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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm editor Candice skips In, joined by staff writer Jane

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Speaker 1: the Grass Taylor. Candice, Jane, you near that old proverb

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Speaker 1: that great fences make great neighbors. Yeah, I think it's true.

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Speaker 1: It's very true. Like that was one of my favorite

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Speaker 1: especially if you have a yappy, little dog like idea.

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Speaker 1: He likes to knows his way into other people's yards.

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Speaker 1: I have a question for you, actually, did you ever

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Speaker 1: play the game Rampart video game? Oh, it's a great game.

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Speaker 1: It's actually you build like castles and walls to keep

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Speaker 1: out the the enemy forces from coming in just and

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Speaker 1: burning down your castle. And I think up playing the game,

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Speaker 1: the hours that I spent were actually prepared me for

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Speaker 1: this podcast. Has gosh, so the idea today things that

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Speaker 1: keep people out fences, walls, boundaries. Um uh, the biggest

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Speaker 1: wall of all what what kinds to mind? Of course?

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Speaker 1: The Great Wall of China. And yeah, there were other

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Speaker 1: empires that had big walls before China, Denmark, Korea, and

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Speaker 1: the Reman Empire. They all had walls before China. Build it.

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Speaker 1: And the funny thing about the wall is that you know,

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Speaker 1: when we think about the wall today, we see this

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Speaker 1: one big labyrinthine landmarks, and that wasn't always the case. No,

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Speaker 1: it was built in section six sections to be exact,

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Speaker 1: and they had really nothing to do with each other

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Speaker 1: in terms of like they were only for their individual

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Speaker 1: kingdoms precisely. And not much is known about the wall

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Speaker 1: in terms of its length. Ord's with there's not a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of standard measurements. Some people think that it's

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Speaker 1: about miles long. Other people say it's more like four

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Speaker 1: thousand sixty three miles. And it's wider in some places

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Speaker 1: and it as in others. And so just get the

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Speaker 1: sense that it's not uniform by any stretch of the imagination.

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Speaker 1: That's right to give you a point of reference, Like

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Speaker 1: they're not even sure how long it is, you know,

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Speaker 1: you think by today this would be easy to figure out,

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Speaker 1: but they're actually, Uh, it's so difficult because they're section

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Speaker 1: of the wall that are buried and and is they're scattered,

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Speaker 1: and like you said, there are different pieces and look

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Speaker 1: different ways, so it's hard to find out. They're built

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Speaker 1: of all different materials. Some are made of brick and

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Speaker 1: stone and others are made of earth and other strange materials.

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Speaker 1: And you can really get this sense by studying the

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Speaker 1: wall that this was a haphazard thing thrown together to

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Speaker 1: keep out the Huns and other invaders. And that's exactly

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Speaker 1: what it was. It's like, I'm not much of a gamer,

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Speaker 1: but Jane, I imagine and rampart. You're doing whatever you can,

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Speaker 1: scrambling as fast as possible to keep people. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: So whatever you decide your bill to build your wall

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Speaker 1: out of, as long as it's there, it's gonna work.

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Speaker 1: And well, westerners call it the Great Wall of China.

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Speaker 1: The Chinese don't really think of it that way. They're like,

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Speaker 1: it's not so great. It's really long, and that's why

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Speaker 1: they call it the the long Wall of ten thousand lee.

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Speaker 1: That's right, and a lee is about half a kilometer

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Speaker 1: to have you a point of reference, and so the

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Speaker 1: pe pegs ad at about three thousand miles. But as

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Speaker 1: we know, we're not really sure. And so people are

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Speaker 1: actually right now on a mission to determine once and

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Speaker 1: for all how long the wall is and then think

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Speaker 1: it's going to be about a four year track because

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Speaker 1: they have to go through mountains and desert and grasslands.

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Speaker 1: And this is a study being conducted by the State

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Speaker 1: Administration of Cultural Heritage as well as the State Bureau

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Speaker 1: of Surveying and Mapping. And they're starting in the east

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Speaker 1: by the gebby desert, and they're moving west towards the

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Speaker 1: Yellow State. That's right. And what's interesting to me about

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Speaker 1: the Great Wall is that it was done in so

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Speaker 1: many fits and starts, like even after it was trying

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Speaker 1: to be unified, which is back about UM. I want

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Speaker 1: to say the third century. Yeah, that's the third century

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Speaker 1: Uh where the Chin, which is where China got its

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Speaker 1: name originally, the Chin emperor Uh wanted to unify China,

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Speaker 1: and so he tore down some walls that didn't make

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Speaker 1: sense to him, and he kept up a northern wall

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Speaker 1: to keep out barbarians like so not even just to

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Speaker 1: to stop them, but maybe just to delay them so

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Speaker 1: that when they knew they were coming, you know, the

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Speaker 1: people UM could rally their defenses. And so this continued

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Speaker 1: for a while, and it acquired the help of everyone

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Speaker 1: from commoners to prisoners and criminals and soldiers. Everyone had

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Speaker 1: to chip in and build this wall. And we know

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Speaker 1: that thousands and thousands of people die during the construction,

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Speaker 1: and we also know that some of them are actually

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Speaker 1: buried inside the wall. That's right. And it's pretty crazy

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Speaker 1: to think that they're actually not only earth, you know,

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Speaker 1: packed in but bodies inside the wall. Isn't that wild?

