Defenses of the Great Wall, The Late Great Wall: 晚长城

Music: Through the City Gates

The walls were alive. The perennial men within each other's sights and the perennial expanding stone. A long snake that stretched many biomes, from the forbidding windward face of the Taihang Mountains, the endless open steppes, to the burning hell right in the middle of the Taklamakan Deserts. The gate of the kingdom at the world's end. Made when China lacked a natural barrier in its north, so they made a barrier in living stone. So, let there be a wall.

When myriads of natural disasters struck China at the tail end of the Mongol- led Yuan dynasty, the empire fell into chaos. Many factions of famine- stricken Han rebels from south and eastern China launched simultaneous rebellions against the Mongols and in 1368, one of the most capable rebels, Zhu Yuanzhang, or the Hongwu Emperor of Ming drove out the last Yuan Emperor from Khanbaliq/ Dadu, and renamed the capital Beiping (北平 "Pacified North".) The enmity between the Ming and the Yuan remnants in the north resulted in a new period, and one of the most ambitious period of construction along the Great Walls.

While the Ming walls are generally referred to as "Great Wall" (changcheng- literally "Long Wall") in modern times, during the Ming the Ming Great Walls were called "border barriers" (边墙; bianqiang) by the Chinese.

EARLY MING- TEPID 

PROACTIVE MOBILE OFFENSE IN THE NORTH

The early Ming began with political unsteadiness. At first, the conservative Hongwu Emperor positioned his capital at Nanjing and left the north as a military garrison. However, with the (controversial) appointment of his grandson, rather than his host of still- living sons (the imperial uncles) as crown prince, trouble soon followed. After Hongwu's death his ambitious son Zhu Di- the future Yongle Emperor immediately seized the imperial throne from his inexperienced nephew and the Nanjing imperial palace was set on fire. A result of Yongle wanting to distance himself and his court from Nanjing resulted in the1421 relocation of the Ming imperial capital northward to Zhu Di's military headquarters at Beiping 北平, which was then renamed Beijing 北京, meaning "Northern Capital." Because Beijing was located so close- almost right under the mountains of the steppe- transitional zone that bordered the Mongol domains, in small increments, new construction began again to protect the nearby capital.

Initially there was only some sprinklings of signal towers and garrisons along the wide border by the steppes. However after the Tumu Crisis of 1449, the true walls that we know took shape stretching from late 15th century to the end of the dynasty. Early on, most towers along the Great Wall had been solid, with a small hut on top for a sentry to take shelter from the elements and Mongol arrows. However by the later Ming dynasty in the late 1500s, with the policies of veteran Ming generals such as Qi Jiguang, the guard towers became the iconic stone brick mini- castles.

EARLY AMBITIONS-  LINE OF MILITARY COLONIES

At first, the Ming Great Walls began as a series of fall back strong points for the aggressive early Ming armies. These would act as staging points for mobile Ming raids into the north as well as rally points in case of a Ming fall back. However, with Ming setbacks over time, especially after the disaster at Tumu in 1449, eventually these defenses became more permanent. 

To understand early Ming's usage of the region it is best to understand the mindset of its early military- minded emperors. The Hongwu emperor, having driven off the Yuan from China envisioned a posture of proactive aggression that constantly raided northward into the steppes. To aid in this ambitious goal, he implemented the Weisuo 卫所 ("Guard Garrison") system. Weisuo was similar to the Fubing system of the Tang dynasty. The goal was to have soldiers become self-reliant farmers in order to sustain themselves while not fighting or training thus geometrically substantially lower the state's expenses on equipping them and maintaining them. 

