vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
History of the Great Wall of China
As the Han -- Xiongnu War progressed in favour of the Han , the Wall became maintained and extended beyond Qin lines . In 127 BC , General Wei Qing invaded the much - contested Ordos region as far as the Qin fortifications set up by Meng Tian . In this way , Wei Qing reconquered the irrigable lands north of the Ordos and restored the spur of defences protecting that territory from the steppe . In addition to rebuilding the walls , archeologists believe that the Han also erected thousands of kilometres of walls from Hebei to Inner Mongolia during Emperor Wu 's reign . The fortifications here include embankments , beacon stations , and forts , all constructed with a combination of tamped - earth cores and stone frontages . From the Ordos Loop , the sporadic and non-continuous Han Great Wall followed the northern edge of the Hexi Corridor through the cities of Wuwei , Zhangye , and Jiuquan , leading into the Juyan Lake Basin , and terminating in two places : the Yumen Pass in the north , or the Yang Pass to the south , both in the vicinity of Dunhuang . Yumen Pass was the most westerly of all Han Chinese fortifications -- further west than the western terminus of the Ming Great Wall at Jiayu Pass , about 460 kilometres ( 290 mi ) to the east . The garrisons of the watchtowers on the wall were supported by civilian farming and by military agricultural colonies known as tuntian . Behind this line of fortifications , the Han government was able to maintain its settlements and its communications to the Western Regions in central Asia , generally secure from attacks from the north .
History of the Great Wall of China
Xinjiang , considered part of the Turkestan region , consists of an amalgamation of deserts , oases , and dry steppe barely suitable for agriculture . When influence from the steppe powers of Mongolia waned , the various Central Asian oasis kingdoms and nomadic clans like the Göktürks and Uyghurs were able to form their own states and confederations that threatened China at times . China proper is connected to this area by the Hexi Corridor , a narrow string of oases bounded by the Gobi Desert to the north and the high Tibetan Plateau to the south . In addition to considerations of frontier defence , the Hexi Corridor also formed an important part of the Silk Road trade route . Thus it was also in China 's economic interest to control this stretch of land , and hence the Great Wall 's western terminus is in this corridor -- the Yumen Pass during Han times and the Jiayu Pass during the Ming dynasty and thereafter .
History of the Great Wall of China
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 ( 265 -- 316 ) . 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 northern China known as the Sixteen Kingdoms , until they were all consolidated by the Xianbei - led Northern Wei dynasty ( 386 -- 535 ) .
History of the Great Wall of China
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 , 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 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 June 5 . 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 .
Great Wall of China
In 2009 , 180 km of previously unknown sections of the wall concealed by hills , trenches and rivers were discovered with the help of infrared range finders and GPS devices . In March and April 2015 nine sections with a total length of more than 10 km ( 6 mi ) , believed to be part of the Great Wall , were discovered along the border of Ningxia autonomous region and Gansu province .
Great Wall of China
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 .
History of the Great Wall of China
Meng Tian 's settlements in the north were abandoned , and the Xiongnu nomads moved back into the Ordos Loop as the Qin empire became consumed by widespread rebellion due to public discontent . Owen Lattimore concluded that the whole project relied upon military power to enforce agriculture on a land more suited for herding , resulting in `` the anti-historical paradox of attempting two mutually exclusive forms of development simultaneously '' that was doomed to fail .
History of the Great Wall of China
Since then , many scholars have operated under the belief that the Great Wall continually defended China 's border against the steppe nomads for two thousand years . For example , the 18th - century sinologist Joseph de Guignes assigned macrohistorical importance to such walls when he advanced the theory that the Qin construction forced the Xiongnu to migrate west to Europe and , becoming known as the Huns , ultimately contributed to the decline of the Roman Empire . Some have attempted to make general statements regarding Chinese society and foreign policy 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 .
History of the Great Wall of China
In the northwest , the Song were in conflict with the Western Xia , since they occupied what the Song considered as Chinese land lost during the Tang dynasty . The Song utilized the walls built during the reign of Qin 's King Zhaoxiang of the Warring States period , making it the Song -- Western Xia border , but the topography of the area was not as sharp and distinct as the Song -- Liao defences to the east . The border general Cao Wei ( 曹 瑋 ; 973 -- 1030 ) deemed the Old Wall itself insufficient to slow a Tangut cavalry attack , and had a deep trench dug alongside . This trench , between 15 and 20 metres ( 49 and 66 feet ) in width and depth , proved an effective defence , but in 1002 the Tanguts caught the Song patrollers off guard and filled the trench to cross the Old Wall . Later , in 1042 , the Tanguts turned the trench against the Song by removing the bridges over it , thereby trapping the retreating army of Ge Huaimin ( 葛懷敏 ) before annihilating it at the Battle of Dingchuan Fortress ( 定 川 寨 ) .
