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-- SECRETS OF THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA --
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In 226 the armies of the Chu Dynasty and The Qin dynasty
met in  a
great final battle. The victor would get the prize of
the richest and most technologically advanced nation of the
world. The Qin Emperor needed to defend the country from the
marauding bands of nomadic horsemen of the north. To preserve
China's borders the Qin set about building a huge defensive
barrier in 221 BC. Wall building became the chief defensive
strategy to repel the enemy from the north.
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The first Great Wall was a massive undertaking. It was the
equivalent of building 30 of the great pyramids of Egypt.
To build this great wall of 3,000 miles the Qin Emperor chose
his most able general Ling Qia. He was given an army
of over 300,000 men They had to build roads, and the infrastructure
as well as the wall. Much of the wall was built of beaten
clay. Stone was not always available, so tamped earth
became the first choice. Soil was selected from at least four
inches below the surface so seeds and grasses could not germinate
and thus undermine the strength of the wall. Using first a
form made of wood, earth was piled and was pounded into a
layer of four inches
. Successive layers of this would produce
a wall twenty feet high that would still be standing some
2,000 years later.
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The wall stretched from the borders of North
Korea across the northern border to the far reaches in western
China. In ten years they built a wall across the entire
northern border of China in lands that included marshes, quicksand,
deserts, and altitudes of 8,000 feet. They built twenty-five
miles a month that is almost a mile a day.
Continued...........
 
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