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00:00:00It's one of the world's greatest engineering wonders, the Great Wall of China.
00:00:12They say it can even be seen from space.
00:00:18It's a military masterpiece that has witnessed hundreds of battles, yet it still holds many mysteries.
00:00:26British writer and historian William Lindsay has lived in China for 20 years.
00:00:33Exploring the Great Wall has become his lifetime obsession.
00:00:38Lindsay has spent thousands of days on the wall, has walked thousands of kilometers along it.
00:00:46How long is the Great Wall really? How many years did it take to build?
00:00:52And why was it built at all?
00:00:54How much is it?
00:00:57I can get used.
00:00:58We need the people to come.
00:01:01One dollar to come with the family.
00:01:07You can get used as the Aruba people.
00:01:12One dollar to come with the pot.
00:01:14We need one dollar to come with them.
00:01:18One dollar to come with us and the vehicle to come.
00:01:20It's only a short trip from Beijing to one of China's most popular attractions.
00:01:26Millions of tourists come here every year to see the Stone Dragon, the Great Wall of China.
00:01:34Most of the people walking on the Great Wall here today will go home and say,
00:01:38I've been to the Great Wall of China.
00:01:43But the Great Wall is not a place.
00:01:45It ranges across the subcontinental expanse of North China.
00:01:50And along its course, many of the locations are seldom visited, and some are virtually unknown.
00:02:00In 1987, Lindsay fulfilled his childhood dream.
00:02:04He walked on the Chinese Wall, 2,700 kilometers.
00:02:10Only a few pictures remain from this adventure because his films were repeatedly confiscated.
00:02:15Foreigners were barred from many parts of China.
00:02:18Those times have long changed.
00:02:20China has opened up to the world, and an adventurer has turned into a scholar.
00:02:26Lindsay now seeks out traces of the Great Wall of China right across the country.
00:02:3223 years after his first trip, he sets off again.
00:02:35Doing the same exploring 23 years later is really testament to the immensity of what we call the Great Wall of China.
00:02:49In the last two and a half decades, I explored the Wall more, 1,700 days.
00:02:57I've discovered it's the world's most famous building, but the least known.
00:03:02There's always something new to discover.
00:03:05There it is.
00:03:06There is no single Great Wall.
00:03:12There are lots of walls in northern China, built by different dynasties for more than 2,000 years.
00:03:19William Lindsay is taking us to one of the most remote places, a 2,300 kilometer drive west of Beijing, to the city of Dunhuang.
00:03:27Into the Gobi Desert.
00:03:35Well, I'm nearly there, 75 miles northwest of Dunhuang.
00:03:41And it's a nice sunny day in the Gobi Desert, perfect conditions for exploring the Great Wall.
00:03:46In the shimmering heat, the dark ribbon along the horizon at first looks like a mirage.
00:03:56But these really are the remains of a wall, literally in the middle of nowhere.
00:04:01Well, one of the most precious parts of the Great Wall of China.
00:04:14This is the Han Wall, built 2,100 years ago.
00:04:20And I'm not the first traffic to come here.
00:04:22This is the Silk Road.
00:04:24So merchants would come from the deserts in Central Asia, entering China at this point.
00:04:31And then, proceed east, to the heartland of China.
00:04:36So, let's go and take a closer look.
00:04:43Built over 2,000 years ago, this wall looks completely different to the familiar Great Wall near Beijing.
00:04:49It's not built of stone, but this construction material has kept it strong for millennia.
00:04:56Reed and gravel.
00:04:57But who was this wall meant to protect, so far from civilization?
00:05:03The Han Dynasty rulers wanted to open their empire to trade with the West.
00:05:12So they secured control of the eastern end of what became known as the Silk Road.
00:05:16The Han Chinese occupied the vital Heishi Corridor, that runs along the Silk Road between the northern steppes and the Himalayan foothills.
00:05:26It's a real border, not just between peoples, but between lifestyle.
00:05:31The nomads of the steppes live in yurts, the traditional round tent.
00:05:39They live entirely from their livestock, wandering over the steppe.
00:05:43They pitch their yurts wherever they find grazing land for their herds.
00:05:47After enduring long, hard winters in the steppes, these nomadic warriors ransack China's northern provinces.
00:06:04Year after year, they kill and hurrah, stealing food and metals.
00:06:09Everything their lifestyle prevents them producing.
00:06:11The Chinese regarded their empire as the cradle of civilization.
00:06:21According to their Confucian philosophy, it was the cultural center of the world.
00:06:26Appeasing the barbarians along the border by trading with them was out of the question.
00:06:31War was too expensive, so the Han emperor decided to build a wall.
00:06:36How many people were involved in the construction of the Han wall?
00:06:41No one knows for sure.
00:06:42Reliable sources quote the calculations presented to the emperor.
00:06:47If one soldier can build three paces of wall in one month,
00:06:51then 300 men can build three li, about one and a half kilometers.
00:06:56That means a thousand li, or about 530 kilometers,
00:07:00would take 100,000 men one month to complete.
00:07:02So far, so good, and so many.
00:07:08Most of the soldiers were stationed at the towers.
00:07:11The towers had a dual use that made them most effective for defense.
00:07:17The beacon tower behind me was not only the perfect vantage point
00:07:21for guards on this frontier to watch for the enemy coming from the north,
00:07:25it was a signaling station.
00:07:27So when the enemy was sighted, this beacon would have been ignited.
