guangwu. New Guangwu was built during the Ming

title: Great Wall of China

text: means of smoke or fire, and the fact that the path of the Great Wall also served as a transportation corridor. The frontier walls built by different dynasties have multiple courses. Collectively, they stretch from Dandong in the east to Lop Lake in the west, from present-day Sino-Russian border in the north to Qinghai in the south; along an arc that roughly delineates the edge of Mongolian steppe. A comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the walls built by the Ming dynasty measure . This is made up of sections of actual wall, of trenches and of

title: Ming Great Wall

text: Ming Great Wall The Ming Great Wall (明長城; "Ming changcheng"), built by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), forms the most visible parts of the Great Wall of China today. A comprehensive archaeological survey, using advanced technologies, has concluded that the Ming walls measure from Jiayu Pass in the west to the sea in Shanhai Pass, then looping over to terminate in Manchuria at the Hushan Great Wall. This is made up of sections of actual wall, of trenches and of natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. While the Ming walls are generally referred to as "Great Wall" ("changcheng") in

title: Great Wall of China

text: Great Wall was mainly built from rammed earth, stones, and wood. During the Ming, however, bricks were heavily used in many areas of the wall, as were materials such as tiles, lime, and stone. The size and weight of the bricks made them easier to work with than earth and stone, so construction quickened. Additionally, bricks could bear more weight and endure better than rammed earth. Stone can hold under its own weight better than brick, but is more difficult to use. Consequently, stones cut in rectangular shapes were used for the foundation, inner and outer brims, and gateways of

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: would be mostly followed by the later Ming wall west of Gubeikou, which includes reconstructed walls from Qi and Zhou. In more recent times, the reddish remnants of the Zhou ramparts in Hebei gave rise to the nickname "Red Wall". The Sui took power from the Northern Zhou in 581 before reuniting China in 589. Sui's founding emperor, Emperor Wen of Sui (r.581604), carried out considerable wall construction in 581 in Hebei and Shanxi to defend against Ishbara Qaghan of the Göktürks. The new walls proved insufficient in 582 when Ishbara Qaghan avoided them by riding west to raid Gansu

title: Great Wall of China

text: of what constitutes a "Great Wall" has not been agreed upon, making the full course of the Great Wall difficult to describe in its entirety, the course of the main Great Wall line following Ming constructions can be charted. The Jiayu Pass, located in Gansu province, is the western terminus of the Ming Great Wall. Although Han fortifications such as Yumen Pass and the Yang Pass exist further west, the extant walls leading to those passes are difficult to trace. From Jiayu Pass the wall travels discontinuously down the Hexi Corridor and into the deserts of Ningxia, where it enters

title: Great Wall of China hoax

text: papers dropped the story after a few days, the story did not die. Two weeks after the Denver headlines, John Lewis noticed that a large Eastern U.S. newspaper had picked up the story and included information not even in the original story. This newspaper included quotes from a Chinese mandarin confirming the story, with illustrations and comments about the tearing down of the wall. Eventually the story spread to newspapers all across the country and then into Europe. Although the story developed into different versions, the essence remained: Americans were going to China to tear down the Great Wall. 10

title: Great Wall of China

text: the western edge of the Yellow River loop at Yinchuan. Here the first major walls erected during the Ming dynasty cuts through the Ordos Desert to the eastern edge of the Yellow River loop. There at Piantou Pass "Piāntóuguān") in Xinzhou, Shanxi province, the Great Wall splits in two with the "Outer Great Wall" "Wài Chǎngchéng") extending along the Inner Mongolia border with Shanxi into Hebei province, and the "inner Great Wall" "Nèi Chǎngchéng") running southeast from Piantou Pass for some , passing through important passes like the Pingxing Pass and Yanmen Pass before joining the Outer Great Wall at

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: from China to inaugurate the Ming dynasty. The Mongols fled back to Mongolia, but even after numerous campaigns, the Mongol problem remained. During his early reign, Hongwu set up the "eight outer garrisons" close to the steppe and an inner line of forts more suitable for defence. The inner line was the forerunner to the Ming Great Wall. In 1373, as Ming forces encountered setbacks, Hongwu put more emphasis on defence and adopted Hua Yunlong's (華雲龍) suggestion to establish garrisons at 130 passes and other strategic points in the Beijing area. More positions were set up in the years up

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: constructions were defensive in nature, which marked a shift from the offensive walls of the preceding Emperor Wu and the rulers of the Warring States. By the early 40sAD the northern frontiers of China had undergone drastic change: the line of the imperial frontier followed not the advanced positions conquered by Emperor Wu but the rear defences indicated roughly by the modern (Ming dynasty) Great Wall. The Ordos region, northern Shanxi, and the upper Luan River basin around Chengde were abandoned and left to the control of the Xiongnu. The rest of the frontier remained somewhat intact until the end

