Preface
Our ancestors built a Great Wall, and Europeans and Americans said that we had "pitted" their ancestors!
The Great Wall is just a low wall, and all the nomadic invasions seem to have played no role, is the Great Wall that stretches for tens of thousands of kilometers an ornament?
We may think that the Great Wall has no effect, but the old watch far away in Europe is considered to be pitted by the Great Wall, and I really dare not imagine that we can build the Great Wall and cause such a bad damage to Europe!
The strength of the Great Wall will surprise you
The Great Wall we see today was actually built in the Ming Dynasty, and it was built with sintered green bricks, and almost the entire section of the Great Wall in the Ming Dynasty was built with this kind of green bricks, and the blue brick city wall was the standard Ming Dynasty style.
Including the current Nanjing City and the demolished Beijing city wall, after research, you will find that they are all from the Ming Dynasty, and we cannot only take the buildings of the Ming Dynasty as a representative of all the Great Wall in history.
The history of the Great Wall is much older than that of the Ming Dynasty, and the traditional Han land began to build the city wall as early as the Spring and Autumn Period near the Warring States Period, but it was not a unified dynasty at that time, but only a few vassal states in the north built it themselves.
The old city walls of Beijing
At that time, the northern vassal states of Qin, Zhao, Yan and other northern vassal states would use the strategy of "strong walls and clear the wilderness" when facing the Xiongnu, and these "strong walls" were the predecessors of the Great Wall of Qin, which was very different from the Great Wall we see now, not a blue brick city wall.
During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it was mainly rammed earth city walls, that is, the soil was directly tamped in the mold, and the layer by layer of clay was the city wall, and small stones or other materials could be used according to local conditions.
However, compared to the brick and stone Ming Great Wall, it is also relatively simple, after all, it is just a higher earthen wall.
However, you really don't underestimate the rammed earth city wall, although the material is very down-to-earth, but the construction method is very particular, the selection of soil is very detailed, you have to pick out the stickiness is relatively high, and then add a variety of hay to increase the strength.
There is also a wooden skeleton support in the rammed earth, this structure is not very familiar to you, the high-rise buildings we live in now are built in this way, but in ancient times it was clay and wood and it was the earliest "composite material".
The strength of such a city wall is very high, which is known by the way the city wall is accepted at that time, and the qualified city wall will bounce the arrow away with a bow and arrow, "the arrow shoots at the wall and does not enter"!
In the later Ming Dynasty, the rammed earth city wall was strengthened as a whole, and several layers of thick green bricks were built on the outer layer, which was regarded as the strength of the city wall to the "ceiling" level.
The rammed earth walls were almost invincible in the era of gunpowder blasting, and the nomads outside the fortress were difficult to break through without professional siege equipment, so as to play a role in stopping the nomadic invasion.
However, there are many records in our history of nomads breaking through the barriers of the Great Wall and sweeping the Han land, what is going on?
There is no such thing as an impermeable wall
After the construction of the wall, there were often nomadic invasions, does this confirm that the Great Wall is a useless low wall?
The nomadic invasion in the pre-Qin period was not actually that the Great Wall was useless, but that the Great Wall built by several northern vassal states at that time was all scattered, and the gap in the middle gave the Xiongnu an opportunity to take advantage of it.
It was not until Qin Shi Huang unified the six kingdoms that the Great Wall in the north was unified, filling the gaps left by the original vassal states, and also repairing the supporting system of the Great Wall.
At this point, the Great Wall was considered complete, and there were few records of the Xiongnu invasion in the early days of Qin unification, because the complete Great Wall was a barrier that the nomads could not cross, and only the Great Qin went out of the pass to beat the Xiongnu, and there was no possibility of Xiongnu invasion and plunder.
But when the world was in turmoil in the late Qin Dynasty, it was impossible to maintain the Great Wall, which gave the Xiongnu the opportunity to break through the Great Wall and form an offensive and defensive switch.
After coming to the Han Dynasty, the Great Wall was once again valued, but it did not seem to play a big role in the face of the Xiongnu, mainly for two reasons.
The first is that after the unification of Liu Bang, the ancestor of the Han Dynasty, he chose to take the initiative in the face of the high pressure of the Xiongnu in the north, and led hundreds of thousands of troops out of the pass to meet the enemy, but in the end he reaped a fiasco.
Liu Bang's light enemy made the entire Han Dynasty pay a huge price, and the founding elite was almost lost, and the balance between the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu was broken after that, and it could only rely on the Great Wall as a basis for difficult resistance, which was not effective.
Because the entire system of the Great Wall has not been restored, even if the Great Wall is built firmly, as long as there is no army to garrison, the Huns can make a big hole in the city wall even if they tear it down little by little.
