Timeline of The Great Wall of China
In order to fully understand the rich, complex history of China, you must learn a little about the Great Wall, which acts as a sort of timeline for Chinese culture. Here is a brief timeline of the great wall of china:
7th Century BC: Construction of the Great Wall begins.
221 BC: Qin Shi Huang (for whom the terracotta army was built) conquers China and orders that all parts of the wall that separate his empire be taking down. The Qin Dynasty begins. During this time the Great Wall was built up in the North in order to protect themselves agains the Xiongu. For the next 1600 years the wall was left alone…
1449 AD: The Ming Dynasty, in fear of Mongolian and Manchurian tribes to the north, further construction of the wall began anew in China. Rather than use soil to build the Great Wall, the Ming Dynasty made use of brick, and were forced to repair the wall for several years after attacks from Mongolian tribes.
1600 AD: During the Shun Dynasty the Great Wall of China played a pivotal role in preventing the Manchu tribes from attacking and claiming the Shanhaiguan Pass. If it were not for the wall, the heart of China would have been the Manchu’s for the taking. The celebration was short lived however, as the Manchus were able to cross the wall in 1644, attack Beijing, and begin the Qing Dynasty.
Contrary to popular belief, the great wall of china cannot be seen from space. However, as you can imagine during this timeline, if you were to put all of the segments of the wall that have been built over the years together, the Great Wall of China would be over 50,000 km long. Using a timeline of the great wall of china as a backdrop for Chinese culture can help people better grasp the breadth of time this country has. For further reading I suggest visiting Thebeijingguide.com for a 360 tour of The Great Wall of China. |