Source: China News Network
Beijing, 17 Sep (China News Service) -- When people think of the Great Wall, they think of China. The Great Wall of China, which has spanned tens of thousands of miles over the past two thousand years, embodies the Chinese nation's unremitting spirit of struggle for self-improvement and the patriotic feelings of unity of purpose and tenacity, and has become a representative symbol of the Chinese nation and an important symbol of Chinese civilization.
In the 1980s, Dong Yaohui was determined to "leave the first complete footprint of mankind on the Great Wall." Two years after the preparation, he and two companions set off from Shanhaiguan in 1984 on foot to Jiayuguan, and the 508-day trip was finally combined into the book "Examination of the Great Wall of Ming Dynasty" signed by "Huaxiazi". To this day, he has not stopped exploring the Great Wall. He, who is currently the vice president of the China Great Wall Society, recently gave an exclusive interview to China News Agency's "East and West Question", explaining why the Great Wall has become synonymous with China and a Chinese symbol in the context of the world.
Data map: In mid-July, the World Cultural Heritage Site - Jiayuguan, which is the western end of the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty in China. Photo by Gao Zhan
Why did you pay so much effort to build the Great Wall?
"There is a Great Wall of China in the world." The famous American traveler William Edgar Gallo wrote in his 1909 book The Great Wall of China: "When the Great Wall was built, there was no steam engine-driven machinery, but according to General Grant's estimation, the amount of work was equivalent to the construction of all the railways, canals, and almost all cities in the United States", and "our ignorance of China is almost as large as that land." ”
So, why did ancient China pay such a huge project as the Great Wall? Dong Yaohui, who has been walking the Great Wall for more than 30 years, introduced that because the Great Wall area is a staggered area of agriculture and animal husbandry, a frontier society has been formed here for a long time, and the Great Wall guarantees the safety of the area.
Historical documents record that the Great Wall was first built in the 7th century BC. Archaeology proves that the Great Wall existed at least in the late Spring and Autumn period and the early Warring States period in the 5th century BC. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the construction of the Great Wall met the needs of the security and development of the princely states themselves. During this period, the princely states built the Great Wall, using tall walls to defend each other, seek balance of power, or build order of interaction between them. During the Spring and Autumn Period, only the State of Chu and the State of Qi built the Great Wall respectively; by the Warring States period, the Seven Heroes of the Warring States had built great walls for mutual defense, and some smaller princely states had also built great walls, such as the Zhongshan State to build the Great Wall to defend the Zhao State.
In the 4th century BC, the princely states of Yan, Zhao, and Qin began to build the Great Wall in their northern agricultural and pastoral staggered areas to defend against nomadic peoples. Since then, the Central Plains dynasties such as the Qin, Han, Sui, and Ming Dynasties, as well as ethnic minority regimes such as the Northern Wei, Northern Qi, and Jin, have also built Great Walls of varying sizes to defend against the nomadic regimes in the north. During this period, the purpose of the construction of the Great Wall was changed from mutual defense between the princely states to a measure to adjust the conflict between the agrarian and nomadic regimes and maintain the socio-economic order inside and outside the Great Wall.
"With the Great Wall, the number and scale of wars have been greatly reduced." Dong Yaohui pointed out that strictly speaking, most of the places along the Great Wall have not been fought, and even where there have been wars, most of the time there is no war. The Great Wall is a means of preventing war.
With the collision of civilizations, wars, ethnic migrations and territorial changes, the military value of the Great Wall has gradually declined. Dong Yaohui stressed that the greater significance of the Great Wall as a military defense project lies in the construction of two completely different economic types of farming and nomadism, the construction of these two economic types as the means of production and life of the nation, and the establishment of an order between the regimes on the basis of this nation.
Infographic: Different seasons, times, weather and lighting conditions, the Great Wall presents a different and unimaginable visual beauty. The picture shows the Great Wall of Dijiao. Photo by Zhang Min
Why is the Great Wall and beyond the same hometown?
Some people have proposed that as a closed and conservative symbol, how can the Great Wall be a symbol of the Chinese nation? Whenever he encounters such a problem, Dong Yaohui will always "ask questions and answers".
In Dong Yaohui's view, the Great Wall is a closed thing, and the construction of a Great Wall is to isolate the Inside and Outside the Great Wall. There is no doubt that this is indeed the embodiment of the closed nature of the Great Wall.
But was the Great Wall built only to separate the inside and outside of the Great Wall? Dong Yaohui gave a negative answer.
Formally, he noted, the Great Wall appeared to be a closed system with a tangible architectural entity serving as a defensive line. But in fact, the Great Wall also has its open side, which is the connection between the inside and outside of the Great Wall. As a defensive system, the internal openness of the Great Wall is reflected in the connection with the surrounding environment, such as terrain, cultivated land, water sources, and the front and rear; openness is reflected in the tens of millions of passes connecting the inside and outside of the Great Wall, which closely links farming and nomadic areas.
The Great Wall is the symbol of the Chinese nation. Although this symbol is the modern meaning given to the Great Wall by modern people, it reflects the historical and cultural value of the Great Wall to a certain extent. Dong Yaohui said that from ancient times to the present, China has always had two major characteristics, one is that it has a large population, and the other is that the Chinese nation is pluralistic and integrated. "Pluralism" refers to the personality and characteristics of each ethnic group that each ethnic group has and maintains in the process of the formation of China's unified multi-ethnic state, including the diversity and particularity of each ethnic group in terms of regional, linguistic, economic, cultural, psychological and other aspects. "Unity" refers to the integration of various ethnic groups in the process of common development to form a unified national community.
