Features of the Great Wall

The characteristic of the Great Wall is that it is an ancient defense project with the longest construction time and the largest engineering quantity in the world.

The Great Wall is an ancient defense project with the longest construction time and the largest engineering quantity in China and even in the world. Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, it has been built continuously for more than 2,000 years, distributed in the vast land in northern and central China, with a total length of more than 20,000 kilometers.

Since Qin Shihuang, almost all dynasties that ruled the Central Plains have built the Great Wall. More than ten dynasties, including Han, Jin, Northern Wei, Eastern Wei, Western Wei, Northern Qi, Northern Zhou, Sui, Tang, Song, Liao, Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing, all built the Great Wall of different scales.

Judging from the ruling nationalities who built the Great Wall, besides the Han nationality, many dynasties in which ethnic minorities ruled China also built the Great Wall, and there were more than those ruled by the Han nationality. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, although the construction of the Great Wall was stopped on a large scale, it was later built in some places. It can be said that from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to the Qing Dynasty, the construction of the Great Wall has never stopped for more than two thousand years.

The significance of the Great Wall:

From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, many passes along the Great Wall became places or centers for ethnic transactions in the two major economic and cultural systems of agriculture and animal husbandry, and some gradually developed into important towns along the Great Wall. The Great Wall not only ensures the normal development of agricultural economy, culture and animal husbandry economy and culture, but also provides a place and convenience for their exchange and complementarity.

It also plays an important role in mediating the two economies and making the agriculture and animal husbandry economy develop in the direction of mutual assistance. Therefore, the Great Wall not only plays the role of isolating the two economies and cultures, but also shoulders the heavy responsibility of closely linking the two economies and cultures.

During the Qin and Han Dynasties, there were nearly ten million soldiers and civilians. While building the Great Wall, Qin Shihuang began to strengthen the development and construction of border areas, which opened the prelude to stationing farmland to defend the border and developing the border areas. Because it took a long time to build the Great Wall in the Han Dynasty, many people put forward suggestions on immigration, which were adopted and implemented by the Han government.

Immigrants and soldiers guarding the Great Wall cultivated wasteland together, which not only accelerated the economic development of the border region, saved a lot of government military expenditure, but also greatly reduced the pain of long-distance transportation and made Chinese culture spread farther and wider.