The Great Wall was begun by Qin Shi Huang (d. 210 BCE) , the first emperor to preside over anything resembling a unified China. He is also the man whose unexcavated mausoleum near Xi'an is guarded by the army of terra cotta warriors. The Wall runs in various segments and byways for approximately 4200 miles. It was, of course, primarily intended as a defensive fortification (impressive but ineffectual), but it also served as a stunning piece of propaganda, a visible statement of the empire's military might and economic resources, a means of rapid communication, and a way to transport men and supplies over vast distances. In its heyday, it was manned by as many as one million soldiers. Some sources estimate that one to two million laborers died during its construction. We hired a car with another couple and drove to the Mutianyu section of the Wall, about 55 miles north of Beijing. The countryside is rural, rugged, and steep. Many parts of the wall are little more than ruins today, but the section at Mutianyu (begun in the 6th century and extended in the 14th and 16th centuries) has been restored to its former grandeur.
As an added bonus, we got to take a ski-lift to the summit of the pass. After our hike, we rode back down to the base of the hill on tiny toboggans, racing like happy berserkers down a slick metal chute about one mile long. http://picasaweb.google.com/SteveDC505/GreatWall#
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