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: Great Wall snaking over dramatic landscapes that tourists still see today. Wall construction continued until the demise of the Ming dynasty in 1644. In the decades that led to the fall of the Ming dynasty, the Ming court and the Great Wall itself had to deal with simultaneous internal rebellions and the Manchu invasions. In addition to their conquest of Liaodong, the Manchus had raided across the Great Wall for the first time in 1629, and again in 1634, 1638, and 1642. Meanwhile, the rebels led by warlord Li Zicheng had been gathering strength. In the early months of 1644,

title: Great Wall Motors

text: end.” A copyright infringement case in Shijiazhuang, China, however, was rejected, with the court claiming that "consumers would not be confused between the two" as they are "clearly different, particularly the front and rear parts of the vehicles". Great Wall Motors Great Wall Motors Company Limited is a Chinese automobile manufacturer headquartered in Baoding, Hebei, China. The company is named after the Great Wall of China and was formed in 1984. It is China's largest sport utility vehicle (SUV) and pick-up truck producer. It sells passenger cars and trucks under the Great Wall brand and SUVs under the Haval and

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: steppes. In the case of Manchuria, considered to be the sacred homeland by the ruling Manchu elites, some parts of the Ming Liaodong Wall were repaired so it could serve to control Han Chinese movement into Manchuria alongside the newly erected Willow Palisade. Culturally, the wall's symbolic role as a line between civilized society and barbarism was suppressed by the Qing, who were keen to weaken the Han culturalism that had been propagated by the Ming. As a result, no special attention was paid to the Great Wall until the mid-Qing dynasty, when Westerners started to show interest in the

title: Great Wall of China

text: stone and bricks from the hills, this portion of the Great Wall is high and wide. One of the most striking sections of the Ming Great Wall is where it climbs extremely steep slopes in Jinshanling. There it runs long, ranges from in height, and across the bottom, narrowing up to across the top. Wangjinglou "Wàngjīng Lóu") is one of Jinshanling's 67 watchtowers, above sea level. Southeast of Jinshanling is the Mutianyu Great Wall which winds along lofty, cragged mountains from the southeast to the northwest for . It is connected with Juyongguan Pass to the west and Gubeikou to

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: The reason for this, according to "The New Yorker" journalist Peter Hessler, is that the Great Wall fits into neither the study of political institutions (favoured by Chinese historians) nor the excavation of tombs (favoured by Chinese archeologists). Some of the void left by academia is being filled by independent research from Great Wall enthusiasts such as ex-Xinhua reporter Cheng Dalin (成大林) and self-funded scholar David Spindler. History of the Great Wall of China The history of the Great Wall of China began when fortifications built by various states during the Spring and Autumn (771–476) and Warring States periods (475–221)

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: History of the Great Wall of China The history of the Great Wall of China began when fortifications built by various states during the Spring and Autumn (771–476) and Warring States periods (475–221) were connected by the first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, to protect his newly founded Qin dynasty (221–206) against incursions by nomads from Inner Asia. The walls were built of rammed earth, constructed using forced labour, and by 212 ran from Gansu to the coast of southern Manchuria. Later dynasties adopted different policies towards northern frontier defense. The Han (202 – 220), the Northern Qi (550–574),

title: Great Wall of China

text: natural defensive barriers such as hills and rivers. Another archaeological survey found that the entire wall with all of its branches measures out to be . Today, the Great Wall is generally recognized as one of the most impressive architectural feats in history. The collection of fortifications known as the Great Wall of China has historically had a number of different names in both Chinese and English. In Chinese histories, the term "Long Wall(s)" (長城, "changcheng") appears in Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian", where it referred both to the separate great walls built between and north of the

title: Great Wall of China hoax

text: Great Wall of China hoax The Great Wall of China hoax was a faked newspaper story concocted on June 25, 1899 by four reporters in Denver, Colorado about bids by American businesses on a contract to demolish the Great Wall of China and construct a road in its place. The story was reprinted by a number of newspapers. In 1939, an urban legend began when Denver songwriter Harry Lee Wilber claimed in a magazine article that the 1899 hoax had ignited the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. The radio commentators Paul Harvey and Dwight Sands perpetuated the legend. Variations have been

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: based on the conception of a perennial Great Wall: Karl Marx took the Wall to represent the stagnation of the Chinese society and economy, Owen Lattimore supposed that the Great Wall demonstrated a need to divide the nomadic way of life from the agricultural communities of China, and John K. Fairbank posited that the Wall played a part in upholding the Sinocentric world order. Despite the significance that the Great Wall seemed to have, scholarly treatment of the Wall itself remained scant during the 20th century. Joseph Needham bemoaned this dearth when he was compiling the section on walls for

