Great Wall: A low wall stirs up half of the world

When it comes to China, what do you think of? Is the QR code at the doorstep, the high-speed rail that stuns foreigners, or the traffic city in Beijing and Shanghai? Don’t say you have no thoughts in your mind—but in the end, the Great Wall that is circling among the mountains will still appear. Look, when a foreigner comes, he will take a photo with his arms around him; if the Chinese drive to the north, they will inevitably step around and step on the cracks of bricks. Speaking of China, thousands of words are summed up in two words: the Great Wall. What pandas and hot pot? All have less weight.

It’s strange here: the scenery in this world is as numerous as cow’s hair, and the novel things are changed one after another, but it’s the “leading flower actress” that would rub off half of her trouser legs when she climbed up, and was drawn in her textbooks when she was a child, but was circling like a dragon in reality, and hung in everyone’s heart. But when it was first built, no one thought or dared to think about the "miracle of the world", let alone the storm and clouds of the earth that could roll up half of the earth. To put it bluntly, it is just a "security door". The death order issued by Qin Shihuang back then: block the ruthless characters riding horses in the north.

The Qin Dynasty unified the six kingdoms, but it was so passionate that it was not relaxed at all. It’s still early for the things in the border area, and the people on the grassland on the other side of the mountain frequently came to make trouble. What to do? Qin Shihuang thought about pulling a long stone clamp to push it. The question is also here - can such a "wall" be built?

From today's perspective, the aura of the "Great Wall" is full of force, but if we are allowed to travel back, you will touch the wall, and you may feel relieved. At that time, there was no trace of digging three feet into the ground and machinery to open mountains. The Great Wall is three meters high and five meters high, and the stones are piled up one by one. It is converted into an adult man's size, and he hits the wall when he jumps. In other words, it doesn’t matter if you give the attentive soldiers a little to raise your energy and climb up three steps.

Not to mention "intrinsic", there is a "maoya" here that has to be mentioned - those nomadic cavalry from the north were powerful, and they rode on horses and ran far away. With a bow and arrow, they turned around and ran more skillfully than foxes. If you let them dismount, they will become infantrymen with half of their bows and horses. They will be unable to fight against the stair formation raised by the Qin Dynasty's granaries by the number of people. Therefore, even if you are "short", it can cause a lot of headaches for the cavalry.

In some places, the grassland is so flat that it can straighten the river, and a stone wall stands up there. It seems simple, but it seems to be stretching out a foot to trip people to a team of cavalry. People can turn over horses but not. Having to dismount is like walking into other people's rhythm and naturally being broken away. Want to break the wall? In the era of cold weapons, siege battles are more uncomfortable than fighting dog holes and are costly.

After all, the Great Wall is not an "invincible iron wall", but it is enough to cause trouble. If a barrier is really broken through, there will be garrisons on the walls connected to the back, it will be much more difficult to make up for than to attack. Nomadic tribes value "fast in and out", and consuming it in such fortifications is tantamount to causing trouble. Otherwise, "a sheep enters the tiger's mouth", how many times will they step on such a pit?

There are too many similar paths, digging trenches and building trenches, all to waste the might of the cavalry. The ancestors emphasized "eat all over the world with one trick." But when those scholars from the west were studying the Great Wall, they mentioned a chain effect of cheating - you don’t let the nomadic peoples break into the Central Plains, they detoured to the west and finally threw the disaster to the European continent.

A professor in Boston, USA wrote a big book saying that the Great Wall led the "misfortune" to Europe. It's actually interesting to think about it. To put it simply - everyone knows that Zhongyuan is rich, rice and white flour, and delicacies, who doesn’t jealous? People on the grassland robbed their lives, and it was a day to put a few months of comfort. Qin Shihuang built a low wall, cut off the stepping stones of the grassland army, and made a real big cake. For the Qin Dynasty, this kind of defense was a timely help.

Sometimes I think about it: the Great Wall is the same as the "guarding dog". As long as there is a sign at the door - even if the dog barks are a bit ugly, the thief can think more. As for whether there are dog eyes on the wall, it depends on whether the owner is willing to spend energy on the strong man to guard every day. Only pile up walls? No one? The bad guy lifts his legs and turns over. Who can the wall stop?