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Speaker 1: And I'm sure that it's it's bones if even how

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Speaker 1: long it takes bones to finally disintegrate. But there you

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Speaker 1: have it. So the Chin dynasty left off around the

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Speaker 1: third century, and then it didn't really get as um

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Speaker 1: to be huge of a project until the main dynasty,

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Speaker 1: and that was around thirteen sixty eight when that dynasty began,

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Speaker 1: it's right, and they wanted to defend themselves from the

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Speaker 1: Mongols by that time, and to the same principle again,

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Speaker 1: you you keep adding length and which the wall to

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Speaker 1: keep out the invaders. And they had special passes like

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Speaker 1: they obviously be in order to um have people come

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Speaker 1: in and out that were like trade et cetera, that

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Speaker 1: kept the country moving. They had things called passes, but

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Speaker 1: they had to be heavily guarded by men to make sure,

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Speaker 1: you know, you kept out the unwanted invaders. Uh So,

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Speaker 1: but they also what was really cool about by this time,

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Speaker 1: the wall had a signal towers and as you know,

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Speaker 1: they didn't have walkie talkies at that time, so in

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Speaker 1: order and so in order to signal to each other

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Speaker 1: like hey, there's you know, barbarians on the way sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. Uh, they would use anything from smoked signals

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Speaker 1: to banners in the daytime, but at night they had

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Speaker 1: to use things like lanterns, clappers, or gunfire. And that's

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Speaker 1: what's so interesting about the Main dynasty because not only

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Speaker 1: did they add girth to the wall, sometimes double and

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Speaker 1: triple the wit the width that it had been previously,

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Speaker 1: they started reinforcing it with military personnel. And so they

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Speaker 1: had guard towers, and they had beak ends, and they

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Speaker 1: had all of these extra human reinforcements to make sure

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Speaker 1: that the invaders stayed out. But it wasn't always successful

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Speaker 1: because the guards could be pretty easily bribed. Yeah, that's true,

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Speaker 1: and it it caused some problems, it really did. And

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Speaker 1: so the Mongols finally, I'm sorry, not the Mongols, the

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Speaker 1: man Churions. They finally overtook the Main dynasty, and that

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Speaker 1: was about the seventeenth century. And because they were more

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Speaker 1: into appeasing the neighboring kingdoms, they weren't as interested in

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Speaker 1: in a wall, so they basically let it fall into

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Speaker 1: disrepair exactly. And I think also part of their philosophy was, well,

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Speaker 1: it couldn't keep us out. Who you're not going to

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Speaker 1: keep out. It's a pretty useless and you can imagine

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Speaker 1: that a wall of that size and length, even though

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Speaker 1: today we talked about about it being in disrepair and ruin,

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Speaker 1: it would have taken a lot of manpower to keep

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Speaker 1: it up. And so they decided now it's it's just

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Speaker 1: not worth it. And so a wall that had been

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Speaker 1: developing for some two thousand years, it just stopped and

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Speaker 1: and stood. And that's when things like earthquakes and snow

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Speaker 1: and wind and rain really exacted their fury on the wall.

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Speaker 1: But today that natural um, the natural threats aren't as

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Speaker 1: great as the human threats, that's true. And as time

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Speaker 1: went on and people actually would would take pieces away,

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Speaker 1: whether it's to build houses or whatever. Similar thing happened

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Speaker 1: to the Colisseum. I remember learning Um, where people, you know,

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Speaker 1: they would just take bricks away. And this wall is

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Speaker 1: there's a point of pride for China that now you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a point of tourism. Uh so that they

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Speaker 1: want to keep it up and so um they want

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Speaker 1: to stop these these things that are destroying it. And

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Speaker 1: it's worth mentioning too that Chairman Mal was a pretty

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Speaker 1: gung of advocate of the people taking part of the

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Speaker 1: wall to build their own homes. You know, progress at

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Speaker 1: what cost? Well, nothing really, because you're building materials are

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Speaker 1: coming from something that's already extant um. But as far

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Speaker 1: as threats from tourism, those are really really serious because

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Speaker 1: you know, when the Berlin Wall came down, people took

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Speaker 1: pieces away, but that was fine and dandy because no

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Speaker 1: one wanted that wall. But the Chinese do want their wall,

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Speaker 1: and so in tourists came. Even if they're just chipping

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Speaker 1: away a little brick or a little piece of earth,

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Speaker 1: it's causing a lot of damage because on average the

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Speaker 1: wall gets around ten million visitors per year. That's right.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of ironic because it brings in money for

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Speaker 1: the country obviously, but it's also causing. It's taking its

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Speaker 1: own toll in the wall itself, it really is, and

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Speaker 1: not just from outsiders but insiders too, because finders and

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Speaker 1: herders will take their livestock there to Gray's or else.