00:07:32This is how it worked.
00:07:35As soon as a guard spotted nomadic warriors,
00:07:37he transmitted smoke signals by daylight, or beacon fires at night.
00:07:42The alarm was communicated along the wall to garrisons located in the hinterland.
00:07:48How long is the Han wall?
00:07:52Only recently have Chinese experts started to find out.
00:07:57We've joined the local archaeological survey team,
00:08:01who are taking part in a national survey to locate the line of the Han Dynasty Great Wall.
00:08:09The team is heading out into the Gobi Desert.
00:08:19They need a whole summer just to measure this section of the wall.
00:08:24At noon, the temperature can climb to over 40 degrees Celsius.
00:08:28Today, the team is exploring a fortification that lies in the hinterland of the Han wall.
00:08:36This could have been a garrison for support troops.
00:08:41Today, the remains are hardly visible.
00:08:43This tower has a name. It's called Half Tower.
00:08:51Obviously, because half the tower is missing.
00:08:54The team are here today to locate the fortifications with GPS.
00:08:58I'm wondering how they're going to measure the height because it's so crumbly.
00:09:01I'll ask them.
00:09:02How long is the height?
00:09:05Now, we have a laser rangefinder.
00:09:13We have a laser rangefinder.
00:09:15We have a laser rangefinder.
00:09:17So, they don't have to climb up the tower to measure it.
00:09:21They have a device here.
00:09:25A laser rangefinder collects the data.
00:09:29It will be a few years before the results of the survey are summarized
00:09:33and a figure can be given for the length of the Han wall.
00:09:41So, from here to the Jade Gate is about 45-50 kilometres.
00:09:47And there are three sections of wall that are quite visible.
00:09:53And in between, there's virtually nothing, although the archaeologists may find traces.
00:09:57Mr. Yang is very reluctant to give a guesstimate of how many kilometres of Han wall are standing.
00:10:05GPS team leader Mr. Yang has given William directions to a place in the desert where the wall has a unique shape.
00:10:22It's a 16-kilometre hike, so William is buying provisions for the trip at Dunhuang Market.
00:10:27Well, raw meat wouldn't be very good, ants in the desert.
00:10:42A lot of what he sees doesn't seem too useful for a desert trek, but he finally finds what he needs.
00:10:48Successful shopping trip for $1.99 or so, a good supply of high-energy foods.
00:10:56Mmm, delicious.
00:11:01Next morning at 5 o'clock, Lindsay sets off for the hike.
00:11:07Lots of satellites around.
00:11:10It's 14.4 K, so it's about 9 miles or more.
00:11:16He's not walking alone.
00:11:18In the desert, it would be too dangerous.
00:11:21With him is his Chinese friend, Piao Tiejun.
00:11:24Sun coming up there.
00:11:25Their GPS says they will reach the unique strip of wall in five hours.
00:11:29Let's go.
00:11:30Let's go.
00:11:48It's cool now, but the sparse vegetation is tinder-dry.
00:11:51There hasn't been any rainfall here for months.
00:12:06They're walking in a featureless landscape.
00:12:08You can see a solitary tree over there.
00:12:21Back in 87, I just had a big map of the whole country.
00:12:26Basically, my journey along the wall from the desert to the sea was like that.
00:12:331,700 miles.
00:12:36Not the ideal map for hiking across desert grassland.
00:12:41It's nearly noon, and the sun is burning.
00:12:57But finally, they arrive at the place they've been looking for.
00:13:00Hey, there it is.
00:13:03We made it.
00:13:04Yeah.
00:13:06Fantastic.
00:13:09Great.
00:13:12Brilliant.
00:13:13For William, it's already worth the trip.
00:13:16Even the five hours back.
00:13:18Amazing, eh?
00:13:19Oh, look at that.
00:13:20Fantastic.
00:13:21Fantastic.
00:13:22Of all the faces that the Great Wall of China has, this is the rarest of them all.
00:13:38This wall is made of wood.
00:13:41See, there's six layers of branches there.
00:13:45And in between, minimal use of the gravel.
00:13:52So I'm really glad I've come here today.
00:13:54Well worth the 10-mile track.
00:13:56Yeah.
00:14:00Leaving the Dunhuang region and making his way east along the ancient Silk Road,
00:14:05William is aiming for a town called Jiayuguan.
00:14:10The historic site is five kilometers out of town.
00:14:13And the best view is from the sky.
00:14:30A giant castle guarding the wall, built in 1539 by Jia Jing, emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
00:14:36The Ming Emperor's contempt for the nomads reached grotesque proportions with the demand that the character Ji, standing for barbarians, should be written as small as possible.
00:14:54After the Han Dynasty, other dynasties rose and fell.
00:15:07Many of them built walls, but none of any significant length.
00:15:11Ming Emperor Jia Jing ascended the dragon throne in 1521.
00:15:15He renewed the Han tradition established in ancient times.
00:15:21Constructing a long wall at the northern border with its westernmost point at the Jiayuguan Pass.
00:15:29Jiayuguan translates as barrier to the pleasant valley.
00:15:35And pleasant valley means China.
00:15:39This gigantic fort is built in the foothills of the Himalayas.
00:15:44In the courtyard, the mighty walls form a kind of maze to stop invaders in their tracks.
00:15:56And there's a wonderful legend about its construction.
00:16:07To avoid wastage of materials prior to construction of the fortress, the architect was asked to calculate exactly how many bricks were required.
