Best Documentary Films - The Great Wall of China (HD)

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It's one of the world's greatest engineering wonders the Great Wall of China.
They say it can even be seen from space it's a military masterpiece that has witnessed hundreds of backwards it still holds many mysteries british writer and historian William lindsay has lived in China for 20 years exploring the Great Wall has become his lifetime obsession lindsay has spent thousands of days on has walked thousands of kilometers [Music].
Is the Great War real how many years did it take to build.
And why was it built a tool for creating on salary or.
Roll to your quarters t-shirt.
Ok.
It's only a short trip from Beijing to one of China's most popular attractions millions of tourists come here every year to see the stone dragon the Great Wall of China most of the people walking on the Great War here today will go home and say I've been to the Great Wall of China but the great wall is not a place it ranges across the sub-continental expanse of North China and along its course many of the locations seldom visited and some virtually unknown in 1987 NZ fulfilled his childhood dream he walked on the Chinese war two thousand seven hundred kilometers only a few pictures remain from this adventure because his films were repeatedly confiscated foreigners were barred from many parts of China those times have long changed.
China has opened up to the world and an adventure has turned into a scholar Lindsay now seeks out traces of the great wall of china right across the country 23 years after his first trip he sets off again during the same exploring 23 years later is really a testament to the immensity of what we call the Great Wall of China go get your heart in the last two-and-a-half decades i explored the warm or 1700 days I've discovered it's the world's most famous building but the least-known there's always something new to discover theirs there is no single great warm there are lots of ways in northern China will buy different dynasties for more than 2,000 years.
William lindsey is taking us to one of the most remote places 2300 kilometer drive west of beijing to the city of doing one into the gobi desert nearly that 75 miles northwest of don't and it's a nice sunny day in the Gobi doesn't perfect conditions for exploring the great wall.
In the shimmering heat the dark ribbon along the horizon at first looks like a mirage but these really are the remains of a war literally in the middle of nowhere.
Well one of the most precious parts of the Great Wall of China this is the hand war hell 2100 years ago and I'm not the first traffic to come here this is the Silk Road so merchants would come from the deserts in Central Asia entering china at this point and then proceed East to the heartland of China so it's going to take a closer look built over 2,000 years ago this wall looks completely different to the familiar great warrior mission it's not built of stone but this construction material has kept its strong familia read and gravel but who was this war meant to protect so far from civilization.
The Han Dynasty rulers wanted to open their empire to trade with the west so they secured control of the eastern end of what became known as the Silk Road the Han Chinese occupied the vital a chic colony.
That runs along the road between more than steps and the Himalayan foothills it's a real border not just between peoples but between lifestyle the nomads of the step vignettes traditional round tent they live entirely from their livestock wandering over the stem they pitch their yards wherever they find grazing land for their herds.
After enduring long hard winters in the steps these nomadic warriors ransacked China's northern provinces year after year they kill award stealing food and metals everything their lifestyle prevents the producing the Chinese regarded their empire as the cradle of civilization according to their confusion philosophy it was the cultural center of the world appeasing the barbarians along the water by trading is out of the question war was too expensive so the harm Emperor decided to build a war how many people were involved in the construction of the hardboard no one knows for sure.
Reliable sources quote the calculations presented to the Emperor if one soldier can do three places of war in one month than 300 can build three leap about one-and-a-half kilometres that means a thousand Li for about five hundred thirty kilometers would take a hundred thousand men one month to complete so far so good and so many most of the soldiers were stationed at the towers the towers had a dual use that made the most effective defense The Beacon tower behind me was not only the perfect vantage point for God's on this frontier to watch for the enemy coming from the north it was a signaling station so when the enemy was cited this beacon would have been ignited this is how it moved as soon as a guard spotted nomadic warriors he transmitted smoke signals by daylight or beacon fires at night the alarm was communicated along the wall to Garrison's located in the hinterland.
How long is the ham war only recently and Chinese experts started to find join the local archaeological survey team you are taking part in a national survey to locate.
Dynasty.
A team is heading out into the Bobe desert.
They need a whole summer just to measure this section at noon the temperature can climb to the 40 degrees Celsius today the team is exploring a fortification that lies in the hinterland of the hardwar this could have been a garrison for support groups today the remains are hardly visible here for you guys hear this tower has a name it's called half tower obviously because half the tower is missing the team here today to locate the fortifications with gps i'm wondering how they're going to measure the height because it's so crumbly Alaska need to mark their dog challenge you were you in the Palo only all touchy you are so that you can get that our plays are only once a year when we know Uncle daughter huh.