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Speaker 1: Business people will set up a little vendor stands and

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Speaker 1: things like that in front of the wall, and it's

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Speaker 1: just it's damaging not only the structural integrity but also

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Speaker 1: the aesthetic appeal of the wall. That's right. So today

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Speaker 1: they try to advise the tourists who don't bring anything,

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Speaker 1: don't like leave it and and don't take anything away either, right.

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Speaker 1: And one of the biggest problems they have, or a

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Speaker 1: couple of the biggest problems driving along the wall in

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Speaker 1: some places it says, why do you can drive a

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Speaker 1: car on it? And speaking of that, they've actually cut

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Speaker 1: roads through the wall itself. So they've taken down sections

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Speaker 1: of the of the walls so that they can put

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Speaker 1: roads through, which I can understand, like obviously it would

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Speaker 1: probably cost a lot of much more money to build

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Speaker 1: a road that goes over the wall. But but still

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Speaker 1: it's it's pretty said. Well, it's strange to think about too,

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Speaker 1: because I think that attitudes towards the wall are shifting,

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Speaker 1: or at least they have been. If Chairman Mao is

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Speaker 1: encouraging people to take apart the wall, you can imagine

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Speaker 1: that for the sake of bolstering infrastructure, people would support

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Speaker 1: the idea of just knocking through it if necessary. But

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Speaker 1: now people are starting to acknowledge it more as a

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Speaker 1: world landmark, and it's actually one of the few landmarks

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Speaker 1: that cartographers put on maps. And despite what people say,

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Speaker 1: you cannot see it from space. Yeah, And that's it's

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Speaker 1: an interesting actually myth that you bring up about not

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Speaker 1: seeing it from space, because the Chinese are actually kind

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Speaker 1: of proud of this claim. They're like, oh, yeah, our

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Speaker 1: landmark can be seen from space. But this, this myth

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Speaker 1: actually dates back to a cartoon, uh from Ripley's Believe

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Speaker 1: It or Not, and it the cartoon claimed that this

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Speaker 1: is the mightiest work of man, the only one that

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Speaker 1: could be visible to the human human eye from the moon,

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Speaker 1: and this myth persisted throughout the space age, even um,

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Speaker 1: so that you know, Apollo astronauts would like, look for

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Speaker 1: the Great Wall or whatever. But actually, um, there are

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Speaker 1: shades of truth. Even though the Great Wall is definitely

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Speaker 1: not visible from the moon. You know, no structure really

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Speaker 1: is from the moon, but from space you can actually, um,

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Speaker 1: some astronauts say you can barely see it. Um. But

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Speaker 1: what's interesting about this is that you can see other

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Speaker 1: man made structures much much better, whether they be um

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Speaker 1: highways or you know, the Pyramids even can be seen

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Speaker 1: a little bit better than the Great Wall. So it's

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Speaker 1: shades of truth. But don't believe everything you hear. But

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Speaker 1: as far as I guess that the permanence and the

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Speaker 1: honor that the wall brings, I mean, you're right that

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Speaker 1: that would be a really honorable claim to fame, that

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Speaker 1: you can see the wall from space, even if it's

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Speaker 1: not true. So I can understand hanging onto that. But

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Speaker 1: to know that about the wall is on is in

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Speaker 1: ruins and only it is in reasonable condition, that's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's been a real source of hurt for people who

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Speaker 1: are starting to recognize it as a link to their past.

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Speaker 1: And so in two thousand seven, when it was chosen

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Speaker 1: as one of the new Wonders of the World, I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of commissions and organizations were they had

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Speaker 1: fuel added to their fire of keep preservation. And back

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Speaker 1: in two thousand three, Beijing was one of the first

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Speaker 1: places that the wall covers to enact regulations for keeping

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Speaker 1: up the wall and to impose fines on people who

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Speaker 1: drove on it or and they must have one of

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Speaker 1: the worst problems with it, since it's such a bustling city, right,

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Speaker 1: and one of the biggest problems they have, I think

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Speaker 1: is raves people having races on the wall, which to

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Speaker 1: me is just inconceivable. But then a couple of years later,

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Speaker 1: or contemporary to Beijing's policies actually going into law, China

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Speaker 1: enacted a national policy against desecration of the wall, so

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Speaker 1: no ray of no carving, no driving, and if you do,

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Speaker 1: and you're a member of an organization or a group,

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Speaker 1: you're gonna pay upwards to around sixty tho U S dollars.

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Speaker 1: And if you're an individual dessec crediting the wall, I

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Speaker 1: think it's around six thousand US. Of course that's harder

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Speaker 1: to enforce around the rural areas, it is, and that's

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Speaker 1: one of the biggest problems with the wall is that

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Speaker 1: in the rural areas, you know, you're having problems with

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Speaker 1: the herders and livestock damaging the wall. Not as many

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Speaker 1: prize uh. And you can find out more about all

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Speaker 1: different kinds of subjects from the history of China to

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Speaker 1: Beijing to the Olympics at how stuff works dot com

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Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does

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Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. Let us know what

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