As one of the eight wonders of the world, the Great Wall is the pride of our Chinese. The Great Wall was first built in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, mainly to block the invasion of nomadic peoples in the north.
When Qin Shi Huang had not yet unified the Six Kingdoms, the Zhao State in the north, the Yan State began to use the Great Wall to resist the invasion of nomadic peoples.
Li Mu, a famous general of the Zhao state, was a famous general who fought against the Xiongnu, and led Zhao Bian to ride many times to resist the invasion of the Xiongnu.
After the unification of Qin Shi Huang, the nomadic peoples on the northern border and the Baiyue in the south became the most urgent problems to be solved by Yingzheng.
Therefore, in order to protect this piece of foundation that had been painstakingly laid, Qin Shi Huang led hundreds of thousands of Qin Ruishi to attack the Xiongnu in the north, and the Xiongnu were beaten by Qin Ruishi and did not dare to go south to herd horses.
But this has been the case for many years, and they live by the water and grass, and every autumn they look for opportunities to go south to harass. Their consistent principle is to fight if they can fight, run if they can't fight, and come and go like the wind.
Qin Shi Huang also realized that the Xiongnu would not be defeated like this, the Qin state could not keep hundreds of thousands of troops there for a long time, as long as the Qin army withdrew, the Xiongnu would take the opportunity to counterattack. In order to fundamentally eliminate the harassment of the Huns, it is necessary to build a Great Wall.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > what the Great Wall defended</h1>
Qin Shi Huang sent millions of people to the northern border to build the Great Wall. As we all know, Qin Shi Huang was well aware of the necessity of building the Great Wall, and he withstood the huge pressure from home and abroad. It can even be said that if the Great Wall is not urgently built, the domestic public resentment will not be so boiling.
But Qin Shi Huang was a man with a big hand, who braved the world and insisted on building the Great Wall. So did the Great Wall play its rightful role, and what exactly did it prevent for thousands of years?
Needless to say, people who understand it naturally understand. After the construction of the Great Wall, it became a high wall between the nomadic peoples and the civilization of the Central Plains. The average height of the Great Wall is 7.8 meters, and it can be opened to traffic on the city wall, and there are small passes above every few meters apart.
Every few hundred meters, there are also beacon towers, on weekdays, officers and men can stand guard and watch, and when they find large-scale enemy situations, they can light beacons to transmit signals.
Behind the Great Wall, there are also small-scale defensive troops stationed, in addition to the usual arrangement of duty, once a slightly large-scale invasion is found in the area, they can climb the city wall and provide limited support in the short term to resist the attack. At the same time, pass on information and request support.
Imagine that the nomadic peoples of the north live as nomads all year round, and what they are best at is riding horses. But a wall of about 8 meters straddled the cavalry, and they became helpless.
It should be known that most of the nomadic people in the north were originally few in number, and the Central Plains were still mainly invaded by small groups of cavalry. In this case, the soldiers standing on the high wall, crouching behind the bunkers, and the small group of cavalry defended can completely do one side and be at a time.
Even if they broke through the defense line of the Great Wall and entered the Central Plains, they still had to arrange a large number of troops to defend the army supporting from above the Great Wall.
You know, the city wall is like a high-speed passage, once it is occupied, the invading enemy becomes an isolated enemy, then it will not be an invasion, but a death. Therefore, this Great Wall has left the nomads with nomadic measures for a long time.
But the nomadic peoples also had to live, and in the case of invading the Central Plains, they pointed the spearhead of the invasion at the West Asian region and even the distant European region.
When the warhorses of the nomads galloped across the land of Europe, they perfectly exerted their cavalry nature and snatched a pain.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="19" > how powerful Britain's Hadrian's Wall is</h1>
Many people must have heard for the first time that the United Kingdom also has a Great Wall. The Great Wall of England is called Hadrian's Wall, which was built in 122 AD, when it was still the Roman Empire, and the emperor who presided over the construction was called Hadrian.
According to the time, Hadrian is "copying the work", after all, as early as hundreds of years ago, Qin Shi Huang had already proved to the world the greatness of the Great Wall.
Hadrian built the Wall primarily to defend the Picts in the northern part of the island of Great Britain and to protect the lands and property of the Roman Empire.
Hadrian's Wall is 120 kilometers long, with an average height of only 3 meters, all made of local materials, made of stone and mud. The fundamental reason for the construction of the Great Wall is also to resist the nomadic peoples in the north.
After all, Hadrian copied the work, pay attention to enough use, the pattern is far less than Qin Shi Huang, Qin Shi Huang presided over the construction of the project, all worthy of the word "majestic".
If you compare Hadrian's Wall with China's Great Wall, it may be more appropriate to call it a fence wall. But even this humble fence wall has really become a hurdle that the people of the northern British Islands cannot cross.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" > the Roman Empire continued to be weak, and Hadrian's Wall lost its original effectiveness</h1>
No matter how high the defensive attributes of the Great Wall are, they can only rely on strong national strength and resources behind them. When the interior of Rome began to be chaotic, and infighting on the Italian peninsula became popular, the Roman Empire was already weakening.
As a result, this group of soldiers on Hadrian's Wall also became a lone army, not only without soldier supplies, but even without food and salaries.
In this case, the shortcomings of Hadrian's Wall's diminutiveness were infinitely magnified, after all, the three-meter-high city head, without a battle, was equally expensive for the defending side. A single spear could poke at the head of the city, which made Hadrian's defenders fight less and less.
In the end, many defenders had no choice but to turn to the Picts, and this Hadrian's Wall became a monument to the glory of the Roman Empire.
If nothing else, if Hadrian's Wall can also have a height of 8 meters, the pressure on the defenders when taking on defensive tasks will be much less, but after all, it is a low-grade version, and it is already good to play such an effect.