This system was also similar to the Yuan dynasty military organization of a hereditary caste of soldiers and a hereditary nobility of commanders. Each garrison was allotted a tract of government-owned land known as tuntian (military colony), where the soldiers were required to work in shifts to provide for their own food. The northern border with the Yuan was thus entrenched with armed men, and accounted in average some 40% of Ming's military forces. However in 1373, as Ming forces encountered setbacks, Hongwu began to put more emphasis on defense and establish garrisons at 130 passes and other strategic points in the Beijing area. Despite the creation of these pass garrisons they were more like forts and had to work with the local garrisons to proactively police the region.

A later 16th century Ming cavalryman of the northern garrisons. Originally, the north was supposed to be manned by a combined use of men and strategic passes. However, by the middle of the Ming dynasty the Ming posture shifted to more defensive entrenchments and a lot of the initial Weisuo garrisons proved to be very ineffective. Desertion was a constant problem, and because they were stationed on barren lands they were unable to sustain themselves. Due to corruption- including from some of their own commanders who often used them as his own private serfs for menial duties, their morale and supplies of adequate equipment were very low. Added to the high rate of death in the thankless job of being stationed in this dangerous front, wall duty was an unenviable position. With the obsolescence of the Weisuo framework, by the mid 16th century the northern garrisons were reformed. To effectively contend with the mobile Mongols and Jurchens, Northern garrisons boasted many Ming cavalrymen. 

SCALING BACK OF GARRISONS

Like Hongwu, Yongle's policies were also very proactive against the Mongols. in the north east he actively campaigned and tried to play kingmaker in the region and actively meddled in the steppe affairs to create friendly vassals. After relocating his capital at Beijing. Construction of walls in stone and earth began under Yongle's reign in strategic passes, when signal towers and ditch systems were also established. However, also under Yongle's rule also saw the rearrangement of the dynasty's frontiers that led to all but one of the eight outer garrisons being abolished to cut expenses, thereby sacrificing a vital foothold in the steppe transitional zone. After Yongle's death in 1424, the Ming abandoned the last garrison at Kaiping (the former Yuan capital also known as Xanadu) in 1430. The removal of these garrisons would have unseen long-term consequences, as Ming foreign policy turned increasingly inward and defense became preferred over offence, especially after taking into consideration the cost to maintain the outlying garrisons. Despite this, for the time being, much of the next 2 decades saw the empire expanding and engage in foreign affairs. 

MIG MING- TURNING POINT 

TUMU CRISIS OF 1449 & AGGRESSIVE WALL BUILDING

THE FOUR OIRATS

In 1449, a catastrophic calamity befell the Ming due to the hubris of its young 22 year old emperor. By the middle of the 1400s, power on the steppes pivoted around the ambitious Oirat Mongols in the West. A loose alliance of the four major West Mongolian tribes, they soon began a rapid series of conquest into east Mongolia in hope of gaining the primacy among all the Mongol tribes under their banner. The Borjigid (original heirs of Genghis) Khans were displaced from power by the Four Oirats with Ming help and were reduced to become puppet khans under the Oirats. However, the Oirat- Ming alliance soon ended and the Yongle Emperor then launched a campaign against them. In 1414 Yongle's army clashed with an Oirat force near the Tula River and had many soldiers equipped with early firearms. These weapons, though primitive, frightened the Oirats so much with their guns they fled without their spare horses, only to be ambushed by concealed Ming guns. According to a Chinese observer the Oirats avoided battle several days later, "fearing that the guns had arrived again."

The Nine Garrisons 镇 of the Great Wall (Yellow)- and later additional Garrisons along the Ming Great Wall (white): The Tumu Crisis spurred on the aggressive building of the Ming Great Walls. After the Ming defeat, the court began to build a series of localized walls at the Ordos loop: the greatest stretch of steppe- transition land between the Mongol and Ming domains. Over the next half a century, the stretches of what we associate as the Ming Great Walls emerged on the Ming's northern back, soon to be followed by expansions in the west in Gansu, and also all around Beijing. Until ultimately, by the late Ming period nearly all of the gaps along the wall were obsessively blocked by the walls, including in some of the most unimaginable slopes and peaks.

