What is the history and function of the Great Wall?

The Great Wall is a miracle created by working people in ancient China. Since Qin Shihuang, building the Great Wall has been a big project. According to records, Qin Shihuang used nearly one million laborers to build the Great Wall, accounting for 1/20 of the national population! At that time, there was no machinery, and all labor depended on manpower. The working environment was steep mountains and deep cliffs. It is conceivable that this huge project could not be completed without a large number of people working hard.

"Because of the terrain, traffic is blocked by danger" is an important experience in building the Great Wall, which was affirmed by Qin Shihuang and recorded by Sima Qian in Historical Records. After that, every dynasty built the Great Wall according to this principle. All the passes in Guancheng are built between two high mountains and canyons or at the bend of the river. Or places that will pass by, in order to control the danger, save manpower and material resources, and achieve the effect of "one person guards it, and ten thousand people can't force it". Building castles or beacon towers is also an option in Four Essentials. As for building city walls, it is more important to make full use of the terrain. For example, Juyongguan and Badaling Great Wall are built along the back of the mountain. Some sections are very steep from the outside of the wall, but they are very gentle inside, which has the effect of "easy to defend but difficult to attack". In Liaoning Province, the Great Wall of Liaodong Town in Ming Dynasty was called the Mountain Dangerous Wall and the Split Gable, which was made by slightly splitting the steep cliff. Some places completely use cliffs, rivers and lakes as natural barriers, which can be said to be wonderful. As a great project, the Great Wall has become a precious heritage of the Chinese nation.

On June 25th, 20001year, the Great Wall, as an ancient building from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Ming Dynasty, was approved by the State Council to be included in the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units. The total length of the Great Wall is about 12600 Li.

The role of the Great Wall now

With the Great Wall of Wan Li as the intermediary, the Great Wall Belt, which is composed of vast northern and southern regions, runs through a considerable part of Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, Shandong, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Qinghai, Xinjiang and other provinces (cities, autonomous regions), including parts of the Mongolian People's Republic and the Korean Peninsula in historical period. Its range is hundreds or even thousands of kilometers wide from north to south and thousands of kilometers long from east to west. The Great Wall Belt has been inhabited by many ethnic groups since ancient times, and the development of ethnic groups and their relations is the key to observing and understanding everything in the Great Wall Belt.

In the course of historical development, some ancient ethnic groups in the Great Wall Belt disappeared, and some new ethnic groups merged and formed, all of which are closely related to more than 20 ethnic groups distributed in the Great Wall Belt today. All ethnic groups, whether they have disappeared or continue to develop today, have made important contributions to the historical development of China.

The Great Wall of Wan Li is the product of the development of ethnic relations in ancient China, but at present, the research on the internal development law of ethnic relations between the north and the south of the Great Wall is not sufficient. Summarizing the existing research results, broadening the research fields and revealing the internal relationship between the Great Wall and the development of ethnic relations in China are of great practical significance and theoretical research value for the study of the Great Wall, ethnology and the development of the history of ethnic relations in China.