Show ocr h s IN N N 11 0 11 1 ILLINOI aws luiss IL W VA L ml lil IRID aa ARK R k B U of G k U where great wall of china would run if transferred to united states stated prepared ared by national geographic society washington wa IX 0 service ahr HE great wall of china in the TC shadow of which fighting between chinese bandits and japanese soldiers recently has hag taken place Is one of the greatest engineering feats of mankind the barrier beginning at on the gulf of chihil stretches in a snakelike ellke source tar far into mongolia if transferred to a map of the united states and its eastern end placed at philadelphia abe th ewall wall and it its s spurs would penetrate the border of pennsylvania west virginia virginia ohio indiana kentucky kentuck y illinois Ell missouri arkansas and kansas according to astronomers the wall Is the only work of mans hand which would be visible to the human eye from the moon some idea of the size of its stupendous construction may be gained from the calculation that it the materials of which it was built were used to encircle the globe at the equator they would be sufficient to form a barrier eight feet high and three feet thick there are more brick and stone in the great wall mill than in all the build ing in the united kingdom historians class this mighty rampart as the eighth wonder of the world and not the least wonderful part about it Is that it has survived all the others save one the great pyramid af of I 1 aufu at gizea the me great wall of china differed from other famous wonders of the world in that it served a utilitarian purpose whereas most of the others were all preposterous edifices of exaggerated ag hugeness of dazzling and ruinous luxury it had a mighty purpose serving as a barrier to keep the I 1 barbarians of the north from overrunning china whose fertile plains invited them the idea was not ridiculous in an era when bows and arrows and twisted pikes alke were the weapons of invaders then earth and stone were real deterrents for nr tillery was unknown against armies that were simply caa adry hordes was completed in B C walls divit dividing ling rival feudal kingdoms or protecting them from foreign enemies are mentioned in the C chinese chronicles as early as the fifth century before christ and it is probable that portions of these previously built walls of which vague vestiges are arc still traceable in some parts of Clif fill and shantung provinces were utilized by chin shili huang TI contemporary of hannibal who extended and linked them together when he bufithis built buli this his long rampart stretching from wan on the sea coast to in distant hansu in order to protect himself and his empire from the huns whom he so long unsuccessfully tried to overcome in the field begun in B C the barrier was completed in 13 0 thus it was fifteen years in building seven ot which were after the mighty emperors death to him alone however Is due the conception of a work probably unequaled in tiny any land or by any people for the amount of human labor bestowed upon it three hundred thousand troops besides prisoners of war and all the crimin criminals als in the land including many dishonest officials were impressed for the work how these unskilled laborers accod polished their task with the primitive means at their disposal how they overcame the physical difficulties difficult les imposed on them by the steep slopes of the high mountain ranges remains a marvel to this day As for the cost of the wall no figures have been preserved A weaker man might well have hesitated to plan an undertaking which though popular in the main as it a deafen defensive measure entailed great r suffering on the people but chin shih huang tl TI was one of the strongest rind most remarkable characters in chinese history or in any history a powerful and romantic figure who left behind him an example of personal activity unequaled among oriental sovereigns chin shah huang tl was furthermore the autocrat who united china by subjugating a 11 group of warring states from to B 0 he made the emperor supreme he established two principles of government destined to eiduke in his native land tor for thousands of years the supie supremacy macy of an emperor and the employment of officials official sin in their native 1 impression he made on following ages was wag great and lasting with his high pointed nose slit silt eyes pigeon breast wolf voice tiger heart band and stingy graceless cringing character its as native historians portray him chin shih huang tl was the classical type of a chinese military leader yet be was not a great soldier himself but simply a great alsher of men to whose genius in choosing able lieutenants was due the first standing army in china an army of several everal s hundred thousand men which he be raised equipped and maintained in a peace loving country countr y to defend hla his great wall wonderful stories and legends of 0 course still find their place in the minds of men about chin shih huang tl TI and the great wall the prettiest Is perhaps the story of how bis big magic white horse was supposed to have marked out the line of the barrier the animal was allowed to wander freely and wherever it went the builders followed up hill and down dale where no horse but a magic horse could find a foothold at one point so BO runs the legend the workmen could not keep up with the creature so they called a halt to drink their tea meanwhile a dry fog probably one of the blinding dust storms common in those latitudes blew up until they could neither see the horse nor its footprints but after tea they continued inthe in the same line for ten miles not seeing the horse yet they became suspicious and sent one of their number up a hill to look out he spied the animal far away to the southwest heading in quite a different direction so the workmen abandoned the last kt stretch retch returned to their ramp camp and built a new wall of forty it 11 the chinese 11 1 Is roughly n third of an english tallo mile which still remains to prove this story legend accounts for fast work another legend describes how a bomp compassionate god in heaven looking down and moved to pity by the sufferings of the builders many of whom had been killed and entombed in the wall because they could not get their work done fast enough presented each toller toiler with a magic thread bidding him tle tie it around his wrist this gave the workmen abnormal strength and they were able to satisfy the king when to his amazement the king saw how fast and how well his people worked he inquired the cause and found out about the magic threads thre lads then he seized them all and made fl A lash lasic for his magic whip which thereafter was able to work miracles removing mountains at the plea pleasure surk af pf of the sovereign and causing the yellow river to stand still for the passage of his wall despite the time lime and labor expended upon it chin shin huang mud barrier with the where he quartered his garrison soon crumbled away there was apparently so little left of it by the sixth century A D that eliat the lc wet wel and dynasties who ruled over north chinn from to A D spoke of building not of rebuilding the great wall when the chinese dynasty of the 1368 to IM A D ousted the descendants descendant s of genghis X khan ban from the dragon throne the great wall again assumed much burh importance during the years that they ruled the country they had bad to defend their empire against the northern barbarians the wall was waa therefore vital to their safety and chinese historians of that era describe in great detail how they repaired it along its entire length from to wan fortress on the frontier between lansu province and aln klang eastern turkestan Turk estan estrin adding new loops to strengthen it from 1470 to 1592 A D it was in fact under the that the defenses of the great wall were mot roost fully developed with more anav towers which were practically a chain of small fortresses and over 10 signal beacons almost every reign saw new defense works erected sometimes na as under cheng tung 1435 to 1450 A D these were ineffective since hit successor the unlucky chang tal 1450 to 1457 A D suffered an invasion of his provinces under meng cheng hun hua to 1488 A D a general reported that to guard miles he had 2 i camps but each contained only from to men and that one man could pot not guard yards tards of fr outler night and day |