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: the new China. Quarrying machines and even dynamite were used to dismantle the Wall, and the pilfered materials were used for construction. As China opened up in the 1980s, reformist leader Deng Xiaoping initiated the "Love our China and restore our Great Wall" campaign () to repair and preserve the Great Wall. The Great Wall was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987. However, while tourism boomed over the years, slipshod restoration methods have left sections of the Great Wall near Beijing "looking like a Hollywood set" in the words of the "National Geographic News". The less prominent

title: Walking Through the Great Wall of China

text: Walking Through the Great Wall of China "Walking Through the Great Wall of China" is a magic trick performed by the illusionist David Copperfield, in which he apparently enters the Great Wall of China from one side and emerges on the other side in front of a live audience on both sides of the wall and over it. This illusion was performed in his ninth TV special "The Magic of David Copperfield VIII: Walking Through the Great Wall of China" (1986). It is one of the illusions Copperfield performed only once in his career. On both sides of the wall

title: Great Wall of China

text: in Western sources include those of Gaspar da Cruz, Bento de Goes, Matteo Ricci, and Bishop Juan González de Mendoza. In 1559, in his work "A Treatise of China and the Adjoyning Regions," Gaspar da Cruz offers an early discussion of the Great Wall. Perhaps the first recorded instance of a European actually entering China via the Great Wall came in 1605, when the Portuguese Jesuit brother Bento de Góis reached the northwestern Jiayu Pass from India. Early European accounts were mostly modest and empirical, closely mirroring contemporary Chinese understanding of the Wall, although later they slid into hyperbole, including

title: Great Wall of China

text: Sihaiye in Beijing's Yanqing County. The sections of the Great Wall around Beijing municipality are especially famous: they were frequently renovated and are regularly visited by tourists today. The Badaling Great Wall near Zhangjiakou is the most famous stretch of the Wall, for this is the first section to be opened to the public in the People's Republic of China, as well as the showpiece stretch for foreign dignitaries. South of Badaling is the Juyong Pass; when used by the Chinese to protect their land, this section of the wall had many guards to defend China's capital Beijing. Made of

title: Walking Through the Great Wall of China

text: wall, then he throws away the sheets to reveal himself. The whole illusion is filmed in long take, thanks to a large camera boom that makes a complete rotation over the wall. Copperfield's heart is "monitored" during the whole illusion. Walking Through the Great Wall of China "Walking Through the Great Wall of China" is a magic trick performed by the illusionist David Copperfield, in which he apparently enters the Great Wall of China from one side and emerges on the other side in front of a live audience on both sides of the wall and over it. This illusion

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: academics such as Liang Qichao, who tried to counter the West's fantastic version of the Great Wall, Sun Yat-sen held the view that Qin Shi Huang's wall preserved the Chinese race, and without it Chinese culture would not have developed enough to expand to the south and assimilate foreign conquerors. Such an endorsement from the "Father of Modern China" started to transform the Great Wall into a national symbol in the Chinese consciousness, though this transformation was hampered by conflicting views of nationalism with regard to the nascent "new China." The failure of the new Republic of China fanned disillusionment

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: of the Volunteers", whose words came from a stanza in Tian Han's 1934 poem entitled "The Great Wall". The song, originally from the anti-Japanese movie "Children of Troubled Times", enjoyed continued popularity in China and was selected as the provisional national anthem of the People's Republic of China (PRC) at its establishment in 1949. In 1952, the scholar-turned-bureaucrat Guo Moruo laid out the first modern proposal to repair the Great Wall. Five years later, the renovated Badaling became the first section to be opened to the public since the establishment of the PRC. The Badaling Great Wall has since become

title: The Great Wall of China (short story)

text: The Great Wall of China (short story) "The Great Wall of China" (original title "Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer", literally "During the construction of the Great Wall of China") is a short story by Franz Kafka. While written in 1917, it was not published until 1930, seven years after his death. Its first publication occurred in "Der Morgen", a German literary magazine. A year later, Max Brod included it in "Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer", the first posthumous collection of short stories by Franz Kafka. Contained within the story is a parable that was separately published as "A Message from

title: The Great Wall of China (short story)

title: Great Wall of China

text: ... I've asked various people, particularly Shuttle guys, that have been many orbits around China in the daytime, and the ones I've talked to didn't see it." In October 2003, Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei stated that he had not been able to see the Great Wall of China. In response, the European Space Agency (ESA) issued a press release reporting that from an orbit between , the Great Wall is visible to the naked eye. In an attempt to further clarify things, the ESA published a picture of a part of the "Great Wall" photographed from low orbit. However, in

title: Great Wall China Adoption

text: Services. Great Wall China Adoption Great Wall China Adoption is an adoption agency based in Austin, Texas. It is non-profit and accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA). The specialty of this organization is placing orphan Chinese children with permanent families of their own in accordance with Chinese and U.S. adoption laws. The president of Great Wall China Adoption is Snow Wu. In 1996, the Chinese government established the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA), prompting Snow Wu to found Great Wall China Adoption later that year. Ms. Wu is also a Board Member of the Joint Council on International

title: Great Wall China Adoption

text: Great Wall China Adoption Great Wall China Adoption is an adoption agency based in Austin, Texas. It is non-profit and accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA). The specialty of this organization is placing orphan Chinese children with permanent families of their own in accordance with Chinese and U.S. adoption laws. The president of Great Wall China Adoption is Snow Wu. In 1996, the Chinese government established the China Center of Adoption Affairs (CCAA), prompting Snow Wu to found Great Wall China Adoption later that year. Ms. Wu is also a Board Member of the Joint Council on International Children's