00:16:15He computed 999,999.
00:16:20The 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.
00:16:30But the architect was too smart.
00:16:32He said, no, I factored that into the equation.
00:16:35That 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.
00:16:43Good fortune.
00:16:46600 years later, the leftover brick still remains.
00:17:04Next to the fort is the starting point of the wall constructed by the mill.
00:17:08This wall has nothing in common with the brick and stone wall north of Beijing.
00:17:21It's made of rammed earth, and although it's more than 400 years old, it's still in good shape, and it's still wide enough to walk on.
00:17:29.
00:17:30On its walks along the wall, he's the best to walk on.
00:17:34On his walks along the walls,
00:17:59William Lindsay soon learned he could count on receiving warm hospitality
00:18:03from the farmers along the way.
00:18:09Before coming to China, my family and friends were very concerned.
00:18:13In 1987, going to China, the big communist country on the other side of the world,
00:18:19are the people going to be friendly?
00:18:21And I didn't have a support crew with me, I depended on farmers.
00:18:25I discovered very early on the farmers were my great allies.
00:18:32Even with very little Chinese, but a lot of sign language and smiling, I got what I needed,
00:18:38food, water, shelter.
00:18:40Without them, I couldn't have been successful.
00:18:46Even if many of them can't understand why a foreigner should be so interested in the wall.
00:18:52For them, this is no monument, but simply a part of their village and one with a perfectly practical use.
00:18:58I was asking him why these holes in the wall.
00:19:03I thought they were nests, but in fact, previously the farms were right up against the wall,
00:19:09so there were wooden beams going into the wall.
00:19:13But the great wall experts, the cultural heritage protection authorities, requested the farmers
00:19:21to destroy those buildings and move back in order to protect the national heritage.
00:19:27If you want to know how Ming Dynasty masons constructed their wall more than 400 years ago,
00:19:32all you have to do is keep your eyes open.
00:19:34Even today, Chinese farmers build walls in the same way their ancestors did.
00:19:39They tamp the earth in a wooden casing.
00:19:42Tamp, put layer on layer.
00:19:44They even sing the traditional folk songs passed down from their forefathers.
00:19:50A house is not complete without a wall around it, says an old Chinese proverb.
00:19:59My friend Chan is building this wall to enclose his compound, so this is the final piece of work.
00:20:06And this is embedded in Chinese architectural tradition.
00:20:15Whether it's a compound, or a village, or a kingdom, it must be enclosed completely safe.
00:20:38They built most of the Ming wall, just like this, is a rammed earth wall.
00:20:44Imagine how many billion thuds it took.
00:20:59The singing is an important part of the work.
00:21:03It keeps all the rammers in step, the beat.
00:21:09So, you know, they're all in step, going along the wall there.
00:21:12They get into a rhythm.
00:21:15And the actual content, oh, I've been in Chinese 23 years, but this guy has a really heavy accent.
00:21:24It's a bit difficult.
00:21:25But it's definitely a kind of rap.
00:21:28He changes the words, and occasionally you hear them chuckle.
00:21:31So I think he gets a little dig in about those that are kind of falling behind in distance.
00:21:38Or maybe he can tell by the thuds if someone is out of tune.
00:21:42This group of about 20 farmers, mostly women, took a day to erect about 27 meters of wall.
00:21:58We don't know if their ancestors could have worked better or faster.
00:22:02But we do know they would have used the same materials and tools, except for the tractors carrying the clay and the cell phones.
00:22:12All right, all right.
00:22:13All right, all right.
00:22:13All right.
00:22:15All right.
00:22:17All right.
00:22:31All right.
00:22:37All right.
00:22:41All right.
00:22:43All right.
00:22:48On his journey along the walls of China, William Lindsay is walking eastwards, out of the Hexi corridor
00:22:55and turning north along the great wall of the Ming dynasty.
00:23:01Into the great loop of the Yellow River, the cradle of China's civilization.
00:23:13This has always been the gateway for the nomads to enter China.
00:23:27Here, though wind and weather have done their worst,
00:23:30the wall and its towers can still be made up on the crags above the river.
00:23:34The garrison forts were the outposts of this defensive outer wall.
00:23:50Today, their use is strictly non-military.
00:24:00This building, it's made of thick blocks of limestone and on the roof, there's turf.
00:24:30When you come here in winter, they've got a good method for keeping you warm.
00:24:34See this?
00:24:35It's not a bed.
00:24:36It's called a can, K-A-N-G.
00:24:39And they put the fuel under here, light it.
00:24:44They can do the cooking here.
00:24:46And you've got a nice warm bed for the night.
00:24:48So, I've got full board and lodging.
00:24:56Breakfast tomorrow morning and dinner this evening and lunch coming up soon
00:24:59for less than $10.
00:25:14I should apologize for the slurping.
00:25:32It's part and parcel of eating in China.
00:25:34It's part and parcel of eating in China, considered the sound of an appreciation.
00:25:38The ingredients of the lunch William is appreciating today are also the reason the nomads
00:25:48of the
00:26:05But the nomadic cavalry are brought to a virtual standstill at the new border wall at Xu Anfu.
00:26:28The wall stands fast. The nomadic troops are unable to capture the Chinese granary.
00:26:34Does this mean defeat?
00:26:38The barbarians do not give up. They have a message for the Chinese.
00:26:43They will attack Beijing, the capital.
