The Great Wall of China was built 2,200 years ago out of military necessity: to combat the Mongolian ancestors of Genghis Khan. Its construction was a marvel of military engineering. From: SECRETS: Great Wall of China bit.ly/1PAENoe
Stopping People getting over the wall wasn’t the walls main function, the wall was only 10 ft in some areas and the gates were practically military fortresses, it prevented pillagers from bringing there horses into China and it kept people who had stolen herds of animals and wagons of loot from leaving with their loot. Pillaging doesn’t seem like a great idea if you can’t get the stuff you’ve stolen home. That’s a pretty big deterrent.
As a Chinese, on the one hand I think the Great Wall is a symbol of the wisdom and hard work of my ancestors. On the other hand, I also think it is a kind of irony of ancient Chinese imperial power, because the Chinese emperor believed that the land and people of the whole world belonged to him, but he used the Great Wall to isolate the people in the northern region. Generally speaking, the lives of nomads are more miserable and cruel than agricultural peoples.
It took a very long time to build I wonder how they kept construction going when the northern tribes started to attack them while they were building the wall
sections of the wall were built by different states during the Warring States period. During the Qin dynasty, the Qin army raided the nomads, pushing them further north before they connected the walls together.
It’s 12:37am April 20, 2020 and this probably the most random video that RU-vid has put on my explore page lol. I hope you all are well during this quarantine.
Martyn Parkman A few men with axes could break a significant hole in the wall within a few hours. The wall is more to give the archers cover, making it very hard to push
The Xiongnu nomad are Calvary on horse back attacking with bow, arrows and long spears. The Chinese are mostly infantry and without the help of any walls, they will need a 10:1 ratio with shields and long spears to defeat the Xiongnu. The Xiongnu avoid direct confrontation with the Chinese troops, when they don't have an advantage. preferring to do hit and run raids at different area and take the Chinese by surprise. That is why it is very difficult to defeat the Xiongnu. The great wall help the infantry troop to temporary stop the Xiongnu advance until reinforcement arrive. The great wall is also a communication line. During the day, the troops can burn and create smoke signal to let others know they are under attack. During the night, the troop create a huge fire signal. Both smoke and fire signal can be seen miles away. The capitol city will knew about the attacks within hours and the emperor will send his generals to lead an re-enforcement to counter attack. However, this strategy are not effective in the Han dynasty. Han Wu Ti change the strategy and create strong Calvary troops to attack the Xiongnu's capital. Forcing them to flee to the west.
I am a Chinese. The biggest difference between Chinese and Mongolian, huns is that they are nomads, lived in tents and raise cattle and sheep, living on the grassland. And we build cities, every city has a wall, the wall can only protect our city, there is no way to protect agricultural areas outside the city.
The Great Wall was built at the beginning of the 2000 years ago, the northern countries face the enemy's attack between the two at the same time, need to stabilize the north, and resist the attack of the south. That is the product of age, all you say is not this time.In addition, the building of the Great Wall is beneficial to control trade, northern prairie nomads are heavily dependent on and trade in the south, if during the winter, the trade is the south cut off, they will starve to death.If it is really unnecessary, why the United States want to build a missile defense system?Is it amateurs and cowards?
The Mongolian invasion because of the weakness of song dynasty, but it is different to the Ming dynasty, they drove the mongols.The success of the UK and Japan invaded during the qing dynasty, the manchu CARES only to maintain their dominant position, they are more afraid of is not English and Japanese, but Han Chinese.
You mean more like offense is the best defense.I agree with you. But Trump wall is just want to crack down on illegal immigration, and not military purposes.Your fighters, the navy, army, tanks, artillery and guns are no use, now there are 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, if it is useful, you would have drove them out.
A missile defense system is a wall of destruction! It is active, not passive like a literal wall! What did you NOT understand in my statements? A strong, advanced, and well trained military DESTROYS enemies and therefore DECREASES threats. A useless wall is temporary and can be overcome. DEAD THREATS = NO THREATS. A wall cannot kill future threats. The Great Wall today is even more useless than it was in the past. It serves nothing more that a tourist attraction and a reminder of wasted efforts. All that you mention stems from WEAK political ruling class with WEAK philosophy on militarism and dealing with threats. Stupid strategies and tactics yield losses to enemies foreign and domestic. First thing in America is to cut off ALL welfare and entitlements to illegals, that will cause many of them to self deport. Secondly, is to PUNISH Americans that hire illegals for labor or for housing them. Third is to deny citizenship to anchor babies from illegals. The military in the America could be utilized to capture and DEPORT or EXECUTE all illegals as a stern warning to South and Central America. The political class in America is weak and corrupt like those in China's past. It has no will to really deal with domestic issues. Trump doesn't even need to build a wall! He just needs the will to post 3 man sniper teams with 50. caliber rifles to stop vehicles and people from crossing, every thousand yards with rotating shifts, 24/7 and 365 days a year. That would make good use of our military and their training. Land mines would be great as well - but the Ottawa Treaty frowns on it's use - which America stupidly decided to follow in 2014
The Great Wall today really don't have any effect, only is a scenic spot. I also agree with national security should be based on a strong military and economic power.All you mentioned can really deporting illegal immigrants, but unfortunately, your political correct does not allow you to do that. Same happened in Europe. You have a paranoid politically correct, illegal immigration is not a national security threat, and more threat is radical Muslims.