So they don't have to have to climb up the tower to measure it they have a device here right here hey I the laser rangefinder collects the data it will be a few years before the results of the survey are summarized and a figure can be given for the length of the hardwar your challenge opens a lot of your friday are organized or so from here to the Jade gate is about 45 50 kilometers and there are three sections of war that are quite visible and in between there's virtually nothing although the archaeologists may find traces mr. young is very little reluctant to give a guesstimate of how many kilometers of hand wall standing gps team leader mr. Jung has given William directions to a place in the desert where the wall has a unique shape it's a 16 kilometres hike so William is buying provisions for the trip at work market.
Well Roman very good chance in the a lot of what he sees doesn't seem too useful for a desert trick but he finally finds what he needs.
Successful shopping trip for 199 also put supply of high-energy foods in your lectures next morning and find the clock busy sets off for the hike awesome satellites.
It's 14.4 k.
So it's about 99 miles or more he's not walking a little better in the desert it would be too dangerous with him is his Chinese friend p occasion some permanent that their gps says they will reach the unique strip of wall in five hours.
It's cool no but the sparse vegetation is tinder-dry there hasn't been any rainfall here for months we're walking in the featureless landscape concealer of solitary tree over fuckin 87 I just had a big mouth for the whole country basically my journey along the wall from the desert to the sea slide-out 1,700 miles not the ideal map for hiking across desert grassland it's nearly noon and the sun is burning but finally they arrived at the place they've been looking for there it is right that lasted a great act brand for William it's already worth the trip.
Even the five hours back amazing hey.
Look at that fantastic of all the faces that the Great Wall of China has this is the rarest of the more this wall is made of wood he has six layers of branches there and and in between minimal use of the gravel so I'm really glad i've come here today well worth the 10 mile track leaving the doing one region and making his way t stand on the ancient Silk Road Williams aiming for a town called Joe bland the historic site is five kilometers out of town and the best view is from the sky a giant castle guarding the wall built in 1539 by judging Emperor of the Ming Dynasty the main Emperor's contempt for the nomads reached protest proportions with the demand that the character g standing for barbarians should be written as small as possible after the Han Dynasty other dynasties rose and fell many of them build walls but none of any significant length me Emperor genius ended the dragon throne in 1521 he renewed the Hun tradition established in ancient times constructing a long wall of the northern border with its westernmost point at the jog one pass.
Jaguar translates as a barrier to the Pleasant Valley and pleasant valley means china this gigantic fault is built in the foothills of the Himalayas in the courtyard the mighty walls form a kind of maze to stop invaders in their tracks and there's a wonderful legend about its construction to avoid wastage of materials prior to construction of the fortress the architect was asked to calculate exactly how many bricks required be computed 999999 the bricks were delivered the fortress built and at the end the chief of works confronted the architect with a brick and said this is wasted but the architect was too smart he said no i factored that into the equation that brick should be placed over the portal and it will bring all the guards in the fortress and all of those travelers passing under its portals good fortune 600 years later the leftover brick still remains.
Next to the fort is the starting point of the wall constructed by the way this wall has nothing in common with the brick and stone.
It's made of rammed the loads more than 400 years old and still in good shape and its still wide enough to walk on his walks along the walls William Lindsay soon learned he could count on receiving warm hospitality from the farmers among the wedding before coming to china my family and friends were very concerned in 1987 going to China the big communist country on the other side of the world all the people going to be friendly and I didn't have a support crew with me on dependent on farmers i discovered very early on the farmers were my great allies even with very little Chinese but a lot of sign language and smiling i got what i needed food water shelter without them I couldn't have been successful ACA como decía even if many of them can't understand why a foreigner should be so interested in the wall then this is no monument but simply a part of the village and one with a perfectly practical use.
I was asking my er the these holes in the wall I thought they were nasty but in fact previously the farms were right up against the wall so they're wooden beams going into the wall but the Great Wall experts the cultural heritage protection authorities requested the farmers to destroy those buildings and move back in or the in order to protect the national heritage if you want to know how many dynasty Mason's constructed their war more than 400 years ago.
All you have to do is keep your eyes open.