00:26:48By marching east, the nomad army finds its way around the wall, thus avoiding the Ming Emperor's elaborate border fortifications.
00:26:56No one had suspected the nomads could cross the natural barrier, the mountain range north of Beijing.
00:27:03Back in 1550, the nomads did not meet with any serious opposition on their way south.
00:27:18They terrorized Beijing's suburbs for three days. They demanded trading rights, leaving the Forbidden City untouched before drawing back to the steppes.
00:27:33After a short period of trading, the Ming Emperor started building a wall of stone north of Beijing.
00:27:41Between the 1550s and 1644, it reached a length of at least 1200 kilometers.
00:27:47The Stone Dragon, the Chinese Great Wall as the world knows it today.
00:27:52How many people were needed to build it?
00:28:04Official 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.
00:28:13I'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.
00:28:30From here, the inscription looks very faint, but we have a ladder, master artisan, Mr. Ho, and with his simple tools, we're going to copy the stone and produce a rubbing, which hopefully will reveal the full contents of the tablet.
00:28:48This ancient Chinese copying technique starts with gluing a sheet of paper onto the tablet, simply with water.
00:29:09This is step number one.
00:29:11Step number two.
00:29:12Dadze translates literally as typing characters.
00:29:15So he's using a brush and he's hammering the paper into the carvings.
00:29:22The higher parts
00:29:51parts of the paper will be blackened and the lower parts that have gone into the
00:29:57characters and any design along the edges they will remain white after three
00:30:13hours of sponging and drying mr. Hogue presents his piece of art it looks like
00:30:21a blueprint or an old archived document and he helps William translate the
00:30:30ancient Chinese characters which today hardly anybody can read
00:30:36this stone
00:30:50is telling us that two military officials in charge of 1,100 families put
00:30:58in the effort to build 250 yards of wall in the autumn of 1579 so in terms of
00:31:06very simple arithmetic productivity we're talking about four persons per family
00:31:13four thousand five hundred people working for eight to ten weeks in the autumn of 1579
00:31:21to build that whereas tamped earth walls were built by untrained serfs or peasants this project required
00:31:31special knowledge hundreds of master builders and skilled engineers thousands of stone cutters and tens
00:31:38thousands of thousands of masons were recruited to build the wall and another factor led to the costs
00:31:46rising exponentially
00:32:00termed earth walls were built using materials available on site of the material for the new wall
00:32:08had to be awarding for you
00:32:10use. The Chinese had devised a network of brick kilns set up near the
00:32:15construction sites. One of these sites was found by local farmers and inspected
00:32:20by Professor Wang Tsunou, curator of the Great War Museum in Shanghikwan.
00:32:26So at this location they discovered around 60 brick kilns and it ranks as
00:32:32the best production center of bricks preserved along the whole length of the
00:32:39Great Wall. And it's estimated that each kiln could fire 5,000 bricks. Now given
00:32:46that there are 60 kilns in this valley, the production of this center alone would
00:32:53be equal to 300,000 bricks per month industrial scale production.
00:33:03Then as now, mass production is one thing, but it's a different matter to transport
00:33:09the product to where it's needed. Logistics.
00:33:16Now, key question, very interesting question is, how did they move all the bricks up there?
00:33:22Again, there is almost no historical record to answer this question, but Professor Wang has his theory.
00:33:36Professor Wang has his theories. 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 up there quite effectively.
00:33:51Two 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.
00:33:59Even without bricks 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.
00:34:15Every time I come up here on these trails, I spare a thought for the builders who had to heave, push, all of this building material up here, all these blocks, all of these bricks.
00:34:22The sometimes bizarre routes taken by this wall
00:34:37The sometimes bizarre route taken by this wall has led many experts to believe that more than run away, there is no solution.
00:34:42The sometimes bizarre route taken by this wall has led many experts to believe that more than
00:34:52just defensive considerations were in play here. For generations, the Chinese had followed
00:34:58the practice of Feng Shui, the teachings of wind and water. Feng Shui experts were probably
00:35:06consulted and obeyed before the building of the wall to make sure that the forces of nature
00:35:11work in its favour. Spending his days alone on the wall, Lindsay imagines how the soldiers
00:35:22must have suffered here. Cut off from the world, enduring winds and foul weather, squeezed
00:35:28into bare and cramped quarters for months on end.
00:35:41Finally, this wall is a monument to the closed world view of the Ming Empire. It circumscribed
00:35:58their universe and excluded everything that was foreign.
00:36:05Often scratching around in this rubble, you can find bits of pottery. Not sure what this
00:36:11stone is. This stone looks quite interesting. Maybe a breath on the neck. Let's have a look.
00:36:23It might be... Ah! Ah! Ha ha! That is a stone bomb that would have been packed with gunpowder, a
00:36:52mud seal, a fuse. And the towers like this were just packed with these, maybe 50 or 100, to be lobbed off the
00:37:02wall when the tower was attacked. That's a really good find.
00:37:07320 kilometres further east, we find another example of living history.
00:37:22This is this. This is the first one. That's the first one. That's the one. That's the one.
00:37:27That's the one. That's the one. That's the one. That's the one. That's the one.
00:37:31This is Zhang He Shan. His ancestors built the wall here 440 years ago. And close by, towers have other
00:37:41family names like the Chen Tower, the Wang Tower, the Law Tower. So here we have the family history of the
00:37:48Great Wall, still living on, 440 years after it was built.