"but while they're being cleared, men up there are shooting at you" It's brighter here! (every Smithsonian video ends with a dramatic often morbid statement followed by the joyous jingle)
@Nathaniel12345678910 They bribed traitors behind the wall to open the gate. And it happened a few times over the course of history so yeah the great wall doesn't work.
@@rickfeng4466 Bribing guards to open the gate is different from the wall not working. The wall worked, it was the humans that maintained the wall that were the flaw..
The wall was built because the invaders needed their all mighty horses to travel and be a formidable army. Without the horses they were much more easily to repel. Mongolia and neighboring area was prolific with the seabuckthorn shrubs and they are chalked full of nutrition giving the horses remarkable health and stamina as the spearhead of a brutally strong army. The wall stopped the horses.
I went to China one time and I'm black with dreads and people would just walk up to me and ask me to take a picture with them and can they touch my hair
The China government is refusing to call Xinghu as Huns and Gokturks which nations called proto Turcs. There are logical and political reasons of this. They know it very well. I am not going to tell you about these reasons here. The wall is built to protect the Silk Road from Turkish and Mongolian attacks. Mongols genetically not related directly to Turkic people, but the lived with them and for instance like Tatars, culturally they got şntegrated to Huns. Even now there are Uigurs (uygurs-turkic tribe) living in China. That is why guys do not worry to call the wall built to stop Turks. I do not understand why it bothering people to tell the real history. Yes, the wall could not stop Turkic armies, and eventually China İmperial lost against invasion. But later than,strategically and politically China played game right. After some natural disasters and long wars, Huns and Gokturks collapsed and the great immigration started which was the most significant impact of world history. So wall is great, however it was not a sufficient idea. And Trumps wall is more way stupid strategy than this :)))
Initially the great wall was just walls of different warring states, after the unification of Qin, the first emperor ordered to connect them, therefore laid the foundation for the great wall. Xiongnu was not that strong, at least they did not have the ability to combat face to face with Qin army. No MONGOLS, no TURKS at that time, they appeared over 1000 years after.
历下名士 if the the turcik Huns was not strong, why did you build it? Because they were much stronger than Qin. In history turks had much stronger and more empires! Like HUNS, EUROPEAN HUNS, GOKTURKS, SELJUKS, SAFAVID, AND OTTOMANS. IN 5 CENTURY BC WE TURKS WERE SINGLE AND NOT DIVIDED. BUT WHEN SELJUK TURKS WON THE WAR AGAINST BYZANTINES IN 1071 SOME TURKS LIVED THERE AND THEN CREATED OTTOMAN EMPIRE . OTTOMAN EMPIRE FROM 1453 TO 1699 WAS THE STRONGEST EMPIRE IN THE WORLD. HISTRY OF THE TURKS IS VERY BIG AND ENDLESS. CHINESE HISTORY IS MORE ANCIENT BUT TURKS WERE STRONGER.RESPECT TO CHINE . SORRY FOR MY BAD ENGLISH
First of all, turkic people and turks are not the same. Turkic people are from central asia, turks are just turkified anatolians , greeks and arabs. You can look at the turkish gene pool and you will find little to none turkic genes on them. Second, China built the wall to secure the territory the annexed from the xiognu. Xiognu were skilled horsemen, they could easily enter and get out of the qin territory before an army arrived. Having a stationed wall will help to spot incoming hordes. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_campaign_against_the_Xiongnu
Bryan Fong ok explain me how greeks were turkified? Haha you can not because your opinion is unlogical. Turks are from central asia and came here in 1071 after the war between Byzantian empire and Seljuk empire. Seljuk empire is turcik and after the war some turks lived in anatolia and after the fall of seljuks they created ottoman empire who was the strongest empire from 1453 to 1699. Yeah some part of modern turks are turkified greeks but it is only about 10-15 % of population.