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: suffice to encircle the Earth at the equator twice. The illustrations of the Great Wall by Lieutenant Henry William Parish during this mission would be reproduced in influential works such as Thomas Allom's 1845 "China, in a series of views". Exposure to such works brought many foreign visitors to the Great Wall after China opened its borders as a result of the nation's defeat in the Opium Wars of the mid-19th century at the hands of Britain and the other Western powers. The Juyong Pass near Beijing and the "Old Dragon Head," where the Great Wall meets the sea at

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: stretches of the Great Wall did not get as much attention. In 2002 the New York-based World Monuments Fund put the Great Wall on its list of the World's 100 Most Endangered Sites. In 2003 the Chinese government began to enact laws to protect the Great Wall. In China, one of the first individuals to attempt a multi-dynastic history of the Great Wall was the 17th-century scholar Gu Yanwu. More recently, in the 1930s and 1940s, Wang Guoliang () and Shou Pengfei () produced exhaustive studies that culled extant literary records to date and mapped the courses of early border

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: the Great Wall with the failed Maginot Line of the French in World War II. However, independent scholar David Spindler notes that the Wall, being only part of a complex foreign policy, received "disproportionate blame" because it was the most obvious relic of that policy. The usefulness of the Great Wall as a defence line against northern nomads became questionable under the Qing dynasty, since their territory encompassed vast areas inside and outside the wall: China proper, Manchuria, and Mongolia were all under Qing control. So instead, the Great Wall became the means to limit Han Chinese movement into the

title: Great Wall of China hoax

text: Robert Medill McBride and Neil Pritchie. Wilber, who composed the music for "Back to Dear Old Denver Town" (1912), was the first manager of the Fox Fullerton Theater (Fullerton, California) after it was constructed in 1924–25. The legend was also told in "More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story" (1981). In 2012, the Denver Theater Center presented "The Great Wall Story," a play by Lloyd Suh, based on the incident. Great Wall of China hoax The Great Wall of China hoax was a faked newspaper story concocted on June 25, 1899 by four reporters in Denver, Colorado about

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: Great Wall Gap (長城口), so named because the southern Yan wall of the Warring States period crossed the Juma River here into Liao territory. The Great Wall Gap saw action in 979, 988989, and 1004, and a Song fortress was built there in 980. Intermittent wars between the Song and the Liao lasted until January 1005, when a truce was called and led to the Treaty of Chanyuan. This agreement, among other things, required the Song to pay tribute to the Liao, recognized the Song and Liao as equals, and demarcated the Song–Liao border, the course of which became more

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: his "Science and Civilisation in China": "There is no lack of travelers' description of the Great Wall, but studies based on modern scholarship are few and far between, whether in Chinese or Western languages." In 1990, Arthur Waldron published the influential "The Great Wall: From History to Myth", where he challenged the notion of a unitary Great Wall maintained since antiquity, dismissing it as a modern myth. Waldron's approach prompted a re-examination of the Wall in Western scholarship. Still, as of 2008, there is not yet a full authoritative text in any language that is devoted to the Great Wall.

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: the north. Khublai Khan dealt with such threats by using both military blockades and economic sanctions. Although he established garrisons along the steppe frontier from the Juyan Lake Basin in the far west to Yingchang in the east, Khublai Khan and the Yuan emperors after him did not add to the Great Wall (except for the ornate Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass). When the Venetian traveller Marco Polo wrote of his experiences in China during the reign of Khublai Khan, he did not mention a Great Wall. In 1368, the Hongwu Emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang, r.136898) ousted the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty

title: The Great Wall of China (short story)

text: the Emperor" ("Eine kaiserliche Botschaft") in 1919 in the collection "Ein Landarzt" ("A Country Doctor"). Some sub-themes of the story include why the wall was built piecemeal (in small sections in many different places), the relationship of the Chinese with the past and the present and the emperor's imperceptible presence. The story is told in first person by an older man from a southern province. The first English translation by Willa and Edwin Muir was published by Martin Secker in London in 1933. It appeared in "The Great Wall of China. Stories and Reflections" (New York City: Schocken Books, 1946).

title: Great Wall of China

text: Qing period did "Long Wall" become the catch-all term to refer to the many border walls regardless of their location or dynastic origin, equivalent to the English "Great Wall". The current English name evolved from accounts of from early modern European travelers. By the 19th century, "The Great Wall of China" had become standard in English, French, and German, although other European languages continue to refer to it as "the Chinese wall." The Chinese were already familiar with the techniques of wall-building by the time of the Spring and Autumn period between the 8th and 5th centuries BC. During this

title: Great Wall of China

text: the east. This section was one of the first to be renovated following the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. At the edge of the Bohai Gulf is Shanhai Pass, considered the traditional end of the Great Wall and the "First Pass Under Heaven". The part of the wall inside Shanhai Pass that meets the sea is named the "Old Dragon Head". north of Shanhai Pass is Jiaoshan Great Wall (焦山長城), the site of the first mountain of the Great Wall. northeast from Shanhaiguan is Jiumenkou "Jiǔménkǒu"), which is the only portion of the wall that was built as a bridge.