00:38:02Even today they still worship their ancestors by celebrating ancient festivals.
00:38:07The pig was slaughtered yesterday. It should be quite nice, fresh pork.
00:38:20It would have been a rare moment of relaxation and abundance in a hard life.
00:38:25As the oldest member of his family, Mr. Zhang makes the sacrifice to his ancestors and burns incense sticks.
00:38:55Then, the living generations of the Zhang family bowed to the dead and to their own great history.
00:39:02The village families had to look after and feed the soldiers in the towers.
00:39:17Their take-away food service survives to this day.
00:39:27Zhang He Shan, the farmer down in Chengzi village, prepared some delicacies for me to munch on up here after my hike.
00:39:37And it's amazing to think that 400 years ago, guards garrisoned up on the wall would be sent these,
00:39:43por lo bien, by their families.
00:39:47So, let's have a look.
00:39:49It's a kind of pasty,
00:39:52kept fresh in one of these large oak leaves.
00:39:56You can see the leaf prints on the pastry.
00:40:00Well, have a taste.
00:40:02Mmm.
00:40:03Full of chives.
00:40:04Kind of Chinese hamburger.
00:40:05Maybe the original Chinese takeaway for those up on the wall.
00:40:18Up on the wall.
00:40:30By 1644, just short of 100 years of construction, the most impressive defensive wall ever made by man was finished.
00:40:38However, it was not one single great wall.
00:40:42It comprised a system of several defense lines, from the mountains to the sea.
00:40:47In 2009, after a national survey of the Ming wall, Chinese officials announced that the total length is 8,850 kilometers.
00:41:01This is the end at Shanghai Guan, meaning Mountain Sea Pass.
00:41:13The Chinese liken the Ming Great Wall to a dragon snaking across their land.
00:41:18And here, it comes to a geographical end at Old Dragon's Head, at the Yellow Sea.
00:41:23Not far from this location, in 1644, the commander of Shanghai Guan faced his biggest challenge.
00:41:31An event which led to the end of the Great Wall functioning as a national defense.
00:41:41Professor Wang is taking William to the gates and walls in the outskirts of Shanghai Guan.
00:41:47This is the place where the Great Wall story came to an end.
00:41:50The construction of the Great Wall led to the financial and strategic collapse of the Ming Dynasty.
00:41:58Revolts broke out everywhere in the empire.
00:42:01An army of rebel peasants marched on Beijing, where they toppled the emperor.
00:42:06Then on to Shang He Guan, the last stronghold of the Ming Empire.
00:42:11But a mighty army had risen from the steppes heading for the Middle Kingdom, the Manchus.
00:42:16Caught in between Wu Sang-hui.
00:42:20He was the general in command of the fortress at Shang He Guan.
00:42:24Now he was under siege.
00:42:29What could he do?
00:42:31This was a powerful garrison, but was it strong enough to fight off attackers on two fronts?
00:42:35Professor Wang Cunong tells William Lindsay the solution he found.
00:42:50So trapped between two enemies, Commander Wu Sang-hui knew he couldn't defeat them both.
00:42:54So he came up with a plan to offer an alliance treaty with the Manchus in the north.
00:43:02And the two armies joined and confronted the peasant rebel army and they defeated them.
00:43:09A wall is only as strong as the men who guard it, Genghis Khan is supposed to have said.
00:43:13His successors from the steppes, the Manchus, would have agreed with him.
00:43:1880,000 Manchu soldiers passed through this gate and entered the heartland of China.
00:43:27The Manchus founded a new dynasty which in effect ruled over the Middle Kingdom until 1912.
00:43:32They called themselves Jing, meaning the pure.
00:43:45And the Great Wall was of no use anymore.
00:43:48But its story did not come to an end.
00:43:52Even today, nobody knows how long all the Great Walls of China really are.
00:43:57There are still many more walls and stories to be discovered.
00:44:03And William Lindsay will not stop walking the Great Wall until he knows them all.
00:44:09I don't think in the future that so many people will be organised in such a methodical way
00:44:16to create something that was not just history, that not just fell apart,
00:44:21but is left as part of the geography of China and the world.
00:44:25Certainly in future there are going to be new wonders.
00:44:29Communications, longer life, exploring planets.
00:44:33But in terms of blood, sweat and tears, the Great Wall of China I think is the ultimate.
00:44:40And that's why I'm continuing to understand it.
00:44:42Modern lodging.
00:44:45Breakfast tomorrow morning and dinner this evening and lunch coming up soon.
00:44:49For less than $10.
00:44:51Modern lodging.
00:44:56Modern lodging.
00:44:58Breakfast tomorrow morning and dinner this evening and lunch coming up soon.
00:45:02For less than $10.
00:45:04For less than $10.
00:45:05For less than $10.
00:45:06I should apologise for the slurping.
00:45:08It's part of my life.
00:45:09For less than $10.
00:45:10I should apologize for the slurping.
00:45:35It's part and parcel of eating in China.
00:45:38It's considered a sound of an appreciation.
00:45:47The ingredients of the lunch William is appreciating today are also the reason the nomads raided
00:45:53the land of the Yellow River throughout the 16th century.
00:46:01In the year 1549, the barbarians come to plunder.
00:46:08But the nomadic cavalry are brought to a virtual standstill at the new border wall at Xu Anfu.
00:46:17The wall stands fast.