Vagif Aslanov yes, and how many are real descendants of seljuks? It happened ~600 years ago. All seljuk traits by now should be non existant. Central asians and turkish people look too different. Turks are closer related to armenians, greeks, anatolians and arabs than people from kyrgystan, tukemistan, khazajastan, etc...
It took two hundred years to built it against the Mongols. But when Timujin and his mongols came, the walls seems to be its not there, as the mongols overcome it like its just a not so big a boulder to climb
no, the timujin did not even over cross the great wall , it was his son who cross the great wall, also during that time, it was jin dynasty in north china, , mongol was part of jin dynasty for more than 100 years , so mongol was ruled by china for long time, and jin dynasty did not maintain great wall, because entire grassland are part of the dynasty
stop BS, the mongoloa is fake mongols, the people in outer mongolia are kahkalk tribes, they are not mongols, the real mongols are all chinse citizens living in china
The Xiongnu became politically dominant in the steppes around 300 BC, and although the linguistic affiliation of the Xiongnu proper is still a matter of dispute, their political confederation certainly contained a significant Turkic component. By both ethnohistorical and linguistic considerations this component may in the first place be identified with the Bulgharic (Bulghar Turkic) branch of Turkic, today represented by the Chuvash language in the Volga region. The Turkic component of the Xiongnu is, however, unambiguously signalled by a number of Bulgharic loanwords in Proto-Samoyedic. Review: J. Janhunen (ed.),The Mongolic languages, London, New York : Routledge, 2003 An earlier date for the separation of proto-Turkic, preceding 209 BC would support the identification of Xiongnu language with proto-Bulgharic or one of its subgroups, while a later date of separation would make its association with proto-Turkic more plausible. Alexander Savelyev, Martine Robbeets, Bayesian phylolinguistics infers the internal structure and the time-depth of the Turkic language family, Journal of Language Evolution, Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2020 Xiongnu (Pre-Proto-Bulgharic, in Mongolia). Mongolian Vowel Harmony in a Eurasian Context In: International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics Authors: Ian G. Barrere 1 and Juha A. Janhunen University of Helsinki Online Publication Date: 18 Jun 2019 As this time depth coincides with the beginning of the Xiongnu empire (209 BCE-100 CE), the association of Xiongnu with Proto-Bulgharic does not seem unreasonable. However, given the relatively large credible interval involved in the Bayesian dating, the breakup of proto-Turkic may also be connected with the first disintegration of the Xiongnu confederation under influence of the military successes of the Chinese in 127-119 BCE (Mudrak 2009). In sum, the time depth of the breakup of Proto-Turkic can be estimated between 500 BCE and 100 CE. Martine Robbeets, Remco Bouckaert, Bayesian phylolinguistics reveals the internal structure of the Transeurasian family, Journal of Language Evolution, Volume 3, Issue 2, July 2018 The language of the European Huns is sometimes referred to as a Bulghar Turkic variety in general linguistic literature, but caution is needed in establishing its affiliations. The predominant part of the Xiongnu population is likely to have spoken Turkic (Late Proto-Turkic, to be more precise). Cite this article: Savelyev A, Jeong C (2020). Early nomads of the Eastern Steppe and their tentative connections in the West. Evolutionary Human Sciences 2, e20, 1-17. Do you mean BRAVE TURKS Prof. Dr. Nicola Di Cosmo in: The Turks: Early ages, Part 4. Huns (Xiongnu): The Origin and Rise of the Xiongnu Empire, Y. T., 2002, pp.217-227, University of Michigan, ISBN 9756782552, 9789756782552 "There is not much doubt among historians about the Turkish nature of the Great Hun Empire, which ruled between 318 B.C. and 216 A.D., as well as that of its predecessor proto-Huns, whose presence was confirmed by Chinese sources. The Great Hun Empire, the Western Hun Empire and especially the European Huns were examined comprehensively by Western historians." The term Turkic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of peoples including existing societies such as Altai, Azerbaijanis, Balkars, Bashkirs, Chuvashes, Crimean Karaites, Gagauz, Karachays, Karakalpaks, Kazakhs, Khakas, Krymchaks, Kyrgyz people, Nogais, Qashqai, Tatars, Turkmens, Turkish people, Tuvans, Uyghurs, Uzbeks, and Yakuts and as well as ancient and medieval states such as Dingling, Bulgars, Alat, Basmyl, Onogurs, Shatuo, Chuban, Göktürks, Oghuz Turks, Kankalis, Khazars, Khiljis, Kipchaks, Kumans, Karluks, Bahri Mamluks, Ottoman Turks, Seljuk Turks, Tiele, Timurids, Turgeshes, Yenisei Kirghiz, and Huns, Tuoba, and Xiongnu.