The Romans used this method to break down the city walls, and many of their troops would be equipped with portable iron pickaxes, and then rely on the protection of the Roman "tortoiseshell array" to dig unhurriedly at the base of the enemy's city walls, although the method was very clumsy, but the effect was wonderful.
In the final analysis, the factors that determine the outcome of the war are still people, and it is obvious that the strength of the Xiongnu during this period was higher than that of the Han Dynasty, which began the situation of "Hu is strong and Han is weak".
The overall weakness of the Han Dynasty made the Xiongnu invasion increase day by day, and it was not until the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty that it was reversed.
During the Han Dynasty, the Great Wall was weakened only because of people, not the Great Wall itself, but it cannot be arbitrarily said that the Great Qin was stronger than the Great Han, although they faced the Xiongnu together, the Xiongnu fought by the Great Qin were better than the Han Dynasty.
This is the second reason why the Great Wall is "useless", the Xiongnu faced by the Qin and Han dynasties are completely different, the Xiongnu during the Qin Dynasty are more like scattered nomadic tribes, and the Xiongnu during the Han Dynasty have been "monolithic", and the Xiongnu faced by the Han Dynasty are not the same as before.
The military weakness is the main reason why the Great Wall of the Han Dynasty appears "useless", but the Han Dynasty also relied on the Great Wall to achieve recuperation, and only then did it have the capital for a decisive battle with the Xiongnu, and the Great Wall determined the survival of the Han Dynasty to a certain extent.
The "Whip of God" was forced out by the Great Wall
Whenever the Han dynasty was strong, the Xiongnu and some other nomads turned away from their southern neighbors, not only fearing the powerful army of the Central Plains Dynasty, but also helpless against the rock-solid Great Wall.
The existence of the Great Wall also closed the trade link between the Central Plains and the grasslands, and many necessities of life could not be guaranteed, and the nomadic groups faced the test of life and death every time they came to this situation.
But people also have to find a way to live, since the south is not passable, then simply go west, the southern neighbors not only have money but also play, although the western neighbors are poor, but fortunately it is an easy to pinch "soft persimmon".
It is better than starving to death in the boundless steppe, as long as the Central Plains Dynasty does not let go of the salt and iron trade, they will continue to suffer, and the resources on the grassland alone cannot feed too many people.
The nomadic forces will migrate like the West, and the later Mongol expeditions to the west are also the same number, the Central Plains is not easy to fight, and the West will be fought first, and Central Asia and Eastern Europe have been conquered by the Mongols.
There are many reasons why the Central Plains is difficult to fight, and the Great Wall is also one of the key factors, the existence of the Great Wall has greatly improved the efficiency of the Han people to resist nomadic invasions, but the cost has been greatly reduced, and these are not possible for Western countries.
The famous American historian Barfield has a point worth considering in his work "The Dangerous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China", arguing that the construction of the Great Wall by the Central Plains Dynasty effectively resisted nomadic invasions, which made these nomadic civilizations look at Europe, which they had previously disdained.
Personally, I judge that it is completely reasonable for the Xiongnu to choose ancient Europe, which is slightly less powerful, but we can't forcibly link this matter with our construction of the Great Wall, and what we do is only to protect ourselves.
During the Han and Tang dynasties, when the house was strong, we generally chose to take the initiative to attack, and the nomadic groups fought had no power to fight back, and the Great Wall at this time only served as a front-line supply base.
At the same time, taking into account the role of closing trade and preventing sneak attacks, no matter how brave the cavalry in the field is, it is difficult to exert it under the Great Wall, and no matter how powerful the cavalry is, it has to dismount and become infantry to attack the city, which greatly weakens the threat of nomadic cavalry.
It can also play the role of early warning, deployment and delivery of supplies when there is no fighting, and the pass rate on the city wall is much better than that of mountain roads, and the only drawback may be that the cost of construction is too high and the maintenance cost is too high.
That's why China was able to defend against plundering by building walls, while the West didn't have the Great Wall, we had money, food, and people to build such a vast project, while the ancient West really couldn't afford to play with the Great Wall.
epilogue
The Great Wall was a very important project for the Central Plains Dynasty in Guannai, and when the military was prosperous, it could rely on the Great Wall for expeditions, and when the military was weak, it could also rely on the Great Wall to defend and recuperate.
Until the widespread use of firearms, the Great Wall was a strong barrier in the north to ensure that we could always live in a stable manner.
Information sources:
Referenced from Baidu Encyclopedia's December 128, 2019 release "Is the Great Wall useful in addition to fighting? Of course it is, and it has a big use"
"Dangerous Frontiers: Nomadic Empires and China" published by Jiangsu People's Publishing House in 2023 is written by Thomas Barfield
The content of this article is partially polished and is for reference only!