Nat Geo_Chinas Great Wall_1of2_Mongol Invaders
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00:00They say you can see it from space.
00:10They say it's over 2,000 years old and protected China's northern frontier over a distance
00:15of 6,000 kilometers.
00:25It's a strategic masterpiece, a monument in stone to a civilization that has survived
00:30for millennia.
00:36To the world, it is the symbol of China.
00:56How much of that is truth?
00:58How much is legend?
01:03How old is the wall, really?
01:05How long is it, and what does this huge structure tell us about the people who built it?
01:15One thing's for sure, you can't see the Great Wall from space.
01:21This is its true story.
01:36In spring 1907, the British adventurer and archaeologist Oral Stein struggles through
01:41one of the most arid landscapes in the world, the Taklimakan Desert.
01:46He's following a route that 2,000 years ago brought Asian luxuries to Europe, the legendary
01:51Silk Road, the transcontinental trading route of the ancient world.
02:00Stein has come from India to look for treasures said to be hidden under the sand of the desert.
02:04His expedition is extremely successful.
02:07From the buried foundations of Buddhist temples and dried-out oases in the middle of the desert,
02:12he uncovers ancient silks, unique scrolls, and priceless statues.
02:21Now he and his men are on their way to the Chinese oasis of Dunhuang.
02:35This garrison town has always been a life-saving refuge after the exhausting march through
02:39the Taklimakan.
02:41The very name Taklimakan means, go in and you won't come out.
03:05But what Stein sees through his telescope is not the looked-for oasis.
03:10He's about to discover an archaeological sensation virtually unknown to the West.
03:29About 70 kilometers northwest of Dunhuang Oasis, Oral Stein has come across the ruins
03:34of a gigantic fortress.
03:39Stein has discovered the Yumen Guan, the Jade Gate.
03:44This hulk of clay bricks measures 24 meters by 26 meters.
03:48Its walls are 4 meters thick, and it reaches up to a height of 10 meters.
03:53Two gates, one in the west and one in the north, lead into the almost rectangular inner
03:58courtyard.
04:00This is the western end of a 2,000-year-old defensive wall.
04:05This huge earth structure looks nothing like the familiar walled ramparts north of Beijing.
04:15Stein believes they're part of ancient China's great wall defenses, but he cautiously describes
04:20them as the remains of old Chinese road towers.
04:24He wrote that he had found the line of an ancient Chinese wall which traversed the desert
04:29for a great distance.
04:30In many places, it had almost been completely covered by drift sand.
04:35But the tamarisk layers which had been used to strengthen the agar cropped up so persistently
04:39that the eye caught the straight line as it stretched away for miles on the coarse sand.
04:50But what, and who, was the wall built to protect?
05:07Chang'an, 2nd century BC.
05:11The emperors of the Han dynasty govern the Middle Kingdom from here.
05:16Chang'an is one of the biggest cities of ancient times.
05:19Over a million people live within its mighty walls, a metropolis designed to be the center
05:24of the world.
05:32But peace in this ordered world is deceptive and expensive.
05:40An ancient chronicle reports, when Emperor Wu Di came to the throne, he reaffirmed the
05:47peace alliance and treated the Xiongnu with generosity, allowing them to trade and sending
05:53them lavish gifts.
06:01The Xiongnu were a powerful nomadic people living in the endless steppes of today's Mongolia.
06:07The Chinese considered them to be barbarians, and they had already suffered bloody defeats
06:12at the hands of these skilled horsemen.
06:16It seemed like a good idea to buy off the barbarians with generous gifts.
06:21Wagon loads of the best silk, wine and grain regularly left the capital for the journey
06:25north.
06:37But the dearly bought peace is not accepted by everyone.
06:41It is a burden on the finances of the state, and it also demands sacrifices from the leading
06:46families of the empire.
06:50The tribal chiefs of the Xiongnu want more than silk and other precious goods.
06:55They also demand the daughters of Chinese nobles as wives.
06:59The Chinese call this policy of tributes and marriages Heqin, peaceful and friendly relations.
07:13But what's the alternative?
07:21The region where the Yellow River makes its great arch through northern China had been
07:25disputed by both cultures for centuries.
07:29This Ordos region lent itself to cultivation by Chinese farmers, but also to the roaming
07:35nomadic horse breeders.
07:46Year in, year out, Chinese farmers were victims of the same bloody ritual.
07:52Through the spring and summer they would work tirelessly in their fields until the harvest
07:56was complete.
07:57And in the fall, the warriors from the north would ride in and plunder everything.
08:09The nomads needed to take what they couldn't grow, supplies to help them survive the long
08:14cold winter of the steppes.