In the 1440s, the Oirat unified all of Mongolia under the rule of the Oirat leader Esen Taishi, under the nominal rule of his puppet (Borjigid) Khan Toghtoa Bukha. In 1449 Esen Taishi and Toghtoa Bukha mobilized their cavalry along the Chinese border and invaded Ming at the foot of the Great Walls in what was called the Tumu Fortress 土木堡. The 10,000 strong Ming garrison soon sued for aid toward the nearby capital at Beijing.

THE CRUSHING AT TUMU

In response, the young 22 year old Zhengtong Emperor of Ming marshalled a large and hastily assembled army that numbered some 200,000- 500,000 levies to deal with the invaders. Under the ill-forwarded advice of his eunuch he chose to personally lead the army and assembled with a top rung of his elite guards, an assembly of veteran commanders, and a number of key officials. By comparison, the Oirat army was much smaller in comparison and largely composed of cavalry that numbered no more than 20,000~ 30,000. The result was a lopsided total annihilation of the Ming relief army. 

The Oirat army not only intercepted the Ming army but utterly destroyed it. Some 100,000-200,000 Ming soldiers died in the fighting and the Zhengtong Emperor was captured with nearly all of his imperial guards, commanders, and high officials killed. Ironically, despite this decisive victory for the Oirat Mongols~ the Mongols themselves exacted little concessions from the Chinese after their great victory, but did lay siege unsuccessfully to Beijing and looted its surburbs, giving up on the siege after five days. In a very anticlimactic manner, Esen Taishi treated the captured Ming emperor well and released him 1 year later back to his court. A few years later he tried to make a bid for absolute power and make himself a Khan (a taboo, for at the time the mantle of Khan in the Mongol heartlands was still reserved to the Borjigid heirs. And Esen's administration was soon toppled in a rebellion and he was murdered only 1 year after he declared himself Khan. With his death, the power of the Oirats greatly declined. 

TUMU'S AFTERMATH: RAPID WALL BUILDING

However, the destruction of the Ming army right outside of the imperial capital was so traumatic for the Ming that Tumu proved to be the turning point where Ming became a largely defensive power. Tumu thus helped to usher the beginning of massed rapid wall building along the Mongol- Ming border.

THE FIRST VITAL STRETCH: THE STEPPE LAP

Music: Northern Grass Lands

The deterioration of the Ming military position in the steppe transitional zone gave rise to nomadic raids into Ming territory, including the crucial Ordos region, on a level unprecedented since the dynasty's founding. With decreased Ming ability to raise more men to go on the offensive, eventually the Ming- like the Han and so many dynasties before them began to construct a series of permanent walls. Though this was initially contested at court, eventually the factions pivoted to support this position. First, the series of were were built directly along the main stretch of border between the Mongols and the back of northern China. 

Behind the Great Walls: Ming frontier fort with an army stationed within, the Ming Great Wall marked in the top portion of the image. Having an army already deployed in these locations with their equipment meant that the Ming is able to have rapid response abilities across the northern contact line with the steppes and not spend time shifting troops from other part of the empire. The walls of these Forts are high and they are designed to be able to independently hold off steppe armies on their own for a time before rescue come to relieve them. Many of them are equipped with tall arrow gatehouse towers, barbicans and drawbridges (see below.) 

This Ordos section of wall began in 1472, and Ming victories against the Mongols in 1473 gave them confidence to see the uses of these walls, both as an effective barrier and also a fall back point to regroup. This first major stretch was completed in 1474 along this vital stretch facing the steppes. It stretched from what was today's Ningxia near the Hexi Corridor along the long stretches of the steppes north of the Yellow River and stopped at the mountains of Shaanxi. 