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: lease of life in the eyes of the Chinese. During the 1933 defence of the Great Wall, inadequately-equipped Chinese soldiers held off double their number of Japanese troops for several months. Using the cover of the Great Wall, the Chinese – who were at times only armed with broadswords – were able to beat off a Japanese advance that had the support of aerial bombardment. With the Chinese forces eventually overrun, the subsequent Tanggu Truce stipulated that the Great Wall was to become a demilitarized zone separating China and the newly created Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo. Even so, the

title: Great Wall of China

text: a press release a week later, they acknowledged that the "Great Wall" in the picture was actually a river. Leroy Chiao, a Chinese-American astronaut, took a photograph from the International Space Station that shows the wall. It was so indistinct that the photographer was not certain he had actually captured it. Based on the photograph, the "China Daily" later reported that the Great Wall can be seen from 'space' with the naked eye, under favorable viewing conditions, if one knows exactly where to look. However, the resolution of a camera can be much higher than the human visual system, and

title: Underground Great Wall of China

text: Underground Great Wall of China The Underground Great Wall of China ( ) is the informal name for the vast system of tunnels China uses to store and transport mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. Due to the great secrecy surrounding the tunnels, not much information about them is publicly available; however, it is believed that the tunnels allow for mobile ICBMs to be shuttled around to different silos, and possibly stored in reinforced underground bunkers. This greatly enhances the ICBM's chance of survival in a direct nuclear strike, which enables their use in a second strike unlike ICBMs based in static

title: Underground Great Wall of China

text: that the tunnels are not likely to be breached by conventional or low-yield earth-penetrating nuclear weapons such as the B61-11. Underground Great Wall of China The Underground Great Wall of China ( ) is the informal name for the vast system of tunnels China uses to store and transport mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. Due to the great secrecy surrounding the tunnels, not much information about them is publicly available; however, it is believed that the tunnels allow for mobile ICBMs to be shuttled around to different silos, and possibly stored in reinforced underground bunkers. This greatly enhances the ICBM's chance

title: Great Wall of China

text: during the Yuan dynasty "ca." 1346, had heard about China's Great Wall, possibly before he had arrived in China. He wrote that the wall is "sixty days' travel" from Zeitun (modern Quanzhou) in his travelogue "Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling". He associated it with the legend of the wall mentioned in the Qur'an, which Dhul-Qarnayn (commonly associated with Alexander the Great) was said to have erected to protect people near the land of the rising sun from the savages of Gog and Magog. However, Ibn Battuta could find no one who

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: a staple stop for foreign dignitaries who come to China, beginning with Nepali prime minister Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala in 1960, and most notably the American president Richard Nixon in his historic 1972 visit to China. To date, Badaling is still the most visited stretch of the Great Wall. Other stretches did not fare so well. During the Cultural Revolution (196676), hundreds of kilometres of the Great Wall—already damaged in the wars of the last century and eroded by wind and rain—were deliberately destroyed by fervent Red Guards who regarded it as part of the "Four Olds" to be eradicated in

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: with traditional Chinese culture and ushered in the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement of the mid-1910s and 1920s that aimed to dislodge China's future trajectory from its past. Naturally, the Great Wall of China came under attack as a symbol of the past. For example, an influential writer of this period, Lu Xun, harshly criticized the "mighty and accursed Great Wall" in a short essay: "In reality, it has never served any purpose than to make countless workers labour to death in vain ... [It] surrounds everyone." The Sino-Japanese conflict (193145) gave the Great Wall a new

title: Great Wall of China

text: the naked eye, even from low orbit, and would require visual acuity of 20/3 (7.7 times better than normal). Astronaut William Pogue thought he had seen it from Skylab but discovered he was actually looking at the Grand Canal of China near Beijing. He spotted the Great Wall with binoculars, but said that "it wasn't visible to the unaided eye." U.S. Senator Jake Garn claimed to be able to see the Great Wall with the naked eye from a space shuttle orbit in the early 1980s, but his claim has been disputed by several U.S. astronauts. Veteran U.S. astronaut Gene

title: Great Wall of China

text: the wall. Battlements line the uppermost portion of the vast majority of the wall, with defensive gaps a little over tall, and about wide. From the parapets, guards could survey the surrounding land. Communication between the army units along the length of the Great Wall, including the ability to call reinforcements and warn garrisons of enemy movements, was of high importance. Signal towers were built upon hill tops or other high points along the wall for their visibility. Wooden gates could be used as a trap against those going through. Barracks, stables, and armories were built near the wall's inner