08:18They needed grain to eat and iron to fight with.
08:31These murderous raids had threatened the stability of the empire and the very power base of the
08:35Han dynasty.
08:36The political marriages that followed were the lesser evil, even if they involved a serious
08:42loss of face.
08:48To the Chinese, the nomads were savages.
08:51They could only be despised.
09:01What else could they think of people who foretold the future with sheep's bones, who had no
09:05writing and who lived not in permanent cities, but in tents?
09:10But in 209 BC, one clan chieftain united the tribes that till then had warred among themselves.
09:22This nomad king called himself Shen Yu, the equivalent of emperor.
09:38The tributes from the Middle Kingdom flowed into the Shen Yu's coffers, reinforcing his
09:43control of the nomad tribes.
09:50Meanwhile, the forced marriages with China's noble families made it clear that the barbarians
10:00wanted equality with the Chinese.
10:14For several decades, this foreign policy had maintained a kind of peace on China's northern
10:19borders.
10:20For the daughters of the Middle Kingdom, their new life with the nomads was more than a culture
10:26shock.
10:38The suffering of the Chinese princesses who were married to the barbarians is immortalized
10:43in a poem written in the second century BC.
10:48My people have married me in a far corner of earth, sent me away to a strange land.
10:57The round tent is my palace, its walls are made of felt.
11:02Dried meat is my only food, kumis is my drink.
11:10Endlessly I dream of my country, and my heart is all bruised.
11:16Oh, to be the yellow swan that returns to its homeland.
11:24The difference between the two worlds could hardly be greater.
11:27In the north, the wild, wandering life of the steppes.
11:31To the south, the sedentary population, subject to strict rituals and rules.
11:41The main props of the Chinese empire were the officials, educated according to the teachings
11:46of Confucius that regulated private and public life in the tiniest detail.
11:53Confucius' pupils had recorded his teachings in the 5th century BC.
11:58For 2,000 years, the faultless quotation and analysis of his works was the most important
12:03element of civil service examinations.
12:07This tradition lasted until the collapse of the Chinese empire in the 20th century.
12:21China saw itself as the protector of civilisation, the cultural centre of the world.
12:27And the man who embodied this claim was the emperor, the son of heaven.
12:39The high officials of the empire gathered in the imperial palace in Chang'an.
12:43The sublime emperor had summoned them to an audience.
12:59Emperor Wu Di of the Han dynasty made Confucian teachings the official philosophy of the empire.
13:05And such high moral standards were not compatible with a China that bought off barbarians with
13:10tributes and brides.
13:19Now it is time for the imperial court to determine China's future foreign policy.
13:30Under one of Emperor Wu Di's predecessors, a famous memorial described the natural hierarchy
13:35of the Chinese empire.
13:37Court officials certainly knew it well.
13:41According to this hierarchy, the son of heaven is the head of the empire, and the barbarians
13:46are the feet.
13:48To command the barbarians is the power vested in the emperor on the top, and to present
13:52tribute to the son of heaven is a ritual to be performed by the vassals at the bottom.
13:58The sublime ruler is no longer willing to pay tribute to the barbarians, and to continue
14:04peaceful and friendly relations with them.
14:14It is 133 BC.
14:17The emperor makes his decision.
14:19Nothing but military action can re-establish the natural hierarchy of the empire.
14:24The imperial army is excellently equipped and ready to attack.
14:30The emperor's generals consider their strategy for the coming offensive.
14:34In the past, the Xiongnu were superior on the battlefield, but the generals have learned
14:39from their predecessors' mistakes.
14:41This time, the Chinese will give the barbarians a taste of their own medicine.
15:03After a series of surprise attacks and skirmishes on the frontier, the empire marches out to
15:08the first decisive battle.
15:11The general of carriage and cavalry leads a mounted force of thousands into enemy territory.
15:24The offensive is a complete success.
15:27Many thousands of Xiongnu are killed or captured, and the general's soldiers seize huge amounts
15:32of booty.
15:34More than a million cattle and sheep fall into Chinese hands.
15:50The imperial army forces the Xiongnu back to the far north of the steppes, but more
15:55campaigns will follow.
15:57This is just the start of Emperor Wudi's politics of expansion.
16:13The long-disputed Ordos region was once more in Chinese hands.
16:17As they chased the fleeing nomads, the empire's armies also reached far to the west.
16:22They soon occupied the Heshi Corridor, the bottleneck between the desert to the north
16:27and the Qilian mountain range.
16:35But what could they do with this empty stretch of land?
16:43For the Chinese, it had considerable strategic importance.
16:47By conquering the Heshi Corridor, they had gained access to the Silk Road, and that meant
16:52control of the trade caravans.