 Jiayu Pass Fort after snowfall in northwest China's Gansu Province

A total of more than 2000 li (around 1,100 km or 680 mi) long. Along its length were 800 strong points, sentry posts, beacon-fire towers, and assorted defenses. 40,000 men were enlisted for this effort, which was completed in several months at a cost of over one million silver taels. This defense system proved its initial worth in 1482, when a large group of Mongol raiders were trapped within the double lines of fortifications and suffered a defeat by the Ming generals. This victory greatly convinced the Ming court of the value of these walls, and very quickly the Ming systemized defenses along this long lap with key sectors called Garrisons, and gave each section to a general to command. Over time, there would be 9 Garrisons 九镇 established for the defenses of the key sections. By the end of the dynasty a further 4 garrisons would be added. Unlike our current imaginations of the Great Wall being simply being reduced to its walls, the Ming's wall defenses were a living, thinking, nesting doll of forts.

A NESTING DOLL OF FORTS-  THE NINE GARRISONS

A "Zhen 镇" or "Township" city is a regional HQ that is in charge of a major section of the Great Wall. A great city in itself with multiple guarded gates. Each Garrison would be positioned at the far back of a vast series of guard towers, checkpoints, and forts and is tasked with commanding all of them at the top of the hierarchy. Whenever there would be a breach along the wall, the series of defenses in front of them would report back precisely where the break happened, and the commander at the Township would then send out reliefs to pin down the invaders.

Along the Ming Dynasty Great Wall are a series of over 1,100 military garrisons of various sizes. In conjunction, these posts are supplemented by several thousand of, beacon towers, and relay stations. At large, the Ming Great Wall defense system was sectioned by nine strategic garrisons,  called The Nine Garrisons, Jiubian (九边, jiubian), or Jiuzhen (九镇, jiuzhen)  installed during the reign of the Hongzhi Emperor between 1487 and 1505. 

The main gate of a Ming fort or Bao 堡. The entrance- usually facing south (forcing the northern armies that breached the walls to march around its manned walls) are built with massive multi-layered arrow guard towers. There, hundreds of defenders could shoot out from the arrow slots and the battlements. Barracks, armories, and military offices including the manor of the presiding commander's family are located behind the walls in the inner ward. 

These 9 Garrisons acted as regional headquarters along key sections of the Great Wall and was responsible for drilling and stationing Ming armies in the north and sending out reliefs and reinforcements to sections of the wall that reported a breach.

Ming guard tower overlooking its main gate. Multi- layered construction allows many tiers of archers to shoot down simultaneously from arrow slots and the battlements. They were imposing structures, and were comparable to modern multi storied apartment buildings. Frequently, these already imposing entrances would be further protected by an added barbican or moats and draw bridges.

A FRONTIER DEFENDED IN DEPTH

The Walls were alive: The Great Wall as a defense matrix. Each of the massive Ming garrison HQ was designed to be able to autonomously resist a large scale invasion by an enemy army. Each of the garrisons have five subdivided levels in descending order: Zhen 镇, Lu 路, Wei 卫, Suo 所, and Bao 堡. In English this translates to (Township > Road Towns > Guard Garrisons > Guard Department > Fort in descending order. They could be thought of as a clever defense-in-depth where the commanders at the far rear has the leisure to pin the bogged- down enemy with a sledgehammer of Ming reinforcements. 

MULTI- TIERED ADMINISTRATION

An example of a well preserved Ming dynasty Guard Garrison or Wei 卫 city (Tier 3 in the hierarchy,) which is larger than a Bao 堡 fort seen above. It's length and width are around 880 meters 米 and 3.6 kilometers in circumference, and covers an area of ​​0.78 square kilometers. The entire guard garrison is surrounded by a large moat which is allowed to flow inside the walls and create additional defensive "islands." Guard garrisons are tasked with overseeing and taking charge of smaller Suo 所 Guard Departments and and Bao 堡 Forts which are subordinated under their command.