00:46:18The nomadic troops are unable to capture the Chinese granary.
00:46:22Does this mean defeat?
00:46:26The barbarians do not give up.
00:46:27They have a message for the Chinese.
00:46:28They will attack Beijing, the capital.
00:46:33By marching east, the nomad army finds its way around the wall, thus avoiding the Ming Emperor's
00:46:40elaborate border fortifications.
00:46:43No one had suspected the nomads could cross the natural barrier, the mountain range north
00:46:50of Beijing.
00:46:51Back in 1550, the nomads did not meet with any serious opposition on their way south.
00:46:58They terrorized Beijing suburbs for three days.
00:47:27They demanded trading rights, leaving the Forbidden City untouched before drawing back to the steppes.
00:47:34After a short period of trading, the Ming Emperor started building a wall of stone north of Beijing.
00:47:44Between the 1550s and 1644, it reached a length of at least 1200 kilometers.
00:47:51The stone dragon, the Chinese Great Wall as the world knows it today.
00:47:56How long is the Great Wall really?
00:47:59How many years did it take to build?
00:48:01And why was it built at all?
00:48:03And why was it built at all?
00:48:08The USAID has been built in the
00:48:30It's only a short trip from Beijing to one of China's most popular attractions.
00:48:35attractions millions of tourists come here every year to see the stone dragon
00:48:40the Great Wall of China most of the people walking on the Great Wall here
00:48:47today will go home and say I've been to the Great Wall of China but the Great
00:48:54Wall is not a place it ranges across the subcontinental expanse of North China
00:48:59and along its course many of the locations are seldom visited and some are virtually unknown
00:49:08in 1987 Lindsay fulfilled his childhood dream he walked on the Chinese wall 2,700 kilometers only
00:49:20a few pictures remain from this adventure because his films were repeatedly confiscated foreigners
00:49:26were barred from many parts of China those times have long changed China has opened up to the world
00:49:32and an adventurer has turned into a scholar Lindsay now seeks out traces of the Great Wall of China
00:49:39right across the country 23 years after his first trip he sets off again doing the same exploring 23
00:49:51years later is really testament to the immensity of what we call the Great Wall of China in the last
00:50:02two and a half decades I explored the wall more 1700 days I've discovered it's the world's most
00:50:10famous building but the least known there's always something new to discover there is there is no single
00:50:21great wall there are lots of walls in northern China built by different dynasties for more than 2,000
00:50:27years William Lindsay is taking us to one of the most remote places a 2,300 kilometer drive west of Beijing
00:50:35to the city of Dunhuang into the Gobi Desert
00:50:42well I'm nearly there 75 miles northwest of Dunhuang and it's a nice sunny day in the Gobi Desert perfect
00:50:54conditions for exploring the Great Wall they terrorized Beijing suburbs for three days they demanded trading
00:51:03rights leaving the Forbidden City untouched before drawing back to the steps
00:51:08after a short period of trading the Ming Emperor started building a wall of stone north of Beijing
00:51:18between the 1550s and 1644 it reached a length of at least 1200 kilometers the stone dragon the Chinese
00:51:28great wall as the world knows it today how many people were needed to build it official figures are
00:51:44rare but in some inaccessible sections of the wall there are still stone tablets engraved with texts
00:51:50that could give us that information I'm hoping this stone is going to tell me something about when
00:52:04this wall was built how many people were involved and mentioned some place names from here the
00:52:09inscription looks very faint but we have a ladder master artisan Mr. Ho and with his simple tools we're
00:52:18going to copy the stone and produce a rubbing which hopefully will reveal the full contents of the
00:52:25tablet this ancient Chinese copying technique starts with gluing a sheet of paper onto the tablet simply
00:52:44with water this is step number one step number two dad sir translates literally as typing characters so
00:52:54he's using a brush and he's hammering the paper into the carvings
00:53:00gullies
00:53:04go on
00:53:22The higher parts of the paper will be blackened,
00:53:33and the lower parts that have gone into the characters
00:53:35and any design along the edges, they will remain white.
00:53:40After three hours of sponging and drying,
00:53:54Mr. Hogue presents his piece of art.
00:53:57You are taking part in a national survey
00:54:00to locate the line of the Vanham dynasty Great Wall.
00:54:10The team is heading out into the Gobi Desert.
00:54:16They need a whole summer just to measure this section of the wall.
00:54:20At noon, the temperature can climb to over 40 degrees Celsius.
00:54:26Today, the team is exploring a fortification
00:54:29that lies in the hinterland of the Han Wall.
00:54:32This could have been a garrison for support troops.
00:54:37Today, the remains are hardly visible.
00:54:40One person, one person, one person.
00:54:42One person, one person.
00:54:43This tower has a name. It's called Half Tower.
00:54:47Obviously, because half the tower is missing.
00:54:50The team are here today to locate the fortifications with GPS.
00:54:55I'm wondering how they're going to measure the height
00:54:57because it's so crumbly, I'll ask them.
00:54:59How much is it?
00:55:01The laser rangefinder collects the data.
00:55:04It will be a few years before the results of the survey are summarized,
00:55:08and a figure can be given for the length of the Han Wall.
00:55:15I'm going to tell you a little bit more.
00:55:16The work is less than half the time.
00:55:17I'm going to tell you.
00:55:18I'm going to tell you.
00:55:19It's less than half the time.
00:55:20The base of the Han Wall is a little bit more than half the time.