Even today Chinese farmers build walls in the same way their ancestors did they tempt the earth in a wooden case if temp put layer on layer they even sing the traditional folk songs passed down from their forefathers a house is not complete without a wall around it says an old Chinese proverb my friend tran is building this wall to and closed his compound so this is the final piece of work and this is embedded in Chinese architectural tradition whether it's a compound or a village or a kingdom it must be enclosed completely safe they felt most of the men wore just like this is a rounder swore imagine how many billion bugs it took Georgia guns on each Unger to your tower temperature needs e long ago haha oh I hated present the singing is an important part of the work it keeps all the rappers and staff the beat so another Lauren step going along the wall get into a rhythm and the actual content or haha i've been enjoying 223 here is where this guy hasn't really had the accent it's a bit difficult but that it's definitely a kind of wrap it changes the words and occasionally hear them truckle so I think he gets a little dig in about those that are kind of falling behind in distance or maybe he can tell by the Third's if someone is answered this group of about twenty FAR's mostly women took a day to erect about 27 meters of war we don't know if their ancestors could have worked better or faster but we do they would have used the same materials and tools except for the tractors carrying the clay and the cell phones.
Well I'm glad you're over Scylla hola.
[Applause].
On his journey along the walls of China Williamses looking eastwards out of the he-she corridor and turning north along the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty into the great gloop of the Yellow River the cradle of China's civilization this is always being the gateway for the nomads to enter China here the wind and weather have done their worst the wall and its towers can still be made up on the cracks of the river.
The garrison forts with the outpost to this defensive outer wall today their uses strictly non-military I love staying in the countryside this building it's made of thick blocks of limestone and on the roof this stuff when you come here winter no good method for keeping you warm see this it's not that it's called the count KNG and they put the fuel and here light it can do the cooking here you've got a nice warm bed for the night so I got full board and lodging breakfast morning and dinner this evening and lunch coming up soon for less than ten dollars on rock.
I should apologize for the slurping it's part and parcel of eating in China considered sound of an appreciation the ingredients of the lunch William is appreciating today are also the reason the nomads raided the land of the yellow river throughout the 16th century in the year 1549 the barbarians come to plunder.
Did cavalry to a virtual standstill at the new border war that shoe and food the wall stands fast the nomadic troops are unable to capture the Chinese really does this mean defeat about variance to not give up they have a message for the Chinese they will attack beijing the capital by marching East the nomads army finds its way around the wall.
Thus avoiding the main Emperor's elaborate border fortifications no one had suspected the nomads could cross the natural barrier the mountain range north vacation back in 1550 the nomads did not meet with any serious opposition on their way south.
They terrorized beijing suburbs for three days they demanded trading rights leaving the Forbidden City untouched before going back to the steps after a short period trading the Ming Emperor started building a wall of stone not of beijing between the 15 fifties and 1644 it reached a length of at least 1,200 kilometers the stone dragon the Chinese great wall as the world knows it today.
How many people were needed to build it official figures are rare but in some inaccessible sections of the wall there are still stone tablets engraved with texts that could give us that information.
Good i'm hoping this stone is going to tell me something about when this wall was built how many people were involved and mentioned some place names from here the inscription looks very faint but we have a ladder master artisan mr. hole and with his simple tools we're going to copy the stone and produce a rubbing which hopefully will reveal the full content of the tablet this ancient chinese copying technique starts with doing a sheet of paper into the template simply with water this is step number one step number two dads are translates literally as typing characters and using a brush and he's hammering the paper into the carvings you're lying.
The higher parts of the paper will be blackened and the lower parts that have gone into the characters and any design along the edges they will remain white after three hours of sponging and drying mr. Hall presents his piece of it looks like a blueprint for an old archive document hall i am Monica and helps William translate the ancient chinese characters which today hardly anybody can read our Diggity Dog thought I want to draw add hard you should find one available that we are young dog build-up Union this stone is telling us that to military officials in charge of 1100 families put in the effort to build 250 yards of war in the autumn of 1579 so in terms of very simple arithmetic productivity we're talking about four persons per family 4,500 people working for eight to ten weeks in the autumn of 1579 to build that.
We're a stamped earth walls were built by untrained surface or peasants this project required special knowledge hundreds of Master Builders and skilled engineers thousands of stone cutters and tens of thousands of Mason's were recruited to build the wall and another factor led to the costs rising exponentially.
Tamped earth walls were built using materials available on-site the material for the new and to be manufactured before use the Chinese had devised a network of brick kilns set up near the construction sites one of these sites was found by local farmers and inspected by Professor 12 noon curator of the Great War Museum in shiny one so at this location they discovered around 60 brick kilns and it ranks as the past production center of bricks preserved along the whole length of the Great War and it's estimated that each kill could fire five thousand bricks now given that there are 60 kilns in this valley the production of this sensor alone would be equal to three hundred thousand bricks per month industrial scale production.