In this arrangement, a safety net was built in. Some of the guard stations and check posts might fall near the breach, but no matter what, help is inevitably always on the way coming to them. Once the next line of defense reported their predicaments the relief army will be dispatched to reinforce them. And more these frontline of troops engage with the invaders, by necessity, MORE of the invaders must stay to deal with them and make sure these troops do not flank the invading army. Most of all, it nullified the 2 most critical advantages of a steppe army: speed and unpredictable approach. While maximizing the 2 critical advantages of the defender: strong entrenchments and weight of numbers. 

Whereby even if a powerful host from the steppe were able to breach through the Ming Great Wall itself, they would keep hitting into ever escalating series of tougher and bigger Ming guard posts as they plunge deeper and gets more and more pieces of itself bogged down as they kept running into stronger and stronger Ming lines. Meanwhile, on the defender's side, the largest Ming Garrison army, stationed at the HQ of Zhen 镇 or "Township" were able to accurately pinpoint the direction of the invader's breach and after letting the lines of entrenched garrisons tire them out, crash the full might of the regional Ming reinforcements upon them.

With the long stretch of borders along the grasslands of the Ordos lap adequately fortified, the Mongols began to avoid the Ming walls and garrisons. Instead, the Mongols tried to outmaneuver around the walls and the garrisons by racing to the gap in the west and the east. In the west, the Mongols attempted to sneak behind the walls near the Hexi Corridor in what is today's arid Gansu province. In the east, they tried to breach beyond the mountain gaps in what is today's Datong- Shanxi province (previously the gate of the Great Wall in many previous dynasties.) These regional flanking maneuvers made the Ming commit to a total fortification of its northern frontiers, expanding in both eastern and western directions. 

CONTINUAL ENTRENCHMENT (1500s) 

The eastern gap proved to be exceptionally dangerous as it left the capital of Beijing open to rapid moving steppe raiders. In time, very concentrated and deadly bands of dedicated raiders. By the 1540s and the establishment of the 9 Garrisons, Ming began to aggressively close off most of the key gaps until later in the century, fully closing almost all of northern China along an obsessive compulsively closed set of walls.

DEFENSIVE MATRIX

An Attacker's Nightmare: In the century after the wall's rapid construction, by the middle of the 1500s, many of Ming's extended great wall "border barriers" (边墙; bianqiang) garrisons were made into its own ecosystem of defensive matrixes. Here, several of the major forts along the northern frontiers are depicted with their own satellite defenses of reinforcement garrisons and signal towers. And viewer could see the nomadic yurts in the upper rim of the image designating nomadic army's positions. 

It should be noted, though the various Mongol tribes frequently battled with the Ming defenders, throughout the entirety of the Ming, the Ming employed Mongolian soldiers, including imperial guards and rebellion quelling troops.

Since Tumu, much of the wide gap around this area have been left in a state of disrepair (owing to the mountainous terrain.) However from 1544 to 1549, an aggressively ambitious costruction project began along the north easter gap of these walls. The project was led by Weng Wanda (翁万达; 1498–1552), Supreme Commander responsible for the Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi areas. 

Troops were re-deployed along the outer line, new walls and beacon towers were constructed, and fortifications were restored and extended along both lines. Firearms and artillery were first mounted on the walls and towers around this time, for both defense and signaling purposes. Weng Wanda goes as far as to claim that only with firearms could one hope to succeed against the fast moving Mongols, and purchased special guns for both the Great Wall defenses and offensive troops who fought in the steppes.

Breech-loading swivel guns were brought to China after Ming defeated the Portuguese in the 16th century. At the Battle of Xicaowan in 1522, after defeating the Portuguese in battle, the Chinese captured Portuguese breech-loading swivel guns and then reverse engineered them, calling them "Folangji" or "Fo-lang-chi" (佛郎机炮 – Frankish) guns. Ming breech- loading cannon from 1546 could be seen here. The Ming greatly prioritized rapid firing cannons and these guns had mug-shaped chambers that allowed a mug of pre-loaded projectiles to fire then immediately be taken out and replaced with another loaded chamber. The mugs of these cannons are called Zipao 子炮 "Son Cannon" (sub cannon) and the barrel is called Mupao 母炮 "Mother Cannon." By the 1620s Ming cannons were some of the most valued assets against besiegers on the Liaodong front.