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: the Shanhai Pass, proved popular destinations for these wall watchers. The travelogues of the later 19th century in turn further contributed to the elaboration and propagation of the Great Wall myth. Examples of this myth's growth are the false but widespread belief that the Great Wall of China is visible from the Moon or Mars. The Xinhai Revolution in 1911 forced the abdication of the last Qing Emperor Puyi and ended China's last imperial dynasty. The revolutionaries, headed by Sun Yat-sen, were concerned with creating a modern sense of national identity in the chaotic post-imperial era. In contrast to Chinese

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: 923. The Khitan leader, Abaoji's second son Yelü Deguang, convinced Shi to found a new dynasty (the Later Jin, 936946), and received the crucial border region known as the Sixteen Prefectures in return. With the Sixteen Prefectures, the Khitan now possessed all the passes and fortifications that controlled access to the plains of northern China, including the main Great Wall line. Settling in the transitional area between agricultural lands and the steppe, the Khitans became semi-sedentary like their Xianbei predecessors of the Northern Wei, and started to use Chinese methods of defence. In 1026 walls were built through central Manchuria

title: Great Wall of China

text: Cernan has stated: "At Earth orbit of high, the Great Wall of China is, indeed, visible to the naked eye." Ed Lu, Expedition 7 Science Officer aboard the International Space Station, adds that, "it's less visible than a lot of other objects. And you have to know where to look." In 2001, Neil Armstrong stated about the view from Apollo 11: "I do not believe that, at least with my eyes, there would be any man-made object that I could see. I have not yet found somebody who has told me they've seen the Wall of China from Earth orbit.

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: were reassigned to manage the Ji–Chang Defense Commands and step up the defences of the capital region. Under their ambitious and energetic management, 1200 brick watchtowers were built along the Great Wall from 1569 to 1571. These included the first large-scale use of hollow watchtowers on the Wall: up until this point, most previous towers along the Great Wall had been solid, with a small hut on top for a sentry to take shelter from the elements and Mongol arrows; the Ji–Chang towers built from 1569 onwards were hollow brick structures, allowing soldiers interior space to live, store food and

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: 30,000 settler families to colonize the newly conquered territories. Wall configurations were changed to reflect the new borders under the Qin. General Meng Tian erected walls beyond the northern loop of the Yellow River, effectively linking the border walls of Qin, Zhao, and Yan. Concurrent to the building of the frontier wall was the destruction of the walls within China that used to divide one warring state from another—contrary to the outer walls, which were built to stabilize the newly united China, the inner walls threatened the unity of the empire. In the following year, 214BC, Qin Shi Huang ordered

title: Great Wall of Gorgan

text: many difficulties in development and agricultural projects, archaeologists have been assigned to mark the boundary of the historical find by laying cement blocks. Larger than Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall taken together (two separate structures in Britain that marked the northern limits of the Roman Empire), it has been called the greatest monument of its kind between Europe and China. The wall is second only to the combined walls that make up the Great Wall of China as the longest defensive wall in existence, and although now in substantial disrepair, it was perhaps even more solidly built than the

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: several hundred years. Soon after the establishment of the Tang dynasty, during the reign of Emperor Taizong (r.626649), the threat of Göktürk tribesmen from the north prompted some court officials to suggest drafting corvée labourers to repair the aging Great Wall. Taizong scoffed at the suggestion, alluding to the Sui walls built in vain: "The Emperor Yang of Sui made the people labor to construct the Great Wall in order to defend against the Turks, but in the end this was of no use." Instead of building walls, Taizong claimed he "need merely to establish Li Shiji in Jinyang for

title: Hushan Great Wall

text: Koreans consider to have first built Bakjak (Hushan). However, the Yan and Qin Great Wall was known to have extended through Dandong to modern Pyongan Province in North Korea. Qin dynasty relics have been discovered at the Great Wall in south Chifeng, to the west of Dandong. Hushan Great Wall The Hushan or Tiger Mountain Great Wall (), known to Koreans as Bakjak Fortress (Hangul :박작성 Hanja :泊汋城), is the most easterly known part of the Great Wall of China. About 600 metres of remains were excavated here in 1989. In 1992, a section of wall was renovated and opened

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: northern China known as the Sixteen Kingdoms, until they were all consolidated by the Xianbei-led Northern Wei dynasty (386535). As Northern Wei became more economically dependent on agriculture, the Xianbei emperors made a conscious decision to adopt Chinese customs, including passive methods of frontier defence. In 423, a defence line over 2,000 "li" () long was built to resist the Rouran; its path roughly followed the old Zhao wall from Chicheng County in Hebei Province to Wuyuan County, Inner Mongolia. In 446, 100,000 men were put to work building an inner wall from Yanqing, passing south of the Wei capital

title: Great Wall of Gorgan

text: most ambitious and sophisticated frontier walls" ever built in the world, and the most important of the Sassanian defense fortifications. It is long and wide, and features over 30 fortresses spaced at intervals of between . It is surpassed only by the Great Wall of China as the longest defensive wall in existence. Among archaeologists the wall is also known as "The Red Snake" because of the colour of its bricks. In Persian, it was popularized by the name "Alexander Barrier" ( "Sadd-i-Iskandar") or "Alexander's Wall", as Alexander the Great is thought by early Muslims to have passed through the

