qin dynasty, the great wall

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Page 1: Qin dynasty, the great wall

The Great Wall of China

Page 2: Qin dynasty, the great wall

Difficulties in the Growing Empire

• Prosperity• Order• Communication• Protection

Page 3: Qin dynasty, the great wall

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not attacking but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.””

- Sun Tzu, The Art of War 8

Page 4: Qin dynasty, the great wall
Page 5: Qin dynasty, the great wall
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Page 7: Qin dynasty, the great wall

The Great Wall

• About 21,000km long• In Chinese, its name is Long wall or Long wall of

10,000 li• 10,000 li = 6,508 km. • In Chinese, 10,000 figuratively means "infinite“;

the number should not be interpreted literally but rather as meaning the "infinitely long wall“

• Watchtowers every few hundred meters communicated with red/blue flags and fires

• All messages were recorded on bamboo strips

Page 8: Qin dynasty, the great wall

Construction

• Made up of overlapping walls, trenches and natural features (such as hills and ravines)

• Emporer Qin first to link parts of wall together• Construction by 300,000 soldiers, conscripted

labourers and convicts

• Much of Qin’s wall now in poor repair

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Source A. Extract from modern Chinese historian Yong Ho (2000).

“Large-scale public construction projects were made possible by the unification of the country, when territorial conflicts no longer existed. The Great Wall is a case in point, Shi Huang did not build it from scratch; the wall had already existed in various former states. Shi Huang had only to link it into a 4,000-mile wall.”

Page 12: Qin dynasty, the great wall

Source B. Protest song lyrics from the third century BCE (English translation by Anne Birrell in New Songs for a Jade Terrace, 1982).

I water my horse at a Long Wall hole,The water’s chill hurt my horse’s bones.I go and tell the Long Wall officer,‘Mind you don’t keep us Taiyuan men for good!’‘Corvée has a set time to run!Swing your sledge! Lend your voice!’‘We men would rather die fighting!Why are we bored to death building the Long Wall?Dead men’s skeletons prop each other up?’

Page 13: Qin dynasty, the great wall

Source C. Extract from the website of TravelChinaGuide, the largest online tour company in China, 2013.

“In the year 221 BC, Emperor Qin Shihuang defeated all his enemies and unified China for the first time in its history. During his reign, the Huns from the north were a constant threat, often coming down to the Yellow River Basin and taking land from people in the Hetao Area, located at the top of the Great Bend of the Yellow River. To protect his people and safeguard his political power, the Emperor ordered General Meng Tian, commanding 300,000 soldiers, to defeat the enemy force. To prevent further attacks by the Huns, he decided to consolidate and extend the Great Wall of China.”