THE SEASAW STRUGGLE 

With the deep entrenchment of the central Ordos lap and the recently full construction of the eastern lap from Shanxi to north of Beijing, eventually the Mongols tried many times to slip from the west from the western side of the Yellow River in Gansu. After repelling these raids, Gansu was significantly fortified and a 2nd major line was constructed in Gansu with the western most Ming fort receiving extensive fortifications beginning in 1539. Though the eastern portion of the wall was newly constructed, the Tümed Mongols under the energetic Altan Khan exploited seemingly impassable mountainous gaps, snuck through and raided deeply behind the walls in 1548, this vulnerability prompted Weng Wanda and the Ming to further entrench the area and add a 2nd wall behind the central lap north of Beijing. These 2 layers eventually created an envelop barbican. In 1550, having been rebuffed of his trade offer to the Ming, Altan Khan again smashed his forces among this same stretch of Ming walls. However, despite several attempts, he could not take Xuanfu due to Weng Wanda's double fortified line.

These momentary failures made Altan Khan shift his attacks further east, and at a lightly defended patch due northeast of Beijing. Altan Khan passed through and raided the suburbs of Beijing, killing some 60 thousand locals and enslaving 40 thousand more as captives. Correspondingly, the Ming then heavily shifted their defenses to directly north of Beijing. The earlier dry- stone walls were replaced with much heavier stone and mortar sets of taller towers and walls. When the Mongols repeated with another massive raid of 1554, the Ming walls, and the stiffened Ming resistance broke the invading army. 

REFORM: A DRAGON OF STONE 

The next phase of the Great Wall. A cursory glance at the Ming Great Wall will notice that the wall has essentially 3 segments. The central line between arid Gansu along the steppe borderlands that touched the foot of the tall mountains at Shanxi represented the 1st and central lap of the wall. After the completion of this section, the Ming then constructed the western and eastern lap of the walls to link up the whole of northern Chinese frontiers into 1 cohesive defense to prevent Mongol flanking attacks. With the construction of these new sections, 4 additional Garrisons were added. At its height, the eastern portion of the Great Wall totaled about 850 kilometers (530 miles) of wall, with some sections being doubled-up with two lines of wall, some tripled or even quadrupled.

In 1567 Qi Jiguang and Tan Lun, successful southern generals who fended off the coastal pirates, were reassigned to increase the defenses of the capital region. They submitted an ambitious proposal to build 3,000 brick towers along the Great Wall. The number of towers was later scaled back to 1200. The project started in 1569 and lasted two years, marked the first large-scale use of hollow watchtowers on the Wall. Up until this point, most previous towers along the Great Wall had been solid, with a small hut on top for a sentry to take shelter from the elemements. In contrast, the Ji–Chang towers built from 1569 onwards were hollow brick mini castles, allowing soldiers interior space to live, store food and water, stockpile weapons, and take shelter from arrows. It was at this time, that the "Ming Great Wall" that we know fully came to existence. 

 

Guard Tower of the late 1500s: A Diluo 敌楼 (lit. "Enemy Tower") ① The turret, the roofed structure on the top floor of the guard tower, it provided an indoor space for the soldiers to take shelter from the wind and rain. ② Arrow windows, guard archers are able to look out and fire out from these windows. ③ Brick eaves. ④ Roof spit. ⑤ Gate, usually just narrow enough for a soldier to enter. ⑥ Baseworks- strengthened with a proto- form of concrete called 三合土 sanhetu: a composite of earth, sand, and lime. ⑦ Secret doors, secret doors are set up in some hidden places outside the side wall, it will allow defending soldiers to suddenly appear outside the wall and flank/ kill the enemy. At the bottom of many such guard houses and the crenulations facing the enemy would also be many diagonal murder holes which allowed small stones and boulders to roll out and crash on the enemies below.

