Is China's "Great Wall" useful? In the words of the Western professor: The Great Wall has harmed Europe
Qin Shi Huang was the first emperor to achieve great unification, although many people said that he was cruel, but objectively speaking, he still had a certain ability, not to mention other achievements, just the same track, the two points of the book and the text doomed the situation of China's future great unification can not be changed. However, after the founding of the Qin Shi Huang, he did something that many people opposed at that time, building the Great Wall. This incident also greatly depleted the strength of the Qin Dynasty, plus some other factors that led to the death of the second generation of Qin. So, is the Great Wall of China useful? In this regard, there is a Western professor's saying: the Great Wall has harmed Europe.
The Great Wall can be said to be a typical drawback in the contemporary era, the merit is in the thousands of autumn projects, although the construction of the Great Wall at that time brought a great burden to the Qin Dynasty, the department also laid a solid foundation for the later dynasties. Since ancient times, China has faced the need to prevent northern paracyclists. The vast expanse of China has a fatal attraction to the nomadic peoples of the north, whereas in the past, China's borders were unimpeded and the nomads were quite easy to invade. However, with the Great Wall, the situation changed. The emergence of the Great Wall made China easy to defend and difficult to attack, which is why many nomads simply gave up the idea of invading China and focused more on Europe. In this regard, the European scholar Robert B. Ekvall believes that Qin Shi Huang is a nasty ghost who has caused trouble to the west.
Nomadic peoples like to plunder because their economic models are too unstable and their output ratios are low. In the Central Plains, an acre of fertile land can ensure that a person's life is very good. However, in the grassland, dozens of acres of grassland cannot guarantee that everyone has enough food to eat. Although there will also be some natural disasters in agricultural production, which will lead to a reduction in grain production. But in most cases, farmers can get through the difficulties by eating reserve grain. However, for those nomadic people, their main food is beef, mutton and milk, which is very difficult to store. So as long as there is a natural disaster, the survival of the nomadic people will be in question.
Because of this, plunder has almost become a gene engraved in the bones of nomads, and the construction of the Great Wall has greatly changed this situation. Many people feel that the reason why the existence of the Great Wall is unnecessary is because the defense line of the Great Wall is too long, and there is no way to play a 100% defensive role. However, it should be noted that the original purpose of the Great Wall was not to pursue absolute defense. After the Great Wall, as long as the general's ability to pass the customs can ensure the security of the border to a great extent. After all, no matter how powerful the nomadic cavalry was, they could not directly cross the Great Wall and invade the Central Plains. And even if some of the passes were breached, the nomadic cavalry had to worry about whether they would be ambushed.
In other words, after the Great Wall, the losses of the nomadic peoples attacking the Central Plains increased greatly, so they turned their attention to the European region. It is no wonder that so many European scholars say that the existence of the Great Wall has harmed Europe. All in all, we do not deny that the construction of the Great Wall brought a great burden to the people at that time, such as the Mengjiang Girl Weeping great wall, although this is only a folk legend, but the circulation of the story also proves that the Qin Dynasty at that time in order to build the Great Wall to exploit the people and the people's complaints.
It is precisely because of this that when we evaluate the Great Wall, we often say: the disadvantages are in the contemporary era, and the merits are in the thousands. Although from the perspective of today's war, building the Great Wall is a very unnecessary thing. After all, during World War II, the French Maginot Line failed to defend Germany, let alone incorporate the Great Wall of a thousand years ago into our defense system. However, as far as the military conditions at that time were concerned, the existence of the Great Wall did greatly guarantee the inviolability of Chinese civilization, and also ensured that China could become the only country among the four ancient civilizations that really survived.