The Great Wall's construction photo copyrighted by: Brian McMorrow The history of the construction of the Great Wall can be dated back to the Western Zhou Dynasty (11th century BC - 771 BC). But the wall at that time was only a line of fortresses standing to defend against attacks from the Yanyun (an ancient nomadic tribe in north China). The Period of the Warring States (476 BC - 221 BC) was an era when the seven states (Qi, Chu, Yan, Han, Zhao, Wei, Qin)
were busy engaging in wall-construction for self-defense. Instead of one line, their walls stretched in the four directions and varied in length from several hundred miles to one or two thousand miles. In the Qin Dynasty (221 - 206 BC) the emperor Qin Shihuang ordered his laborers to connect these scattered walls and create some new sections, thus forming a Great Wall in northern and central China in the true sense. The Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644) further developed the defensive
system of the wall and strengthened it on a larger scale. It pushed the wall
construction to its highest peak.
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