In looking at yet another photo of the Great Wall, I can’t help but wonder if it was a real physical deterant or more of a psychological one. I admit I don’t know much about ancient warfare, but it seems that the wall was so long that an invading army could have just found a lonely section and built a staircase over it. Or better just disassemble a section.
The wall wasn’t intended as a physical barrier that was impossible for nomad armies to breach. It was a place where soldiers could be protected long enough to send messages back to the heartland that an invading nomad army was crossing the wall. There were no “lonely sections”, the wall was manned by sentries all along its length. Each sentry tower was in view of the towers on each side. No part of the wall was just left as a physical stone obstacle.
It was also intended as a physical manifestation of the border. On that side is Mongolia, you nomads do whatever you like there. On this side is China, and you’re not welcome. Wander on your side, and you’re fine. Cross over to our side and it’s war.
Apart from Genghis Khan, it [or rather they] seems to have been fairly effective. Many towns in Europe built walls to keep the unwanted visitors out. Hadrian built one across the North of England to keep the barbarian Picts out. The key feature of all these walls was the watch towers and garrisons. They would see any hostiles coming, signal the others and the wall enabled reinforcements to get there fast. With no artillery and facing determined and well armed defenders it would have cost a lot of lives to assault.
There were lots of walls in China and it wasn’t until Qin in 221 BC that they were finally joined up into what we see today.
It was more ambitious than this. For a long time, the frontier between China and the nomadic peoples was undefined and contested. By building the wall, the Chinese were charging the common ground and claiming it as part of their land.
The wall was never really a great obstacle to invaders. Various emperors took measures to help keep it manned by settling communities of soldiers along portions of the wall, but there was never enough manpower to really repel an invading army. There was just too much frontage to man effectively. Keep in mind that for much of its length, the wall was not that great, being constructed ofpacked earth and much lower than the famous postcard parts. The western parts of the wall were very much a symbol rather than a credible defense.
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I think the wall had several purposes, and it did perform them:
-to unify the kingdom-the wall represented a northern boundary limit
-as a public works program, the wall provided construction jobs for farmers in their off season
-it did deter most northern enemies, but manning such a long wall required a huge number of troops
Still, an amazing achievement for so long ago.
I have read that one of the main defenses provided by the Wall was that it kept any nomadic tribes bent on invasion from easily bringing their horses into China. They could, of course, have taken the time to build ramps over the Wall so that they could bring their horses with them, but that would have given the Chinese enough time to get troops to the point of attack and repel the invaders before the horses could be brought in. As these potential invaders almost always fought mounted, this slowed them down quite a bit as they were nowhere as good in a purely infantry role.
There were a couple of different “Great Wall” projects over the centuries. Jinan, a bit south of Beijing and my home for a couple years, had a Great Wall, but it wasn’t part of THE Great Wall.
This might be the ignorant rantings of some drunk at the bar, but I’ve heard The Wall was an attempt to keep China population IN more so than invaders OUT. I’m sure 3 seconds on Wikipedia would tell me the validity of such a statement, but I can’t seem to be bothered.
Beyond the wall was the Gobi desert, steppe, and the Siberian tagia. Not much there for a civilized inhabitant of the Middle Kingdom.
I watched a very good documentary on the Wall (This may be the one.
Apparently there are several walls scattered along the China borders and many reason to have built them. If you have 45 minutes, or so, take a look.
Disclaimer: Not related to any of the documentarians nor the website.
Bob
My understanding of Hadrian’s Wall is that it was less to keep Celtic populations out (which wasn’t a realistic proposition), but to control trade through checkpoints, and therefore keep political control over groups. If you controlled the whole economy, they weren’t very likely to rise up in rebellion of you.
Lots of good info. Thanks, and thanks for the links.
The important part of these sorts of fortifications aren’t the wall bits, they’re the towers with the people in them.
No ! Its trivial to send your men in over the wall, and then,having taken control of a section of wall, let the horses through…
The horses would be able to bring ladders, ropes, stones, etc for the initial assault on the wall… so no real problem there. Also, if you rode up and found the wall defended, then ride on a bit further along the wall…
Actually the Mongols just rode around the wall whenever they felt like … and rode back out the same way… Not waiting around for reprisals.
Sort of like the Mexico border…
“I always have a problem liking things that I’m told I should like. This has been the problem with most of the Wonders I have seen so far. The fact that this one is called the ‘Great’ Wall of China annoys me. I’ll decide if it’s great or not. It might end up being the ‘All Right Wall of China’ to me.”
~Karl Pilkington~
The “Fair-to-Middling Wall”
[The Donald Ming]I’m gonna build a Great Wall, and have the Mongols pay for it![/The Donald Ming]
With the Donald/Ming wall the Mongols would be building it as well.
The wall is called the “Long Wall” in Chinese, to distinguish it from the similar but much shorter walls which surround(ed) many Chinese cities.
The Ming Dynasty Long Wall which modern tourists visit is of course only the most elaborate and most recent of many long walls which the Chinese have built off and on since the first millennium BCE. It was not in place during the time of Genghis Khan.