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: For long an object of fascination for foreigners, the wall is now a revered national symbol and a popular tourist destination. The conflict between the Chinese and the nomads, from which the need for the Great Wall arose, stemmed from differences in geography. The 15" isohyet marks the extent of settled agriculture, dividing the fertile fields of China to the south and the semi-arid grasslands of Inner Asia to the north. The climates and the topography of the two regions led to distinct modes of societal development. According to the model by sinologist Karl August Wittfogel, the loess soils of

title: Defense of the Great Wall

text: Defense of the Great Wall The Defense of the Great Wall () (January 1 – May 31, 1933) was a campaign between the armies of Republic of China and Empire of Japan, which took place before the Second Sino-Japanese War officially commenced in 1937. It is known in Japanese as and in many English sources as the First Battle of Hopei. During this campaign, Japan successfully captured the Inner Mongolian province of Rehe from the Chinese warlord Zhang Xueliang and annexed it to the new state of Manchukuo, whose southern frontier was thus extended to the Great Wall of China.

title: A Great Wall

text: chief pleasure of "A Great Wall" is its observation of the different attitudes toward the daily process of living in China and the United States." A Great Wall A Great Wall is a 1986 comedy-drama film written, directed and starring Peter Wang. It was the first American feature film shot in the People's Republic of China and was Kelvin Han Yee's first film. When a Silicon Valley Chinese American executive goes back to his homeland of China for the first time in 30 years, he and his family encounter many culture clashes between the lives that they lead in the

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: border areas. By the mid-16th century, Yu's wall in the Ordos had seen expansion into an extensive defence system. It contained two defence lines: Yu's wall, called the "great border" (大邊, "dàbiān"), and a "secondary border" (二邊, "èrbiān") built by Yang Yiqing (14541530) behind it. Following the success of the Ordos walls, Yu Zijun proposed construction of a further wall that would extend from the Yellow River bend in the Ordos to the Sihaiye Pass (四海冶口; in present-day Yanqing County) near the capital Beijing, running a distance of more than 1300 "li" (about ). The project received approval in 1485,

title: Rise of the Great Wall

text: "Rise of the Great Wall" set a new standard for ATV because most of its prior television series were not as good as those produced by its rival, TVB. Rise of the Great Wall Rise of the Great Wall is a 1986 Hong Kong television series based on the life of Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China and founder of the Qin dynasty. The series is one of the biggest productions by ATV. The series follows the life of Ying Zheng, the ruler of the Qin state in the Warring States period, who eventually unified China, established the

title: A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China

text: the book, calling it gossip-filled and a "slim" contribution to scholarship. Despite these mixed reviews, "A Great Wall" won both the Lionel Gelber Prize and the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award in 2000. A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History (1999) is a history of international relations written by journalist Patrick Tyler. The book details high level relations between the United States and China from the Nixon administration to the Clinton Administration. Primarily focused on the actions and motives of members of the president's cabinet and their

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: of the Han dynasty, with the Dunhuang manuscripts (discovered in 1900) indicating that the military establishment in the northwest was maintained for most of the Eastern Han period. Following the end of the Han dynasty in 220, China disintegrated into warlord states, which in 280 were briefly reunited under the Western Jin dynasty (265316). There are ambiguous accounts of the Jin rebuilding the Qin wall, but these walls apparently offered no resistance during the Wu Hu uprising, when the nomadic tribes of the steppe evicted the Chinese court from northern China. What followed was a succession of short-lived states in

title: Great Wall of China hoax

text: to discuss possible ideas. Some stories, such as New York detectives tracking kidnappers of a rich heiress or the creation of a powerful company that would compete with the equally powerful Colorado Fuel and Iron Company were ruled out, as stories set in the United States were more likely to be checked and verified. The reporters then began running through countries such as Germany, Russia, and Japan until one of the reporters suggested China. John Lewis grew excited and exclaimed, "That's it, the Great Wall of China! Must be 50 years since that old pile's been in the news. Let's

title: Commune by the Great Wall

text: di Venezia in 2002 and bestowed a special prize. Zhang Xin, the project's creator and investor, was recognized for her “bold personal initiative.” Centre Pompidou, in Paris, houses the exhibited model, as its first permanent collection from China. Commune by the Great Wall The Commune by the Great Wall (Chinese: 长城脚下的公社) is a SOHO China-managed boutique hotel, in Beijing, China. The Commune by the Great Wall is near the Badaling section of the Great Wall. The Commune consists of private villas designed by twelve Asian architects. Its clubhouse and villas are in a valley totaling eight square kilometers. It also

