The Great Wall

The great wall is well-known throughout the word. There is a saying that “He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man”. So it will be a pity for foreign travelers who visit china without climbing the great wall.

The Great Wall of China was built mainly to protect the Chinese Empire from the Mongolians and other invaders. Successive Chinese dynasties all had a hand in repairing, re-building, lengthening, modifying and preserving the Great Wall. The Great Wall of China extends from Gansu in the west to the Yellow Sea in the east. In 221 BC, after Emperor Qinshihuang defeated the other six states and unified China, he decided to link up all the separate high walls built by its rivals, especially the walls in the northern part of China built by the states of Qin, Zhao and Yan as a great defense project to ward off the harassment by the Huns. When it was finished, the total length of the Wall exceeds 5, 000 kilometers. And then it was known as the “Wan Li Chang Cheng”(Ten Thousand Li Long Wall).

The great wall contains many sections such as the Simatai great wall, the Badaling great wall. The most interesting and worthy visit sections are scattered on Beijing because these sections are magnificent and well preserved .The Simatai Great Wall is 5.4 km long with all together 35 watchtowers. As the east section of the Gubeikou defense line, this magnificent section features great strategic significance. Built hundreds of years ago, the Simatai Great Wall still retains all its original appearance. It not only incorporates a variety of styles of other parts of the 10, 000-li-long wall, but also displays some unique characteristics. This section of the Great Wall is often described with the following five words: perilous, dense, diverse, ingenuous, and peculiar. Badaling Great Wall, is located more than 70 kilometers northwest from the center of Beijing City, with more than 1000 meters above sea level, occupies a commanding and strategic position. Badaling is the best-preserved section of the Beijing Great Wall. 370 foreign leaders and very important persons have come to climb Badaling successively. It is a defensive outpost of the Great Wall. It is called "Bada" as it stretches in all directions.

There was a wide spread legend about the Great Wall. In the Qin Dynasty (221 B.C. - 206 B.C.), a young man named Fanqi Liang escaped from the Great Wall construction site and hid in a private garden where he came across the owner’s pretty daughter. They fell in love and got married. Unfortunately, Fanqi Liang was found, captured and returned to the construction site.

Meng Jiang Nü waited day and night for her husband. But finally she only got the news that her husband had died and the body was built into the Great Wall. MengJiangNu stayed by the wall and wept for days and nights. Deeply moved by the girl’s bitter weeping, a 400 kilometer section of the Great Wall collapsed and exposed the bones and bodies of many dead men. MengJiangNu.cut her fingers and dripped her blood on the dead until her blood flowed into one. Knowing that this was her husband, she buried him and then drowned herself. Temples have been built in her memory. Among the dozen or so major ones, the temple at Shanhaiguan remains in good condition to this day. If ever get a chance to visit Shanhaiguan (eastern end of the Ming Great Wall), you can pay a visit to the Mengjiangnu Temple.

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