The Great Wall of China is greatly admired by many people today, but what's the story behind the wall? Is it really that great? The Great Wall of China was made one of the Seven Wonders of the World for its advanced architectural skill, not for its ability to protect China.
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The Great Wall started as a series of small walls for protection made by the different states of China. The individual sections of the wall were not connected until the Qin dynasty, 221-206 BC, when the first emperor of the Qin dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, began to gather and man he could to go work on the wall. But Qin Shi Huang did not build the wall to look out for his people; he did it for glory and power. After all, he was "only a tyrant who thought people were evil and needed to live by a strict set of rules." So, he sentenced his own people to years of forced labor on the Great Wall, therefore causing decades of oppression. His people could have been strengthening the empire in other ways, such as selling China's fine, sought-after silk and tea, or even as advisors to the Emperor on difficult matters. The warriors should have been training for battle incase the time arrived. Instead, these useful lives were wasted building the Great Wall, with many people spending their whole lives doing just this and nothing more.
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The Chinese workers slaved away throughout the day and night for what? Nothing! The emperor did not pay them. Workers who complained or attempted to run away were killed. Many not only died form the hard, forced labor, but also died for widespread diseases and injury. Those who died were not even given a proper burial; instead their bodies were tossed into the building of the Great Wall. .
Each emperor continued with the hard work and painstaking labor that the people were forced to do. Because of all the work the wall should have been a great form of protection to all of China, right? After all, it's estimated that the cost of the Great Wall, in modern terms, would be 260 billion dollars, which would pay for roughly half of all the annual construction in the United States.
