The Big Wall of China:
The origins of the Great Wall reach back to almost 650 BC beginning with the building of small sections which over the course of many centuries, were loosely connected by various Emperors to form a line (or lines) of defense. Each of these walls sought to reinforce, extend and join together sections of previous walls in order to deter potential nomadic invaders from the north. Four of these periods of construction led to extensive ‘Great Walls’ the last being built during The Ming Dynasty (1369 – 1644). This Great Wall was reinforced many times and it is the impressive sections north of Beijing, built under the command of General Qi Jiguang, that have come to symbolize the Great Wall as we now know it and it is these that we mainly walk on during our Great Wall trip. |
| The Big Wall of China |
After the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty the wall was largely abandoned and left to the vagaries of nature and mankind. Consequently the Wall either fell into disrepair or was dismantled, with the bricks being used for housing and other building projects. This was particularly the case during the Cultural Revolution when Mao urged the people to ‘destroy the old to build the new’. The ravages of time, nature and man therefore mean that the Ming Wall is not a single continuous structure – in many places it has disappeared completely or is little more than a mud bank. However, since the 1980s, and with Deng Xiaoping’s exhortation to ‘love China rebuild the Great Wall’, an extensive rebuilding and restoration programmer has been undertaken. As a result it is now possible to walk along many sections of the Great Wall and appreciate the enormous engineering achievement that it represents as well as its immense beauty.