00:55:21I'm going to tell you.
00:55:22The laser rangefinder collects the data.
00:55:25It will be a few years before the results of the survey are summarized,
00:55:29and a figure can be given for the length of the Han Wall.
00:55:37So, from here to the Jade Gate is about 45, 50 kilometers.
00:55:42And there are three sections of wall that are quite visible.
00:55:48And in between, there's virtually nothing, although the archaeologists may find traces.
00:55:53Mr. Yang is very reluctant to give a guesstimate of how many kilometers of Han Wall are standing.
00:56:12GPS team leader Mr. Yang has given William directions to a place in the desert
00:56:17where the wall has a unique shape.
00:56:19It's a 16-kilometer hike, so William is buying provisions for the trip at Dunhuang Market.
00:56:24Well, raw meat wouldn't be very good ants in the deserts.
00:56:29A lot of what he sees doesn't seem too useful for a desert trek, but he finally finds what he needs.
00:56:46Successful shopping trip for £1.99 or so, a good supply of high-energy foods.
00:56:52Mmm, delicious.
00:56:57And produce a rubbing, which hopefully will reveal the full contents of the tablet.
00:57:02This ancient Chinese copying technique starts with gluing a sheet of paper onto the tablet, simply with water.
00:57:20This is step number one.
00:57:24Step number two.
00:57:26Daadze translates literally as typing characters.
00:57:29So he's using a brush, and he's hammering the paper into the carvings.
00:57:36The carvings.
00:58:01The 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.
00:58:16After three hours of sponging and drying, Mr. Ho presents his piece of art.
00:58:34It looks like a blueprint or an old archive document.
00:58:38And he helps William translate the ancient Chinese characters, which today hardly anybody can read.
00:58:49This stone is telling us that two millimetres were made in the past.
00:58:56And he helps William translate the ancient Chinese characters, which today hardly anybody can read.
00:59:02This stone is telling us that two military officials in charge of 1,100 families put in the effort to build 250 yards of wall in the autumn of 1579.
00:59:20So in terms of very simple arithmetic productivity, we're talking about four persons per family,
00:59:274,500 people working for eight to ten weeks in the autumn of 1579 to build that.
00:59:40Whereas tamped earth walls were built by untrained serfs or peasants, this project required special knowledge.
00:59:47Hundreds of master builders and skilled engineers, thousands of stone cutters and tens of thousands of masons were recruited to build the wall.
00:59:55From here, the inscription looks very faint, but we have a ladder, master artisan, Mr. Ho.
01:00:04And with his simple tools, we're going to copy the stone and produce a rubbing, which hopefully will reveal the full contents of the tablet.
01:00:13This ancient Chinese copying technique starts with gluing a sheet of paper onto the tablet, simply with water.
01:00:31This is step number one.
01:00:37Step number two.
01:00:38Dad-se translates literally as typing characters.
01:00:41So he's using a brush and he's hammering the paper into the carvings.
01:00:48Step number one.
01:01:03Step number one.
01:01:05Step number two.
01:01:08Step number one.
01:01:11Step number one.
01:01:13The 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.
01:01:28After three hours of sponging and drying, Mr. Ho presents his piece of art.
01:01:45It looks like a blueprint or an old archive document.
01:01:52And he helps William translate the ancient Chinese characters, which today hardly anybody can read.
01:02:01This stone is telling us that two military officials in charge of 1,100 families put in the effort to build 250 yards of wall in the autumn of 1560.
01:02:29So 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.
01:02:48Whereas tamped earth walls were built by untrained serfs or peasants, this project...
01:02:57It's 14.4K, so it's about nine miles or more.
01:03:03He's not walking alone. In the desert it would be too dangerous.
01:03:07With him is his Chinese friend, Piao Tie Jun.
01:03:11The sun coming up there.
01:03:12Their GPS says they will reach the unique strip of wall in five hours.
01:03:16Let's go.
01:03:17It's cool now, but the sparse vegetation is tinder dry.
01:03:38There hasn't been any rainfall here for months.
01:03:53They're walking in a featureless landscape.
01:03:57You can see a solitary tree over there.
01:04:09Back in 87, I just had a big map of the whole country.
01:04:14Basically, my journey along the wall from the desert to the sea was like that.
01:04:211,700 miles.
01:04:23Not the ideal map for hiking across desert grassland.
01:04:29It's nearly noon and the sun is burning.
01:04:45But finally, they arrive at the place they've been looking for.
01:04:48Hey, there it is.
01:04:50We made it.
01:04:52Yeah.
01:04:53Fantastic.
01:04:56Great.
01:04:57Great.
01:05:00Brilliant.
01:05:01For William, it's already worth the trip.
01:05:03Even the five hours back.
01:05:06Amazing, eh?
01:05:10Oh, look at that.
01:05:11Fantastic.
01:05:20Of all the faces that the Great Wall of China has, this is the rarest of them all.
01:05:24This wall is made of wood.
01:05:28See, there's six layers of branches there.
01:05:33And in between, minimal use of the gravel.
01:05:39So I'm really glad I've come here today, well worth a ten mile trek.
01:05:42Yeah.
01:05:43Leaving the Dunhuang region and making his way east along the ancient Silk Road, William is aiming for a town called Jiayuguan.
01:05:55It's cool now, but the sparse vegetation is tender dry.
01:06:09There hasn't been any rainfall here for months.
01:06:11They're walking in a featureless landscape.