In Qin Shihuang's eyes, the Great Wall is a barrier and a chess piece for adjustment. When he was planning to act seriously, he sent Meng Tian to lead an army of 300,000 north. Meng Tian looked sad at that time. There are no sedan chairs, no air conditioners, and the cavalry are pressing against each other, and the men complain about it even if they think about it. In the Qin Dynasty infantry and cavalry battled, the grassland army was playing guerrilla raids. This kind of "head-on-head" does not stand on Qin's side even if it is right in time and place.

But Meng Tian is not stupid: Since you can't beat your horse, let you dismount. Relying on city defense and taking every step of the way, he will get rid of your "elusive" advantage, and he will squeeze the Huns out of the Hetao bit by bit. No one expected that this long-term battle would be to "chase out" in public and secretly lay a solid foundation for the construction of continuous city walls behind them.

The real life experience of the Great Wall is actually no different from the old bed board at home - it is spliced. Where is it built from scratch? The vassal states of the Western Zhou Dynasty and Warring States Periods were built one piece in the east and one piece in the west, and they could be used by moving old bricks. King You of Zhou liked to "play the princes with beacons". He burned the country's fortunes almost broke. However, the beacons later became "communication towers", and information spread to hundreds of times, becoming a standard line of defense.

Later, the world changed again. Qin Shihuang died, the Qin Dynasty was frustrated faster, Meng Tian left more aggrieved than anyone else, the Huns roared and turned back the old land. No one guards the wall, no matter how awesome the "physical partition" is just a tool for climbing the hill. The people in the north were suffering, and the heroism of the first few years became a cloud of ecstasy.

But history is the most important thing about the right time and place. The Huns came in with great momentum, but the feng shui changed. In the Han Dynasty, the Han Empire relied on the troops, horses, food and grass to play "defense as attack." Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, the young generals, relied on the Great Wall as their backing, defeated the Huns so much that they had no way to escape. Do you want to say "The Great Wall is for guarding"? Not all. The side wall is not just about defense. When replenishing supplies and troops, it is simply a natural logistics line, and whoever uses it will know.

The Huns finally couldn't stand it, as if they were swept by the tide and were forced to retreat westward. This is why the cold interest of "The Great Wall blocks the thief, and the disaster flows westward": there is no place to go, they can only walk westward. Running forward, the Central Asian side had not recovered yet, and the army and horses had already reached their noses. Anyway, go wherever you loosen. Huo Qubing opened up the Hexi Corridor, and the countries in the Western Regions bowed to the Han Dynasty. The Huns did not even have a place to live outside their territory.

Let me say something off topic: as long as you drive people away, you will have to be crowded with people who are "beaten". If you block the road here, waves will follow the west. Europe was still the Romans at that time, but the Germans were the first hit when the Huns entered the door. Central Asia, the Balkans, and the Baltic Sea were all messed up by these veterans who were eager to survive. The old Romans were used to "opening maps" and suddenly found that the cavalry coming from the grassland had to avoid three points.

Who is in trouble in the end? The Germanic tribe was driven up and down, and the Western Roman Empire had been in a century of prosperity, but was finally pulled down. You said that this curve saves the country, and he goes around in circles, but he never expected the ending.

Some people say that if something happened to the Hun Empire suddenly, Europe would have been in trouble. The Franks caught up with the corner of history and drove the newly digested Huns back to the north, and Europe's center of gravity was considered to be moving back to the Mediterranean from the nomadic waves of the grasslands. Later, the Arab Empire and Byzantine Empire emerged one after another, and there were constant melee. Who still remembers that the Huns had just crossed the horse stake from the frontier of the Great Wall?

So, some people rely on the old wall for the later suffering of Europe. It's a bit "blame", but after careful consideration, it seems to be half reliable. If you stop here, you must let those desires that have nowhere to be released, take a different path.

Looking back, is this wall is isolating? Is it temptation? Or is it the driving force of the times? Sometimes I feel that it is just a pile of bricks and stones, and sometimes it is like a big hand, turning the fate of mankind. Sometimes historical coincidences are like children playing with sandbags, and when they throw them away, they will be full of waves. How can there be an absolute winner? Today we climbed the Great Wall and looked at the distant mountains and green. We might also ask: If there were no such wall back then, would the world really become something else?

The story has not been finished yet. Many answers may have been buried in the mottled cracks of bricks, waiting for future generations to dig.