16:55But there was more.
16:57From the Heshi Corridor, the imperial army could break out and conquer new realms far
17:02to the west.
17:08And there, they could find the legendary heavenly horses that the Emperor Wudi so desired, because
17:24with them, he could perfect his new art of war.
17:33Under the Han dynasty, a number of breeding stations were established for the heavenly
17:36horses.
17:38One of these stations, founded more than 2,000 years ago, still exists today.
17:55After the successful campaigns against the barbarians, the Emperor again summoned his
18:07advisors.
18:08He asked the critical question, how can the new order, one with force of arms, be maintained?
18:14How can the empire's new frontiers be made secure, and how can the conquered territories
18:19be protected from enemy attacks?
18:26The court falls back on a solution that already has a long tradition in the Middle Kingdom.
18:32The frontiers will be secured by the construction of a long wall.
18:39The empire's high officials speak strongly against this proposal.
18:46They warn of the risks and high costs of such an undertaking, but they cannot change the
18:52Emperor's mind.
19:05Heaven created the mountains and rivers, and the Han established fortresses and walls.
19:11These all aim to divide the interior from that which is alien, says a Chinese quote
19:16from the second century.
19:20Today, the farmers in the north build walls around their houses, in the same way their
19:26ancestors 2,000 years ago once built the long wall at the border.
19:32First they filled clay into a mold made of wooden boards.
19:38Then they flattened the clay with rams.
19:42It's heavy, slow work, but with enough manpower, the wall rises metre by metre.
19:49A layer of straw is laid on the compressed clay to stabilise it, before the next layer
20:10of clay is piled on top, just as they used to do it, only on a smaller scale.
20:20The Han dynasty's gigantic frontier wall begins near the place Aurel Stein would later
20:39find, Yumenguan, the Jade Gate.
20:43Here the wall was to protect the caravans that carried treasures between China and the
20:47Arabian Empires.
21:05Today no one knows how many people were recruited for the construction of the wall.
21:09Many of them were soldiers, others were forced labourers, condemned to years of work on the
21:14wall often for tiny misdemeanours.
21:17Or others were landless peasants, sent to the Empire's largest construction site from
21:21all parts of the country.
21:27For royal officials they were just beads on an abacus.
21:30We know, because we have later dynasties' calculations.
21:36If one soldier can build three paces of wall in one month, then 300 men can build one and
21:42a half kilometres.
21:433,000 men can build 15 kilometres, so that 500 kilometres would take 100,000 men one
21:51month to complete.
22:03But how can thousands of people be supported in a region where there is nothing but dust
22:07and stones?
22:21Just 13 kilometres to the east of the Jade Gate, the walls of a giant granary rise in
22:26the desert.
22:28Huge amounts of grain were brought here from the fertile regions of the Empire.
22:38This supply camp first saw to the needs of the construction gangs, and later the garrisons
22:43of border troops stationed here in their thousands.
22:46But supply lines like this are expensive.
22:50The Emperor's officials soon found a better policy.
23:00No one knows the names of the people who had to carry it out.
23:03Perhaps this man was one of them.
23:05People call him Zheng Bao.
23:07Like thousands of others, he became a member of a new class, that of soldier-farmers, landless
23:13peasants inducted into the army.
23:18To cut costs, their families were recruited with them, and then they were left to look
23:22after themselves.
23:29By colonising this unpromising soil, the entire region was to be absorbed into the Chinese
23:36Empire.
23:38There are still towns and villages in the region that were first colonised by soldier-farmers
23:43like Zheng Bao.
24:00But few of the settlers willingly stayed in this no-man's land.
24:08Soldiers kept watch for families attempting to flee north, to the barbarians.
24:17Zheng Bao and his fellow villagers were not the only victims of Emperor Wu Di's expansionary
24:22policy.
24:23Two million people were relocated into the new border regions.
24:34Those opposed to the wall's construction had warned of the high costs of such a gigantic
24:38project.
24:40We don't know if they included the price paid by the Emperor's subjects.
24:54No one knows how many died building the wall.
24:59Every metre cost one life. That's the legend.
25:05There's no proof, because today we can only guess exactly where the wall ran, and hardly
25:11anyone can say for sure how long the Han Wall was.
25:23300km north of Beijing, close to the borders of the autonomous province of Inner Mongolia.
25:54By the 16th century, this mountainous area near the capital will be one of the best defended
25:59border regions the world has ever seen.
26:07But remains of the Han Wall can be found here too.
26:11The Jade Gate at the far end of the Han Wall lies 2,500km to the west of here.
