When Li Yi, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, described the Great Wall, he had this poem: "The emperor of the Han Dynasty descended to the west to camp, and the yellow sand and white bones surrounded the Great Wall." The Great Wall can be said to be the greatest in ancient Chinese history. Under the defense project, the souls of countless soldiers are buried. Today, the Great Wall is one of the Seven Wonders of the World and is listed as a World Cultural Heritage.
When it comes to the Great Wall, we have to mention one person - Qin Shihuang. The construction of the Great Wall was inseparable from Qin Shihuang's outstanding military insights, but it was also inseparable from his harsh tyranny. Because although Qin Shihuang completed the unification at that time, the long years of war left the people with little food and clothing, but Qin Shihuang was building the Great Wall at this time, which was undoubtedly a devastation to the people. But even in such a harsh environment, the Great Wall built by the Qin Dynasty can still stand tall after two thousand years. People can't help but wonder, without modern reinforced concrete technology, what did Qin Shihuang add to the Great Wall to make it stand still for 2000 years?
1. The Great Wall stretches for tens of thousands of miles, starting from Shanhaiguan in the east and ending at Jiayuguan in the west. The construction process lasted for more than two thousand years. "Historical Records: The Family of Chu" once recorded: "King Xuan of Qi rode on the mountains and built the Great Wall, reaching the sea in the east and Jezhou in the west, more than a thousand miles to prepare for Chu." It shows that the Great Wall has been built since the Spring and Autumn Period. Especially during the Warring States Period, the three kingdoms of Qin, Zhao, and Yan were close to the Huns. In order to resist the invasion of the Huns, the three kingdoms built the Great Wall to resist the Huns.
In 221 BC, Qin Shihuang unified the six countries and established the feudal political system for more than two thousand years. Because he had been harassed by the Xiongnu in previous dynasties, Qin Shihuang immediately set out to designate a strategy to conquer the Xiongnu after the great cause of unification. In 214-213 BC, Qin Shihuang sent General Meng Tian to lead an army of 300,000 to attack the Xiongnu in the north. This battle was a complete victory. Qin Shihuang regained Henan (today's Hetao area) in one fell swoop and built 44 counties for settlement.
In order to prevent the Huns from going south, Meng Tian recruited a large number of migrant workers and built the Great Wall from Lintao in the west to Liaodong in the east based on the Great Walls of Yan, Zhao and Qin. The Huns were forced to move north for more than ten years. Jia Yi once commented: "The Huns were defeated for more than 700 miles. The Hu people did not dare to go south to herd horses, and the scholars did not dare to bend their bows and complained." It describes the scene of the northern expedition to the Huns to build the Great Wall and bring peaceful life to the border areas.
2. Qin Shihuang’s great feat of building the Great Wall amazed countless historians in later generations. Some people wonder, what was the material used to build the Great Wall in the Qin Dynasty? Because there was no such thing as reinforced concrete in the Qin Dynasty at that time, how did these working people stack up these 42 billion green bricks? And it was impossible to reinforce it with mud alone. If it is not enough to withstand the baptism of war, then what materials did they use?
After searching for information, scholars found that the original reinforcement material used to build the Great Wall was not mud but glutinous rice juice. The ancients had the custom of pasting Spring Festival couplets with glutinous rice juice every time the Spring Festival came. During the construction of the Great Wall, craftsmen used an adhesive composed of mortar and glutinous rice juice to strengthen the Great Wall. This method is more viscous and stable than mud.
But in this crowded place, it is convenient to transport soil and prepare adhesive. Yumen Pass in Gansu Province is inaccessible and located in a desert area with a severe lack of loess. How should we build the Great Wall here? The local people came up with a good idea based on local conditions. They found that there were large areas of reeds and gravel here, so they used local materials and interlaced the gravel and reeds to strengthen the city wall. Today, we have studied chemistry and we all know that the component of reed is salt and the component of gravel is alkali. The salt-alkali reaction can play a very good reinforcing effect. From this we have to admire the ingenuity of the ancient working people.
3. The establishment of the Great Wall not only opened up the economic development of remote areas, but also effectively promoted ethnic integration. Due to the convenient transportation provided by the construction of the Great Wall, residents along the line began to colonize and open up wasteland on a large scale. Due to the peace and stability in the frontier area, various ethnic groups interacted with each other, and business prospered for a time, which also allowed the spread of Chinese civilization.
As the saying goes: "If you don't visit the Great Wall, you are not a true man." Today, the Great Wall is open to the public as a national tourist attraction, and it is a symbol of Chinese national culture. But who could have imagined how much burden the construction of the Great Wall brought to the people at that time. Qin Shihuang spent more than ten years with one-fifth of the country's population to build the Great Wall. It was also because of this labor conscription that the public resentment boiled over. This is the origin of the widely circulated folk saying "Meng Jiangnu cried at the Great Wall". In the end, people everywhere rose up, and the Qin Empire was overthrown in just 15 years.
Conclusion
Throughout history, all dynasties have built and improved the Great Wall. But Qin Shi Huang was the only one who could destroy the country because of this. But without the persistence of Qin Shihuang, would we still be able to see this majestic building that stretches thousands of miles today? It can only be said that history is not black and white.
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