01:06:28You can see a solitary tree over there.
01:06:30Back in 87, I just had a big map of the whole country.
01:06:44Basically, my journey along the wall from the desert to the sea was like that.
01:06:491700 miles.
01:06:53Not the ideal map for hiking across desert grassland.
01:06:59It's nearly noon and the sun is burning.
01:07:15But finally, they arrive at the place they've been looking for.
01:07:19Hey, there it is.
01:07:21We made it.
01:07:22Yeah.
01:07:24Fantastic.
01:07:27Great.
01:07:30Brilliant.
01:07:31For William, it's already worth the trip, even the five hours back.
01:07:36Amazing, eh?
01:07:40Oh, look at that.
01:07:41Fantastic.
01:07:42The best bit.
01:07:43Of all the faces that the Great Wall of China has, this is the rarest of them all.
01:07:55This wall is made of wood.
01:07:59See, there's six layers of branches there.
01:08:04And, in between, minimal use of the gravel.
01:08:09So I'm really glad I've come here today, well worth the 10-mile track.
01:08:14Yeah.
01:08:18Leaving the Dunhuang region and making his way east along the ancient Silk Road,
01:08:23William is aiming for a town called Jiayuguan.
01:08:28The historic site is five kilometers out of town.
01:08:33And the best view is from the sky.
01:08:39A giant castle guarding the wall, built in 1539 by Jiajing, emperor of the Ming dynasty.
01:08:57On these trails, I spare a thought for the builders, who had to heave, push, all of this building material up here, all these blocks, all of these bricks.
01:09:06The sometimes bizarre routes taken by this wall has led many experts to believe that more than just defensive considerations were in play here.
01:09:21For generations, the Chinese had followed the practice of Feng Shui, the teachings of wind and water.
01:09:27Feng Shui experts were probably consulted and obeyed before the building of the wall, to make sure that the forces of nature would work in its favor.
01:09:37Spending his days alone on the wall, Lindsay imagines how the soldiers must have suffered here.
01:09:49Cut off from the world, enduring winds and foul weather, squeezed into bare and cramped quarters for months on end.
01:09:56Finally, this wall is a monument to the closed world view of the Ming empire.
01:10:08It circumscribed their universe and excluded everything that was foreign.
01:10:26And excluded everything that was foreign.
01:10:31Often scratching around in this rubble, you can find bits of pottery.
01:10:36Not sure what this stone is.
01:10:41This stone looks quite interesting, maybe a breath in the neck.
01:10:44Let's have a look.
01:10:45Well...
01:10:46Let's...
01:10:49That...
01:10:51That...
01:10:54Might be...
01:10:56Ah!
01:10:58Ah!
01:11:02Ha Ha
01:11:09That...
01:11:10Is...
01:11:12a...
01:11:13Stone bomb!
01:11:15that would have been packed with gunpowder,
01:11:18a mud seal, a fuse,
01:11:21and the towers like this were just packed with these,
01:11:24maybe 50 or 100,
01:11:26to be lobbed off the wall when the tower was attacked.
01:11:32That's a really good find.
01:11:41320 kilometres further east,
01:11:44we find another example of living history.
01:11:57Seeks out traces of the Great Wall of China
01:11:59right across the country.
01:12:0223 years after his first trip,
01:12:04he sets off again.
01:12:07Doing the same exploring 23 years later
01:12:12is really a testament to the immensity
01:12:16of what we call the Great Wall of China.
01:12:22In the last two and a half decades,
01:12:24I explored the wall more.
01:12:251,700 days.
01:12:27I've discovered it's the world's most famous building,
01:12:31but the least known.
01:12:32There's always something new to discover.
01:12:35There it is.
01:12:36There is no single Great Wall.
01:12:42There are lots of walls in northern China,
01:12:44built by different dynasties for more than 2,000 years.
01:12:49William Lindsay is taking us to one of the most remote places,
01:12:52a 2,300 kilometre drive west of Beijing to the city of Dunhuang,
01:13:01into the Gobi Desert.
01:13:02Well, I'm nearly there, 75 miles northwest of Dunhuang.
01:13:11And it's a nice sunny day in the Gobi Desert,
01:13:13perfect conditions for exploring the Great Wall.
01:13:20In the shimmering heat, the dark ribbon along the horizon
01:13:23at first looks like a mirage.
01:13:26But these really are the remains of a wall,
01:13:29literally in the middle of nowhere.
01:13:40Well, one of the most precious parts of the Great Wall of China,
01:13:44this is the Han Wall, built 2,100 years ago.
01:13:50And I'm not the first traffic to come here.
01:13:52This is the Silk Road.
01:13:54So merchants would come from the deserts in Central Asia,
01:13:59entering China at this point,
01:14:01and then proceed east to the heartland of China.
01:14:07So, let's go and take a closer look.
01:14:13Built over 2,000 years ago, this wall looks completely different
01:14:17to the familiar Great Wall near Beijing.
01:14:20It's not built of stone, but this construction material
01:14:23has kept it strong for millennia, reed and gravel.
01:14:29But who was this wall meant to protect so far from civilization?
01:14:37The Han Dynasty rulers wanted to open their empire to trade with the West.
01:14:42So they secured control of the eastern end of what became known as the Silk Road.
01:14:46The Han Chinese occupied the vital Heishi Corridor
01:14:52that runs along the Silk Road between the northern steppes and the Himalayan foothills.
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