[24][25][26][27][28] The predecessors of Huihe were Xiongnu. Because, customarily, they ride high-wheeled carts. They were also called Gaoche during the Yuan Wei times, or also called Chile, mistakenly rendered as Tiele. - Xin Tangshu, 232 only the Turkic Gaoju origin of the Hephthalites should be retained as indicative of their primary ethnicity.[82] Weishu, vol. 103 txt: "高車,[...] 其語略與匈奴同而時有小異,或云其先匈奴之甥也", tr: "The Gaoju, [...] their language and the Xiongnu's are similar though differ a little; or to say it differently, they are the sororal nephews/sons-in-laws of the Xiongnu " According to the Book of Wei, the Yuebans' language and customs were the same as the Gaoche, who were Turkic speakers. Yuebans(Weak Xiongnu) cut their hair and trimmed their ghee-smeared, sun-dried, glossy eyebrows evenly, and washed before meals three times everyday.[18][19] Chinese sources link the Tiele people and Ashina to the Xiongnu, According to the Book of Zhou and the History of the Northern Dynasties, the Ashina clan was a component of the Xiongnu confederation.[84][85] Uyghur Khagans claimed descent from the Xiongnu (according to Chinese history Weishu, the founder of the Uyghur Khaganate was descended from a Xiongnu ruler).[86] Both the 7th-century Chinese History of the Northern Dynasties[87] and the Book of Zhou,[88] an inscription in the Sogdian language, report the Göktürks to be a subgroup of the Xiongnu.[89][90] Tiele are originally Xiongnu's splinter stocks. As Tujue are strong and prosperous, all Tiele districts (郡) are divided and scattered, the masses gradually dwindled and weakened. Until the beginning of Wude [era], there have been Xueyantuo, Qibi, Huihe, Dubo, Guligan, Duolange, Pugu, Bayegu, Tongluo, Hun, Sijie, Huxue, Xijie, Adie, Baixi, etc. scattered in the northern wastelands. - Jiu Tangshu, 199, lower English Hunnish Turkish Apple Alma Elma Khan Han Han Wolf Böri Börü/Kurt Hear İşit İşit God Tengri Tengri/Allah Mother Ana Ana/Anne Daddy Ata Ata/Baba Day Kün Gün Horse At At Moon Ay Ay Real Öz Öz Soldier Er Er White Ak Ak Black Kara Kara Eye Köz Göz Islak Yaş/Yeş Yaş Nine(9) Toğuz Dokuz Thirty(30) Otuz Otuz Sky Kök Gök Boy Oglan Oğlan Arrow Ok Ok Clan Bog Boy Man Beg Bey East Dogu Doğu Nice Kozal Güzel Water Su Su Go Kit Git Golden Altun Altın Diamond Almaz Elmas Thorn Tigin Diken Rose Kül Gül Head Baş Baş İron Timur Demir
The 'XiongNoo" (simp. & trad. Chinese 匈奴; pinyin XīongNú) is a pronunciation of the Chinese characters in modern Mandarin. In ancient Chinese when the walls were built, and connected, the pronunciations of the same characters were closer to "Hunu" or "Huno" (depending on the time & region it's spoken), which is much closer to 'Hun". Wonder how they were linked to the Huns who appeared in Central Asia and Europe?
The purpose of the China Walls has always been to repel a sudden attack of the Mongolian cavalry, because the Mongols are all cavalrymen and it is not a matter of cowardice or fear.
If there was the internet back in the days of the Alamo and early days of military forts (Indian attacks) those spikes may have helped in their defence
China made that wall because in that years hun empire was powerfull and they had a war with china. China was scared and made this wall. Huns are not mongols
It wasn’t the Huns it was the Xiongnu. Although it has long been theorized that the Huns were Xiongnu who had migrated west, there is no definitive evidence to validate this theory.
The Dunker The Great Wall we see/know today was built by the Ming. Numerous sections of the original wall were built by the various warring states that existed prior to Qin unification, but it was the Qin that would eventually connect these sections together to form the Great Wall.
@@ThePonsor911 Whatever they say in English or Chinese we(I am Turkish btw) call it "Asya Hun Devleti" which means Asian Hunic State. So it was the huns.