26:17In the 1980s, Dung Yau Hui walked the entire length of the Han Dynasty Wall.
26:23His discoveries relaunched the interest in the Han Wall and its scale.
26:35These are the best preserved remains of the 2,000-year-old wall.
26:42Our image of a single Chinese Great Wall belongs firmly in the realms of myth and legend.
27:04Archaeological tests in recent years show that the Han Wall is probably the longest
27:09of all China's defensive walls. Altogether, it's about 20,000 li long, that's more
27:15than 10,000km.
27:17Here in the north, it mostly follows the route of an even older wall, the one the first emperor
27:23built 200 years before Christ.
27:26The Han Wall runs further north than the other, better-known walls.
27:31The Ming Great Wall, the one the tourists visit at Badaling, is about 300km south of
27:37here.
27:45This is the Ming Dynasty's Great Wall, the stone dragon that has become the image of
27:50the Great Wall of China throughout the world.
27:54It was built in the 16th century for much the same reason as the Han Walls, to protect
27:59the Middle Kingdom from the northern barbarians.
28:02But this gigantic construction is made not of earth, but of baked bricks.
28:07It's more than 7m thick at the base, and its battlements reach up to 20m high.
28:18It curves majestically through more than 1,200km of the mountains north of Beijing.
28:30It follows the natural line of the mountain peaks, reaching breathtaking heights before
28:34plunging into the deepest ravines.
28:43Visitors stand speechless before this architectural masterpiece, and admire the audacity of its
28:48builders, even while they wonder about its real military effectiveness.
29:05But there's little doubt about the message. This is the frontier of our world. On the
29:12other side, the alien world begins. This wall is the expression of a culture that wanted
29:18to be entirely self-sufficient.
29:25This stone monument marks the peak of wall building in China's long history. Almost
29:38every dynasty had built its own wall. There was never a single strategic idea. Some reckon
29:45that all the walls added together would stretch for 25,000km.
29:56Many parts of many walls are still to be discovered. On the Yellow River, close to the once so
30:07hotly disputed Ordos region, there are still a few remains. Here and there, ruined towers
30:13and tumbling sections of walls still rear out of the sand.
30:21Over the centuries, the wind and the rain have taken their toll on the walls of packed
30:30earth.
30:38The relics of the old ramparts seem to merge with the natural landscape, as if they were
30:50never built by man. Hard to believe here, in the myth of the wall, as a symbol of the
30:56nation's strength.
31:08You're not a real man if you've not got to the Great Wall, Chairman Mao said. But for
31:25many of the country people here, the wall is just a part of their everyday lives. In
31:30their villages, they work beside the wall, just as their forefathers did 2,000 years
31:34ago.
31:51Sometimes these practical farmers make their own breaches in the national icon.
32:01Further west, in the Taklimakan desert, the Chinese always knew that the ancient wall
32:15existed. But they never paid any attention to these Han Dynasty relics. A shame, as the
32:23builders had once taken great trouble to make sure their wall would be strong and effective.
32:31As soon as a section of the wall was finished, the local commander ordered a quality test.
32:52It simulated the worst-case scenario, a barbarian attack. Archers shot a hail of arrows at
33:01the wall. Only if all the arrows bounced off did the wall get official approval.
33:16Maybe it passed its quality test once. 2,000 years later, the Han wall has disappeared
33:22into the dust of the Taklimakan desert.
33:29But Aurel Stein's discovery of the ruins catapulted this first Chinese great wall into the world's
33:35consciousness.
33:42Stein finally reached Dunhuang Oasis, but he soon returned to the desert with his crew
33:47of local diggers for a more thorough investigation of the Chinese Li Maze.
33:54In some places it still rose almost two meters above the desert floor.
34:01Stein followed the line of the wall for nearly a hundred kilometers. During his excavations,
34:06he uncovered numerous ancient relics. Among them were wooden strips.
34:24Upon closer inspection, he noticed that these strips were written records. Stein had found
34:31orders, instructions and soldiers' letters from as far back as the first century B.C.
35:01They give a precise picture of frontier defense at that time.
35:14The commander's seals and secret codes were split into separate tablets.
35:22One strip says that a soldier called Wang is on duty for 355 days a year. There are
35:28private letters, like invitations to a family celebration.
35:36But the most important records show that the wall had a highly developed system of optic
35:41telegraphy, as Stein called it.
35:49There were watchtowers along the wall, where the soldiers would pass on a signal as soon
35:59as invaders were spotted. Using smoke by day and fire by night, the signal was relayed
36:05to the towers lined up inside the wall's boundaries, and ultimately reached the garrison.
