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The Great Wall of China (simplified Chinese: 长城; traditional Chinese: 長城; pinyin: Chángchéng; literally "Long City/fortress") or (simplified Chinese: 万里长城; traditional Chinese: 萬里長城; pinyin: Wànlǐ Chángchéng; literally "The long wall of 10,000 Li (里)")

The Great Wall of China is a series of stone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 6th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire from Xiongnu attacks during the rule of successive dynasties.

Several walls, referred to as the Great Wall of China, were built since the 5th century BC. The most famous is the wall built between 220–200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang; little of it remains; it was much farther north than the current wall, which was built during the Ming Dynasty.

The Great Wall stretches over approximately 6,352 km (3,918 miles) from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia.

History

Walls with nature of defending the northern border was built and maintained by various dynasties in many periods in the China history. The main purpose of it was protected Chinese from the migration of Mongolian and Turkish. There are five main stages:
- In 208 BC (Qin Dynasty)
- The 1st century BC (Han Dynasty)
- The 7th century (Sui Dynasty)
- 1138 - 1198 (Nan Song Dynasty)
- 1368 - 1640 (from Hong Wu king to Wan Li Kinh – Ming Dynasty)

The first main section of wall was built in the period of Qin Shui Houng, the first Emperor of Qin with a short existent time. This wall was not built by the efforts of a group but it was joined into several stages of wall of many regions, which had been built in the Warring States Period. Walls connected to each other at the time were made from land with the towers built in equal distances. It was located further to the north of Present Great Wall with the East Pole point located in North Korea. It is only part of it left - the photos showed low-long earth mound.

The Court forced people to build up the Wall, and the workers were always faced to danger as they could be attacked by robbers. Because many people died when building, the Wall was called by a horrible name, "the longest cemetery of the Earth." There were probably about one million workers died while building the Wall. [2]

The next long wall was built with the same design by Han, Sui Dynasty, and the period of Ten Nations. It was made from land with many multiple-storey watchtowers located in equal distances. The walls have been damaged and mixed to around landscape, have been corroded by wind and rainwater.

In military aspect, the walls have meaning to divide boundaries rather than to protect. Surely that military strategy of China does not only have the purpose of maintenance the walls.
The Present Great Wall was built from Ming Dynasty, about between 1368 and 1640. In a section of the Koran, Arab geographers also mentioned Great Emperor Alexander with the construction of City wall. This wall was built with great dimension with the good materials (hard stone used in the surface and above the summit) than before. The first purpose of the wall was to prevent outside nomadic people (such as Mongolism under the mobilization of the king Altan and Oirats under control of Esen Taiji) who entered to rob; or prevent the returns of them with the loots.

The Great Wall in Ming Dynasty started from the Eastern point in San Hai Guan near Qin Houng Island, in Hebei province near Bo Hai Bay. It lasts through nine provinces and 100 districts. Final 500km still exists but it has become brash. At present The Great Wall ends at the west end point of Jia Yu Guan historical relic (嘉峪关) - the northwest of Gansu province at the border with the Gobi Desert and the oasis of the Silk Road. Jia Yu Guan was built to travelers along the Silk Road. Although the Great Wall ends in Jia Yu Guan, there are a lot of “Feng Hua Dai " (烽火台) (observatories) in Jia Yu Guan along the Silk Road. These observatories use smoke as signs to alert to invaders.

The Kokes Man overcame walls in 1644 by convicting an important general - Wu Shan Qui to open San Hai Guan Gate. The legend said that the Man Zhou military took three days to overcome all over the gorge. After Man Zhou conquered China, the city walls had no longer strategic value anymore, because Man Zhou People extended the power of political control to the North, further than previous China Dynasties. See more at Qing Dynasty (Man Zhou).
Final wall stages in Ming Dynasty are really a military work on some aspects. However, military historians often ignore the real value of this great wall. They spent extremely much money and effort to build, maintain and occupy. The amount that Ming Dynasty cost for this wall could be use to improve other military capabilities such as buying artillery or rifle. Actually, the walls were not valuable in preventing the collapse of Ming Dynasty.

(Source: Wikipedia)