Then is now mass production is one thing but it's a different matter to transport the product to where it's needed logistics.
Now key question very interesting question is how did they move all the bricks of the one show need ride a womanly chunk Jones is a sham MK coming from like dat Tran dow jumped on me again there is almost no historical record to answer this question but Professor one has his theory should hear something people may have carried a few bricks on their backs like this and also it's been suggested a herd of goats could have carried a lot of bricks that they're quite effectively war two bricks on the back of the goat and the bricks are joined together with rope so the goat is quite balanced as it's moving up the mountain.
Even without brakes on your back it's a hard slog up to the wall but it's worth it.
Hardly any tourists make it to this isolated section.
Every time I come up here on this trials a spare for the builders had to heave porsche all of this building material up here all these blocks all of this brick sometimes bizarre route taken by this wall has led many experts to believe that more than just defensive considerations were in play here and for generations the Chinese had followed the practice of finish we the teachings of the wind and water function where experts were probably consulted and debate before the building of the wall to make sure that the forces of nature would work in its favor spending his days alone on the wall Lindsay imagines how the soldiers must have suffered here cut off from the world enduring wins and foul weather squeezed into bear and cramped quarters for months on end.
You.
Finally this war is a monument to the closed world view of the empire circumscribed their universe and excluded everything that was for often scratching around in this world you can find bits of pottery.
So what is tonus students point just maybe a growth internet a lot but might be.
Haha.
Is a stone bomb that would have been packed with gunpowder a mud seal refuse and the towns like this was all just packed with these maybe fifty or hundred to be dropped off the wall when the tower was attacked.
That's a really good fine 320 kilometers further east we find another example of living history that should trigger some holy lady gajala water bottle and ordered on yellow for this is john hirsh on his ancestors built a war here four hundred and forty years ago and close by towers have other family names like the chant our the wang tao of the law tower so we're here we have the family history of the Great Wall still living on 440 years after it was built.
Even today they still worship their ancestors by celebrating ancient festival.
Madman the other big was closed yesterday should be quite nice fresh for it would have been a rare moment of relaxation and abundance in a hard life as the oldest member of his family mr. general makes the sacrifice to his ancestors and burns incense sticks any the living generations of the junk family bowed to the dead and to their own great mystery.
The village families had to look after and feed the soldiers in the tablets they take away food service survives to this day.
Janish and farmer down in jersey village prepared some delicacies for me munch on appear after my hike and it's amazing to think of 400 years ago guards garrisoned up on the wall will be sent these morbihan by their families so look it's a kind of capacity caps fresh in one of these large oak leaves you can see the leaf prints on the pastry taste hmm.
Follow tribes kind of try and try this hamburger maybe the original Chinese takeaway for those up on the wall by 1644 just short of a hundred years of construction the most impressive defensive wall ever made by man was finished.
However it was not one single Great Wall it comprised a system of several defense lines from the mountains to the seat in 2009 after a national survey of the Ming wall chinese officials announced that the total length is 8850 kilometers this is the end Chaka Guan meaning mountain see parts.
The Chinese liken them in great water dragons sneaking across their land and here it comes to a geographical and that's all dragons had of the LOC not far from this location in 1644 the commander of Shanghai Guan faced his biggest challenge an event which led to the end of the Great Wall functioning as a national defense.
Professor one is taking William to the gates and walls in the outskirts of Shanghai gwaan.
This is the place where the great wall story came to an end the construction of the Great Wall led to the financial and strategic collapse of the Ming Dynasty revolts broke out everywhere in the Empire an army of rebel peasants marched on Beijing where they toppled the Emperor then on to Shanghai Guan the last stronghold of the Ming Empire but a mighty army had risen from the steps heading for the Middle Kingdom the Manchus caught in between some wii he was the general in command of the fortress of shine get one now he was under siege.
What would he do this was a powerful garrison that wasn't strong enough to fight off attackers on two friends like you're not having you do all about coming here because when Professor want to know that tells William mincing the solution he found gravity that the old one so trapped between two enemies commander was angry i knew he couldn't defeat them both so we came up with a plan to offer a alliance treaty with the Manchus in the north and the two armies joined and confronted the peasant rebel army and they defeated them the wall is only as strong as the men who guard it dingus khan is supposed to have said his successes from the steps the Manchus would have agreed with white 80,000 Manchu soldiers pass through this gate and answered the heartland of China the Manchus founded a new dynasty which in effect ruled over the middle kingdom until nineteen twelve they call themselves Ching meaning the pure.


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