title: Defense of the Great Wall

text: Shanhaiguan is the fortified eastern end of the Great Wall of China, where the Great Wall meets the ocean. Per the terms of the 1901 Boxer Rebellion accord, the Imperial Japanese Army maintained a small garrison of around 200 men at Shanhaiguan. On the night of 1 January 1933, the Japanese garrison commander staged an "incident" by exploding a few hand grenades and firing a few shots. The Kwantung Army used this as an excuse to demand that the Chinese 626th Regiment of the Northeastern Army, guarding Shanhaiguan, evacuate the pass defenses. When the Chinese garrison refused, the Japanese 8th

title: Rise of the Great Wall

text: Rise of the Great Wall Rise of the Great Wall is a 1986 Hong Kong television series based on the life of Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China and founder of the Qin dynasty. The series is one of the biggest productions by ATV. The series follows the life of Ying Zheng, the ruler of the Qin state in the Warring States period, who eventually unified China, established the Qin dynasty, and became the First Emperor of a unified China. The series also includes a subplot about Jing Ke, an assassin who attempted to take the emperor's life.

title: A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China

text: A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China: An Investigative History (1999) is a history of international relations written by journalist Patrick Tyler. The book details high level relations between the United States and China from the Nixon administration to the Clinton Administration. Primarily focused on the actions and motives of members of the president's cabinet and their counterparts in China, the book illustrates the large role personal politics and bureaucratic infighting had on the direction of China policy in the United States. Well received in the popular press, the book garnered mixed reviews

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: Emperor Xuanzong's reign, the general Zhang Yue built a wall 90 "li" () to the north of Huairong (懷戎; present-day Huailai County, Hebei), although it remains unclear whether he erected new walls or only reinforced the existing Northern Qi walls. The Great Wall, or the ruins of it, features prominently in the subset of Tang poetry known as "biansai shi" (邊塞詩, "frontier verse") written by scholar-officials assigned along the frontier. Emphasizing the poets' loneliness and longing for home while hinting at the pointlessness of their posts, these frontier verses are characterized by imagery of desolate landscapes, including the ruins of

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: determined defence of the Great Wall made it a symbol of Chinese patriotism and the resoluteness of the Chinese people. The Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong picked up this symbol in his poetry during his "Long March" escaping from Kuomintang prosecution. Near the end of the trek in 1935, Mao wrote the poem "Mount Liupan" that contains the well-known line that would be carved in stone along the Great Wall in the present day: "Those who fail to reach the Great Wall are not true men" (). Another noteworthy reference to the Great Wall is in the song "The March

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: structure. The existence of a colossal wall in Asia had circulated in the Middle East and the West even before the first Europeans arrived in China by sea. The late antiquity historian Ammianus Marcellinus (330?395?) mentioned "summits of lofty walls" enclosing the land of Seres, the country that the Romans believed to be at the eastern end of the Silk Road. In legend, the tribes of Gog and Magog were said to have been locked out by Alexander the Great with walls of steel. Later Arab writers and travellers, such as Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (12481318) and Ibn Battuta (13041377), would erroneously

title: History of the Great Wall of China

text: that the Great Wall traversed, the sparse populations of these areas, and the frigid winter climate. Although the walls were rammed earth, so the bulk of the building material could be found "in situ", transportation of additional supplies and labour remained difficult for the reasons named above. The sinologist Derk Bodde posits in "The Cambridge History of China" that "for every man whom Meng Tian could put to work at the scene of actual construction, dozens must have been needed to build approaching roads and to transport supplies." This is supported by the Han dynasty statesman Zhufu Yan's description of

title: A Great Wall

text: A Great Wall A Great Wall is a 1986 comedy-drama film written, directed and starring Peter Wang. It was the first American feature film shot in the People's Republic of China and was Kelvin Han Yee's first film. When a Silicon Valley Chinese American executive goes back to his homeland of China for the first time in 30 years, he and his family encounter many culture clashes between the lives that they lead in the United States and the lives of their relatives in China. The finale of the movie includes an exciting table tennis match involving the Chinese-American son

title: Great Wall Motors

text: Great Wall Motors Great Wall Motors Company Limited is a Chinese automobile manufacturer headquartered in Baoding, Hebei, China. The company is named after the Great Wall of China and was formed in 1984. It is China's largest sport utility vehicle (SUV) and pick-up truck producer. It sells passenger cars and trucks under the Great Wall brand and SUVs under the Haval and WEY brands. In 2016, Great Wall Motors set a historical sales record of 1,074,471 cars worldwide, increased by 26% compared to 2015. Established in 1984, Great Wall initially manufactured only trucks, not producing a sedan car until 2010.

title: The Great Wall (film)

text: The Great Wall (film) The Great Wall () is a 2016 monster film directed by Zhang Yimou, with a screenplay by Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro and Tony Gilroy, from a story by Max Brooks, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz. The China-US co-production stars Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, and Andy Lau. It is Zhang's first English-language film. Principal photography for the film began on March 30, 2015, in Qingdao, China, and it premiered in Beijing on December 6, 2016. It was released by China Film Group in China on December 16, 2016, and in the United States