The later great wall was really against the Mongol hordes, but the earlier great wall was built by the Zhao against the predecessors of the Mongols, or the Xiongnu or the bigger faction Donghu (take note that the Xiongnu is Mongol's predecessor while Donghu was of the Jurchens who are in North of Korea near Russia, who later became known as the Manchus was the last and final aristocratic regime of China). Edit: The great wall came even before the Qing empire, it was started by the Zhao in the warring states period of China. In the movie The Great Wall, the Tao Tei were based off these equestrian nomads, the way with diplomacy just like the Huns they demanded tributes after tributes much like how your lords asked for more taxes after taxes eating up the fruits of your labor.
As a military defence, it looks like it's a rather stupid/silly idea. Instead of building a 20.000 km wall it would be a lot wiser to build walls around individual towns or settlements... I'd say it's more like a trade route kind of construction. If it's pure defence, why would they build it that wide? It would be ideal for transport, though.
u dont even know in that time they dont have guns or heavy machine guns or rockets they fight with sowrds and ther hands they dont have stairs to claim think about it in that time no stairs no guns and nothing just swords how they can get inside the wall if they try to the army who where standing on the wall will kill them
First, Defending from barbarians; second,Military use in civil wars, In zhou dynasty, There are many small kingdoms in China, some of them built some parts of the first walls to fight each other, some parts got linked together by Qinshihuang Emperor. Sure, there was a king of these kings, he gave land and hereditary peerages to them, but he was not called emperor in Chinese, language(Zhou Heaven Son) and lost power since first few generations for giving out too much land.
@@user-tl4wk3um4u mongol is a young race, Han chinese exist long before mongols' existence. These walls were first built for civil walls in history book, then was connected to defend coward normad tribes because they always ran off when big Han chinese army arrived. During most times, Han chinese border soilders went in serveal numbers to loot those tribes to practice millitary skills, and those tribes dared not to rebel
@@xiaoliu3397 nice informations, so there is no mythical reason? any unusual beings other than humans that attacked china? and was one of the walls built of mix of brass and iron or just bricks?
Because the Mongol invasion of China was when China was divided,Unstable and the Mongols united under the leadership of Genghis Khan, and the Mongols seized the opportunity to attack China
It was highway , used to transport , level , flat and could slide , drag , stone for other projects , the terrain in winter, , and all season , made it super highway to connect all , easy to walk, ride , also protect , the distance is key , if it was for protection only , you would circle , or emcompass each city , not one long wall , common sense, bring something on level , to somewhere else , avoiding all pitfalls of the terrain , animals , enemy, etc , just thoughts outside the box
They were meant to disrupt cavalry and siege. Of course, infantry can easily cross that spikes. Infantry without chariot or siege wagon protection would be living targets for crossbows in the guard towers.
the backsound narator cannot distinguish between nomad xiongnu and the mongols. the xiongnus exists from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. the mongols are just founded by Genghis Khan at 1206 AD. you can't confuse between them Kublai Khan already conquested China under Southern Song dynasty at 1271, yet the narator said that great wall was built at 15th for prevent mongol invasion..... hmmmm, the narator quite blurred about chronology
Destructive - Gaming : ? 1) Prototypes of Trump's wall havn't even been finalized when you wrote that, how would anyone could predict the future is beyond me. 2) The prototypes alone, eclipse the Great Wall in height and strength. Thee most elite force on the planet attempted scaling some of those prototypes, and failed.
Unfortunately it seems to be what we're best at. Not to mention anyone capable of killing is going to have a much better life expectancy than otherwise. Then those survivors pass on their ideals to the next generation.
0:39 ..domain ribs for later interracial slits .. 2:35 ..the left-hand fifth (8) back bar 4:14 ....I assume it is vertebrae L4 4:41 .. sleeping ..a coccygis
*I was there when the people started to make the Great Wall of China and I might have to say unbelievable breathtaking. Thousands of years ago, I WAS THERE!*
i looked at pictures of the great wall and all over the wall are giant numbers like serial numbers everywhere on the rocks gotta focus in on the numbers but they are there
The xiongun were the huns and the huns are the turks the first hun leader was atilla the last hun leader was mete han. Mete han had a son by the name oguz han that said from know on we are gonna be called the turkish people. And told hes man to write it on stones that you can go and see in mongolia today. the turkish empires are the: Hun empire, The great and second hun empire, Europe hun empire, West hun empire, Göktürk kahanete, Avar kahanete, Hazar kahanete, 2.Göktürk kahanete, Uyghur kahanete, Karahanli empire, The great seljuks empire, Gazne empire, Harezmşah empire, karapapak empire, Altin ordu (golden horde) empire, Timurid empire, anatolian seljuks empire And the Ottoman empire. Im proud of my history😏