Great Wall of China
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 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 ( t 偏 頭 關 , s 偏 头 关 , Piāntóuguān ) in Xinzhou , Shanxi province , the Great Wall splits in two with the `` Outer Great Wall '' ( t 外 長城 , s 外 长城 , Wài Chǎngchéng ) extending along the Inner Mongolia border with Shanxi into Hebei province , and the `` inner Great Wall '' ( t 內 長城 , s 內 长城 , Nèi Chǎngchéng ) running southeast from Piantou Pass for some 400 km ( 250 mi ) , passing through important passes like the Pingxing Pass and Yanmen Pass before joining the Outer Great Wall at Sihaiye ( 四海 冶 , Sìhǎiyě ) , in Beijing 's Yanqing County .
Great Wall of China
Although a formal definition 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 .
History of the Great Wall of China
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 ( 220 -- 589 ) had been overlaid by the extant Ming Great Wall . The
History of the Great Wall of China
In 1567 Qi Jiguang and Tan Lun , successful generals who fended off the coastal pirates , 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 water , stockpile weapons , and take shelter from Mongol arrows . Illustration
History of the Great Wall of China
Other stretches did not fare so well . During the Cultural Revolution ( 1966 -- 76 ) , 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 the new China . Quarrying machines and even dynamite were used to dismantle the Wall , and the pilfered materials were used for construction .
Great Wall of China
Towards the end of the Ming , the Great Wall helped defend the empire against the Manchu invasions that began around 1600 . Even after the loss of all of Liaodong , the Ming army held the heavily fortified Shanhai Pass , preventing the Manchus from conquering the Chinese heartland . The Manchus were finally able to cross the 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 .
History of the Great Wall of China
Yu Zijun ( 余子 俊 ; 1429 -- 1489 ) first proposed constructing a wall in the Ordos region in August 1471 , but not until 20 December 1472 did the court and emperor approve the plan . The 1473 victory in the Battle of Red Salt Lake ( 紅 鹽池 ) by Wang Yue ( 王 越 ) deterred Mongol invasions long enough for Yu Zijun to complete his wall project in 1474 . This wall , a combined effort between Yu Zijun and Wang Yue , stretched from present day Hengcheng ( 橫 城 ) in Lingwu ( northwestern Ningxia province ) to Huamachi town ( 花 馬 池 鎮 ) in Yanchi County , and from there to Qingshuiying ( 清水 營 ) in northeastern Shaanxi , a total of more than 2000 li ( about 1,100 kilometres ( 680 mi ) ) long . Along its length were 800 strong points , sentry posts , beacon - fire towers , and assorted defences . 40,000 men were enlisted for this effort , which was completed in several months at a cost of over one million silver taels . This defence system proved its initial worth in 1482 , when a large group of Mongol raiders were trapped within the double lines of fortifications and suffered a defeat by the Ming generals . This was seen as a vindication of Yu Zijun 's strategy of wall - building by the people of the 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 ( 楊一清 ; 1454 -- 1530 ) behind it .
History of the Great Wall of China
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 . Map
History of the Great Wall of China
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 Hongwu 's death in 1398 , and watchtowers were manned from the Bohai Sea to Beijing and further onto the Mongolian steppes . These positions , however , were not for a linear defence but rather a regional one in which walls did not feature heavily , and offensive tactics remained the overarching policy at the time . In 1421 , the Ming capital was relocated from Nanjing in the south to Beijing in the north , partly to better manage the Mongol situation . Thus defenses were concentrated around Beijing , where stone and earth began to replace rammed earth in strategic passes . A wall was erected by the Ming in Liaodong to protect Han settlers from a possible threat from the Jurched - Mongol Oriyanghan around 1442 . In 1467 -- 68 , expansion of the wall provided further protection for the region from against attacks by the Jianzhou Jurchens in the northeast .
History of the Great Wall of China
When the Jurchens , once Liao vassals , rose up to overthrow their masters and established the Jin dynasty , they continued Liao 's wall - building activities with extensive work begun before 1138 . Further wall construction took place in 1165 and 1181 under the Jin Emperor Shizhong , and later from 1192 to 1203 during the reign of his successor Emperor Zhangzong .
History of the Great Wall of China
Western scholarship of the Great Wall was , until recently , affected by misconceptions derived from traditional accounts of the Wall . When the Jesuits 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 injury or destruction '' since the time of Qin was accepted as fact by the 18th - century philosophes .
History of the Great Wall of China
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 the Shanhai Pass , proved popular destinations for these wall watchers .
