The Great Wall we remember is the Badaling section, the city wall is tall, and it can accommodate five horses and ride together, and ten people in parallel. But Badaling can be said to be the "first card" in the Great Wall, because it guards the capital, and the emperor can personally be the "supervisor", which naturally cannot be a second-rate project.
However, the Great Wall of Badaling, which sells its appearance, accounts for a very short length of the overall Great Wall, that is, 10% of the ten percent.
The Great Wall, the largest project in the history of the world, takes the Ming Great Wall as an example, from Hushan Mountain in Liaoning in the east to Jiayuguan in Gansu in the west, with a total length of 8851.8 kilometers. Such a huge project is by no means a pat on the head and come up with, but has been proven many times.
In order to save money, the overall construction idea of the Great Wall is to use local materials. Therefore, in addition to the place of contention, most of the Great Wall is a low and thin earthen wall.
Because it is thin and is an earthen wall, in the face of the oppression of the nomadic army, there is almost no ability to resist, and once an opening is opened, the whole wall is useless.
And because the walls were too narrow, the beacon towers were even solid, and it was impossible to mobilize troops on a large scale like Badaling. So why do these Great Walls have to be built? What role does it play?
To be clear, the Great Wall does not play much of a role in a large-scale two-armed confrontation.
The two armies are engaged in frontal combat, even national wars, fighting military strength and economy, and a wall can only change the situation of the war a little.
But the great wall's most important role is not to defend, but to deliver messages.
When encountering an enemy situation, it is not simply lit on the beacon platform, and each dynasty and generation has quite strict and meticulous requirements.
Generally speaking, the beacon "ignition" is divided into two modes, daytime and nighttime, because the daytime ignition is not obvious, so the daytime light is smoke, the ignition is hay or wolf poop (sun-dried version, wetland can not be lit), the name "wolf smoke" is derived from this.
At night, the fire is lit, and the fire is clear at a glance at night.
Lighting a cigarette during the day is called "flint", and lighting a fire at night is called "烽", collectively known as "flint".
According to the level of the enemy, the number of cigarettes and ignitions on the same beacon is also different; according to the direction of the incoming enemy, it will also be reflected in the position of the beacon ignition accordingly.
By the time of the Ming Dynasty, the beacon relay message was further improved, not only there were beacons, but also beacon cannons, the efficiency was greatly improved, and the information could be transmitted up to 3500 kilometers in a day and night, and the speed of the train was run.
The efficient information transmission system prepared the entire Great Wall defense line, which also made the nomadic cavalry lose the advantage of surprise attack.
As mentioned earlier, the Role of the Great Wall in frontal large-scale engagements is minimal. But the nomads rarely resorted to this method of engagement, and what they were best at was small groups of mobile units, which attacked the border jams with high frequency and irregularity. The Great Wall has a much advantage in dealing with this situation.
Most of the earthen wall lots, although thin, are not small strands that can be broken in a short period of time. Moreover, because of the presence of the city wall, the nomadic scouts could not see the inside of the city wall, but the layout of the nomadic cavalry could be seen from the city wall. Know thyself and know the other, and never lose a battle.
Even if the nomadic cavalry can penetrate the city wall, the soldiers inside the wall are already prepared, and they can also break through each one after a package.
The Great Wall also has an important role, that is, to block trade. The Great Wall may not be able to stop the siege army, but it is more than enough for merchants who want to block private transactions.
A city wall, so that the nomadic herders who were already short of food and clothing, lost an important channel to replenish the supply of goods, and greatly weakened the economic strength of the nomadic side.
In summary, building the Great Wall is not a money-losing business.