36:11Using a standardized code, the soldiers could even pass on the distance and the strength
36:14of the attacking force. In less than 24 hours, the message could travel several hundred kilometers.
36:36Stein later wrote,
36:37To the northeast, four towers lit up by the sun behind us could be made out echelon in
36:43the distance, silent guardians of a wall line which I thought I could still recognize
36:47here and there in faint streaks of brown shown up by my glasses.
36:52What a fine position, I thought, this height of the fort wall must have been, for a commandant
36:58to survey his line of watch stations, and to look out for the signals they might send
37:02along it.
37:05The romantic view of an explorer from the beginning of the 20th century.
37:14But the private letters written by soldiers 2,000 years before tell a different story,
37:22the reality of the wall.
37:35Danger is never too far from the empire, but I have never felt it as close as I do now.
37:42Yesterday I saw the silhouettes of these skin-clad warriors on a mountain ridge. They were welded
37:47to their horses like monsters. It was a terrible sight.
37:58Now I'm in Ling Hu Company. That means destroy the barbarians. They gave us that name because
38:06of our supposed bravery. If we ever were brave, that was a long time ago.
38:16The emptiness of this cruel landscape is unbearable.
38:25The Chinese hated serving on the wall. The soldiers and farmers constantly faced the
38:30danger of raids and the terrible weather conditions in summer and in winter.
38:42Tough conditions and poor food were made worse by homesickness.
38:50Their letters tell of despair, the despair of men condemned to fritter away their lives
39:03in this miserable country, and their bitterness when the emperor ignores their requests for
39:08a new posting.
39:11More and more soldiers desert to the Xiongnu, the barbarians, the enemy.
39:20The blazing heat of summer and the freezing winter storms take their toll on the wall
39:28itself. It does not, after all, seem to be made for eternity.
39:39This great construction that the officials hoped was to be of use for hundreds of generations
39:44turns out to be an economic disaster, swallowing massive sums for repairs.
40:00The barbarians break through the wall at its weakest points. Once again, in northern China,
40:05the villages burn.
40:07More than 1,200 years later, Genghis Khan would say, a wall is only as strong as the
40:13men who guard it, before setting out on his own campaign to conquer China.
40:37In the capital, Chang'an, the emperor and his retinue gather to receive the report from
40:42the border troops. They await the commanding general, returning from the front with the
40:46latest news.
40:54It is the year 99 BC. In the 34 years since the emperor's first military strike against
41:12the Xiongnu, many battles have been fought, countless men have been slaughtered. But the
41:18enemy has not been defeated. The bloodletting continues.
41:31The Chinese have suffered an overwhelming defeat. An army of 30,000 men has been annihilated.
41:39Will the emperor send more troops against the barbarians?
41:56The sublime ruler, the Son of Heaven, orders another military expedition. The general is
42:02to gather a force of 5,000 infantrymen and lead them against the Xiongnu.
42:18The general has no choice. He must obey. He will not see the capital city again.
42:33The expedition ends in disaster. The 5,000 Chinese soldiers are slaughtered by the all-powerful
42:48army of the barbarians.
42:55New armies are sent against the Xiongnu. Victories follow on from defeat. But the Chinese never
43:01succeed in suppressing the people of the steppes.
43:10Nothing is known of the fate of the general. When he failed to return to the capital, Emperor
43:15Wudi took his revenge by executing his entire family.
43:32The horrors of war did not reach Chang'an. Behind its mighty walls, life continued. At
43:40the imperial court, the changeful history of a powerful empire was recorded in minute
43:59detail.
44:10One of these ancient chronicles remains today. It is a unique source, a window into a distant
44:18foreign world.
44:40And the wall? All the chronicle says about the wall is,
44:51Bahan regained control of the area south of the bend of the Yellow River and began to
44:56build fortifications, repairing the old system of defences that had been set up by the first
45:01emperor, strengthening the frontier along the Yellow River.
45:10The Han dynasty held power in China until the year 220 A.D., when it was deposed by
45:19a rebellious general.
45:24For centuries, the Han dynasty had tried everything to defeat the threat from the north. Bribery,
45:32war, and finally, the construction of maybe 10,000 kilometres of walls. But nothing could
45:40solve the problem of the barbarians.
45:48The great construction crumbled, but successive dynasties would build their own walls for
45:52the next 1,500 years.
45:57They had never been a symbol of strength. They were about political compromise. The
46:03Chinese could not dominate the peoples of the steppes with their armies, and they refused
46:07to trade with them as equals.
46:15So these colossal monuments were stopgap solutions to a problem that could never be solved.
46:28No one in China particularly valued the walls until the modern age. It was the astonishment
46:35of European explorers that turned the stone dragon into the national icon of China.