| The Great Wall of China is famous in North America, and many tourists would like to travel there. |
| However, most North Americans don’t know very much about Chinese history. |
| That is changing now, as China is becoming an important subject for study in the West. |
| The settled communities of China were targets for nomadic raids since earliest times. |
| For much of its early history, China was not fully unified. |
| However, Shih Huang, who died in 210 B.C., united the whole country. |
| Then he set about defending China from the northern nomads. |
| It seems likely there had been defensive walls in the north before. |
| However, Shih Huang had a wall constructed across the entire north of China. |
| This defensive wall extended for almost 2,000 miles and had 25,000 towers. |
| Such walls were very expensive to build. |
| They also required huge numbers of men to construct them, and later to defend them. |
| Even so, the Great Wall did not stop nomadic invasions altogether. |
| Not long after Shih Huang’s death, a tribe called the Huns crossed the wall. |
| The Emperor Hu Ti, who expanded Chinese power beyond the Wall, defeated them. |
| Centuries later, the Mongols to the north of China were united under Genghis Khan. |
| The Mongols attacked China, and Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis, |
| became the first non-Chinese emperor of China in 1279. |
| Eventually, the Chinese rebelled and overthrew their Mongol rulers. |
| Nonetheless, the Mongols remained a threat. |
| In 1449, they destroyed a Chinese army and captured the Emperor. |
| A new Great Wall was begun to keep the Mongols out. |
| This is the wall which tourists visit today and which is pictured on Chinese stamps. |
| Construction continued for 200 years. |
| While some parts were built of packed earth, much of the wall was built of stone, brick and rubble. |
| This is why it took so long. |
| Stones had to be quarried, and bricks baked and carried to the site. |
| Laborers, peasants, soldiers and criminals were forced to work on the wall. |
| Large and small forts and watchtowers carefully guarded the wall. |
| Nearly a million soldiers were stationed along it. |
| The Chinese defenders lit fires when the enemy was sighted. |
| Plumes of smoke and cannon shots told that the enemy was advancing and how many there were. |
| By 1644, the new wall was almost completed. |
| That same year, however, an internal uprising overthrew the Emperor. |
| This revolt was partly caused by the high taxes demanded to pay for the wall. |
| The Emperor’s men invited the nomadic Manchu tribe to come through the gates in the wall to help put down the revolt. |
| The Manchus came; but they stayed, and ruled China for several hundred years. |
| Since the Manchus ruled both north and south of the wall, they did not care about maintaining it. |
| Many parts fell into disrepair, and some completely disappeared. |
| Today the parts that remain are a major tourist attraction. |
| The Great Wall of China is one of the wonders of the world. |
| Even if it really didn’t succeed in its purpose of keeping the northern nomads out of China. |
