Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China is one of the largest building projects ever carried out. It stretches about 1,500 miles from Bo Hai off the Yellow Sea in the East to the Gansu province in the West. It is so large it can be seen from space. A majority of the wall was built between 500-3000 years ago. It is believed to be the largest graveyard in history because bones of the workers that died during construction were utilized along with the material to build the wall. "The wall served to mark the boundary between the agricultural civilization of China and the civilization of the nomadic tribes of the north and northwest" (www.travelchinaguide.com)."The Great Wall was considered to be a great asset to the first emperor, Chin Shih-Huang-Ti, known the founder of the Chin Dynasty. He and other states of north China joined together and extended the separate walls built by earlier states to serve as a defensive barrier against the nomads, especially the Turkish tribes. It took roughly ten years to complete and long hours of hard labor. Each stone is believed to be equal to one human life lost in its building. The cost of the wall in money and lives may have been a factor in the fall of the Chin Dynasty." (AOL's Academic Assistance Center).
After ten years of hard labor, the wall was finished. "The emperor Chin Shih Huang-Ti believed that his defensive barrier would prevent invasion of the Mongolian tribes. Even though the Great Wall protected against attack from outside, its building was a cause of discontent within the empire due to cruelty inflicted on the men. Construction of this portion of the Great Wall ended in 618 AD." (AOL Academic Assistance Center) Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor, was greatly bothered by the constant harassment of the Mongolian nobles who were not resigned in their defeat and made incursions into Ming territory in the hope of restoring their rule. Zhu Yuanzhang, an emperor who rose from the bottom of the society with rich experience of the peasant uprising, knew the importance of walls to the protection of a city and the Great Wall to the country. With that knowledge, he gave the order to build city walls as well as the reconstruction of the Great Wall (Encyclopedia Britannica p. 400). The Ming Dynasty was a dynasty of many constructions. The emperors of this dynasty were advised to build high walls and to prepare enough supplies to resist the nomadic invaders. Therefore, the reconstruction of the Great Wall was in full swing and reached a massive scale. Instead of just restoring the Wall, the Wall was strengthened, improved and extended with more effective techniques then those used by the Chin Dynasty. (www.travelchinaguide.com) "As a result of the effort, the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty, coated with bricks, covered some 7,300 kilometers stretching from the Yalu River on the east to Jiayu Pass on the west and it became an impenetrable barrier at that time. In fact, it is in the Ming Dynasty that this great defensive project that lasted over 1000 years was finally completed" (Encyclopedia Britannica p. 405-406). "The Great Wall stands 12 feet wide and
Some common words found in the essay are:
Ming Dynasty, Wu Di, Chin Shih-Huang-Ti, Chin Dynasty, East Gansu, Zhu Yuanzhang, People's Republic, Han Dynasty, Encyclopedia Online, Shih Huang-Ti, ming dynasty, han dynasty, chin dynasty, wall ming dynasty, wall wall, emperor chin, chin shih-huang-ti, wwwtravelchinaguidecom wall, wall ming, compton's encyclopedia, encyclopedia online, compton's encyclopedia online, encyclopedia online v40, emperor chin shih-huang-ti, academic assistance center,
Approximate Word count = 1273
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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