Dong Yaohui pointed out that the Great Wall increased the cost of war for nomadic peoples to invade and plunder the farming peoples in the Central Plains and North China, and on the days when there was no war, the Pass of the Great Wall became a channel for the inter-market trade between the farming peoples and the nomads. The people of the Central Plains exchange silk, tea and salt for fur, cattle and sheep, and the northern ethnic groups also exchange grain, ironware and jewelry through border trade, and the "tea and horse mutual market" has become a mechanism for mutual benefit and mutual assistance and coexistence and development of two different regions and different production and lifestyles of the nationalities, which is actually the trade exchange and cultural integration between the two sides in the Great Wall area, so the Great Wall is the link of the integration of the Chinese nation, "the great wall inside and outside the great wall is the hometown."
Data map: On July 2, in the early morning after the rain, the Jinshanling Great Wall Scenic Area in Luanping County, Chengde City, Hebei Province, appeared in a spectacular cloud landscape. Image source: Visual China
Why did the construction of the Great Wall of China last for a thousand years?
In the world, the Great Wall, as a military fortification, exists both at home and abroad.
After the Construction and Use of the Great Wall by the Qin and Han Dynasties in China, the Great Wall was also built in Europe, the "Hadrian's Wall" built when the Roman Empire ruled Britain.
The Great Wall of China's Qin and Han Dynasties is magnificent, and hadrian's Wall of the Roman Empire is also quite large (about 120 kilometers). In 1987, the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall were jointly inscribed on the World Cultural Heritage List. Subsequently, the Antony Wall in the United Kingdom and the Upper German-Retien Border Wall in Germany were successively included in the expansion of Hadrian's Wall in 2005 and 2008, and the three together formed the borders of the Roman Empire.
What are the similarities and differences between the Great Wall of China and the Roman Empire? Dong Yaohui said that in the 2nd century AD, the Roman Empire and the Qin and Han Dynasties were in a period of relatively unified political power, and in the face of cultural and ethnic conflicts, the two invariably strengthened the defense of border areas by building the Great Wall, reflecting the common wisdom of mankind.
Why has China been building the Great Wall for more than 2,000 years? Dong Yaohui analyzed that this is related to the fact that the economic and social foundation of ancient China has always been a very stable agricultural economy. From the tribes to the princes, from the princes to the unification of the world, the Chinese social form has always alternated in the process of continuous division and unification. Reunification is a strong pursuit of a powerful regime in China's history, and it is also a unique psychological consciousness that Chinese has always had. At that time, the Roman Empire ruled the foreign provinces mainly through local warlord families and local political forces that expressed submission. This is not the same as the Chinese dynasty's administration of the county system for local governments within the territory. The Roman Empire was divided into European nations, and naturally there was no longer a need to build the Great Wall. However, the Chinese dynasty, which was pursuing unification in its continuous development, still needed to continue to build and use the Great Wall after implementing a larger scope of unification, and Chinese civilization was inherited and developed in this process.
Dong Yaohui said that in the history of the world, although some countries have also built similar defense projects to the Great Wall, their scale, quality, function and systematization cannot be compared with the Great Wall of China, as a physical monument of history, the Great Wall of China has witnessed the vicissitudes and changes of the Chinese nation for thousands of years.
Data map: On April 6, 2020, the Qingming Festival, the Badaling Great Wall in Beijing was surrounded by a "sea of flowers", and the spring was strong. China News Service reporter Han Haidan photographed
Why did you build the Great Wall so strong?
Located in Beijing, the Badaling Great Wall is one of the essences of the Great Wall, not only an important military pass in ancient China, but also an important barrier to the capital. Since 1954, the Badaling Great Wall has received more than 500 heads of state, government and world celebrities, and has become an important state ceremonial place for the Chinese government.
Dong Yaohui has accompanied many foreign dignitaries to visit and tour the Great Wall. When asked why the Great Wall was built so strong, Dong Yaohui always said: "This reflects the desire of the builders of the Great Wall in ancient China not to want to fight for generations." Peace is the common pursuit of all ethnic groups inside and outside the Great Wall. ”
"Peace, harmony and harmony are the concepts that the Chinese nation has been pursuing and inheriting for more than 5,000 years, and there is no gene in the blood of the Chinese nation to invade others and claim hegemony." Dong Yao will use the Chinese word "Zhong" to describe the relationship between inside and outside the Great Wall: if the middle of the "Middle" is understood as the Great Wall, the left side is outside the Great Wall, and the right side is inside the Great Wall, which reflects three layers of meaning: the first layer, the inside and outside of the Great Wall are relatively independent; the second layer, the inside and outside of the Great Wall are closely linked and interdependent, which determines the need to regulate each other's behavior and maintain a state of peace by building order; the third layer, the inside and outside of the Great Wall are a whole. In today's world, every country is an independent individual, and each individual has its own interests. In addition, there should be a common interest in the countries of the world as a whole, that is, to build an order.
In Dong Yaohui's view, in the process of balancing interests, it is not enough to only talk about "peace is precious", but also to talk about "being prepared for any trouble". The construction of the Great Wall is precisely to "be prepared for the sake of "peace and nobility", which is the so-called "middle also, the big ben of the world; and the peace, the world of the Tao." To neutralize, heaven to the heavens, and all things to nurture. ”
"A stable and peaceful world pattern is the common aspiration of mankind." Dong Yaohui pointed out that in today's in-depth development of globalization, the world is a community of destiny in which you have me and I have you. Countries are more interconnected and interdependent than at any time in history. Cooperation among nations has become the pursuit of universal security and common development for mankind. The value concept represented by the Great Wall, that is, to find the path to maximize the overall interests on the basis of the balance of multiple interests, is the embodiment of human wisdom and civilization.
Original title: The Great Wall, why has it become a Chinese symbol in the context of the world? ——Interview with Dong Yaohui, Vice President of the Great Wall Society of China