Forbidden City
Construction lasted 14 years and required more than a million workers . Material used include whole logs of precious Phoebe zhennan wood ( Chinese : 楠 木 ; pinyin : nánmù ) found in the jungles of south - western China , and large blocks of marble from quarries near Beijing . The floors of major halls were paved with `` golden bricks '' ( Chinese : 金 砖 ; pinyin : jīnzhuān ) , specially baked paving bricks from Suzhou .
History of the Great Wall of China
Qin was originally a state on the western fringe of the Chinese political sphere , but it grew into a formidable power in the later parts of the Warring States period when it aggressively expanded in all directions . In the north , the state of Wei and the Yiqu built walls to protect themselves from Qin aggression , but were still unable to stop Qin from eating into their territories . The Qin reformist Shang Yang forced the Wei out of their walled area west of the Yellow River in 340 BC , and King Huiwen of Qin ( r . 338 -- 311 BC ) took 25 Yiqu forts in a northern offensive . When King Huiwen died , his widow the Queen Dowager Xuan acted as regent because the succeeding sons were deemed too young to govern . During the reign of King Zhaoxiang ( r . 306 -- 251 BC ) , the queen dowager apparently entered illicit relations with the Yiqu king and gave birth to two of his sons , but later tricked and killed the Yiqu king . Following that coup , the Qin army marched into Yiqu territory at the queen dowager 's orders ; the Qin annihilated the Yiqu remnants and thus came to possess the Ordos region . At this point the Qin built a wall around their new territories to defend against the true nomads even further north , incorporating the Wei walls . As a result , an estimated total of 1,775 kilometres ( 1,103 mi ) of Qin walls ( including spurts ) extended from southern Gansu to the bank of the Yellow River in the Jungar Banner , close to the border with Zhao at the time .
History of the Great Wall of China
After the Tang dynasty ended in 907 , the northern frontier area remained out of Han Chinese hands until the establishment of the Ming dynasty in 1368 . During this period , non-Han `` conquest dynasties '' ruled the north : the Khitan Liao dynasty ( 907 -- 1125 ) and the succeeding Jurchen Jin dynasty ( 1115 -- 1234 ) in the east and the Tangut Western Xia ( 1038 -- 1227 ) in the west , all of which had built walls against the north .
History of the Great Wall of China
Although Manchuria is home to the agricultural lands of the Liao River valley , its location beyond the northern mountains relegated it to the relative periphery of Chinese concern . When Chinese state control became weak , at various points in history Manchuria fell under the control of the forest peoples of the area , including the Jurchens and the Manchus . The most crucial route that links Manchuria and the North China Plain is a narrow coastal strip of land , wedged between the Bohai Sea and the Yan Mountains , called the Shanhai Pass ( literally the `` mountain and sea pass '' ) . The pass gained much importance during the later dynasties , when the capital was set in Beijing , a mere 300 kilometres ( 190 miles ) away . In addition to the Shanhai Pass , a handful of mountain passes also provide access from Manchuria into China through the Yan Mountains , chief among them the Gubeikou and Xifengkou ( Chinese : 喜 峰 口 ) .
Great Wall of China
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 160 and 320 km ( 100 and 200 mi ) , 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 a press release a week later , they acknowledged that the `` Great Wall '' in the picture was actually a river .
History of the Great Wall of China
Although a useful deterrent against raids , at several points throughout its history the 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 .
History of the Great Wall of China
Despite the war with the Western Xia , the Song also settled land disputes with them by referring to prior agreements , as with the Liao . However , soon after the Jin dynasty overthrew the Liao dynasty , the Jurchens sacked the Song capital in 1127 during the Jin -- Song wars , causing the Song court to flee south of the Yangtze River . For the next two and a half centuries , the Great Wall played no role in Han Chinese geopolitics .
History of the Great Wall of China
In the 13th century , the Mongol leader Genghis Khan , once a vassal of the Jurchens , rose up against the Jin dynasty . In the ensuing Mongol conquest of the Jin dynasty , the nomadic invaders avoided direct attacks on the Jin fortifications . Instead , when they could , the Mongols simply rode around the walls ; an effective example of this tactic is in 1211 , when they circumvented the substantial fortress in Zhangjiakou and inflicted a terrible defeat upon the Jin armies at the Battle of Yehuling . The Mongols also took advantage of lingering Liao resentment against the Jin ; the Khitan defenders of the garrisons along the Jin walls , such as those in Gubeikou , often preferred to surrender to the Mongols rather than fight them . The only major engagement of note along the main Great Wall line was at the heavily defended Juyong Pass : instead of laying siege , the Mongol general Jebe lured the defenders out into an ambush and charged in through the opened gates . In 1215 , Genghis Khan besieged , captured , and sacked the Jin capital of Yanjing ( modern - day Beijing ) . The Jin dynasty eventually collapsed following the siege of Caizhou in 1234 . Western Xia had already fallen in 1227 , and the Southern Song resisted the Mongols until 1279 .