Highly resistant to cannons. Since ancient times, traditional Chinese construction of walls included stacking layers upon layers of rammed earth to form a compact and shock-absorbent core within a wall. Then, the stone masonry are layered on top of it. During the mid 1500s, the new series of the walls had sloped pyramidal angles and the bottom are built with proto- concrete called Sanhetu. It should be noted that in Chinese history, cannons were not often used against battlements and walls and it is because unlike in Europe, where walls are usually constructed of stone interspersed with gravel or rubble filling and bonded by limestone mortar, and are largely constructed above from the earth. Chinese walls- because of their rammed earth center, are essentially PART of the earth itself and part of the topography. Not only are the outside concrete and sloped, the inside are dense as sandbags. There were several sources from both British soldiers during the Opium Wars and WW2 Japanese soldiers detailing the frustration of (not) doing damage to Ming walls.

And it is also with this hindsight in mind that we see why previously, in the defense schemes of the Ning Garrisons, it was expected that the contact line of the wall was expected to be breached through. With trade relations established between Ming and Altan Khan, he was placated, and for a time the Ming and the Mongols had peace. However, just as the Roman's ancient adage stated:" "If you want peace, prepare for war" The Ming continued their improvements along the whole of the Great Wall. 

Photo of the Great Walls in the twilight of the Qing dynasty and cusp of the modern world. After one of the last Mongol raids in 1576 just north of Beijing, the vast majority of the previous walls were torn down and replaced with a much sturdier new wall. The new ones were built with stone bricks and sanhetu (三合土), an early sort of concrete made of lime, clay tiles, and sand. The towers were mini- castles, and the dynasty obsessively closed every gap they found along the frontier. Even half a millennia after their construction, the best preserved stretches of the wall still testifies to their dimensions.

On 6 July 1576, a minor Mongol raid broke through a small gap in the Wall and resulted in the death of several high ranking border officials in the vicinity of Simatai, just north of Beijing. After this incident  starting in 1577, the Ming became committed to closing all gaps along the frontier around Beijing whilst strengthening the walls. Areas of difficult terrain once considered impassable were also walled off, leading to the well-known vistas of a stone-faced Great Wall snaking over dramatic landscapes that tourists still see today. Except for a lull in the 1590s due to resources being diverted to deal with the Japanese invasions of Korea in the Imjin War, wall construction continued until the demise of the Ming dynasty in 1644.

THE END OF THE MING WALLS

The end of the Ming walls corresponded to the end of the dynasty itself. In the last days of the Ming dynasty the empire was struck by calamity after calamity, a series of floods and famines, wrecked havoc across the land and due to the court's inability to ameliorate these crises, massive rebellions erupted across the empire. This was compounded by external threats as well. To the northeast of the dynasty, Nurhaci, and powerful Jurchen (Manchu, still called Jurchens throughout his career and his state called the Later Jin dynasty, "Manchu" was the name his son christened his people as, but for brevity, we shall refer to them now as Manchus) noble united all of the tribes of Manchuria and declared war on the Ming. When the Ming responded to his invasions the massive Ming army which numbered over 130,000 soldiers was resoundingly defeated in 1619. Though Nurhaci himself would eventually be fatally wounded by the besieged Ming defenders commanded by the dogged Ming commander Yuan Chonghuan, his progeny continued his ambitious conquest.  

The cunning son of Nurhaci, Hong Taiji eventually masterminded the fall of the Ming commander and his father's killer. Hong let fake news slip back into the Ming lines that Yuan was actually working with the Manchus. To prove this fact, in 1629, right when rifts exploded between the 2 key Ming commanders in the northeast, Yuan Chonghuan and another unorthodox but nonetheless talented commander Ma Wenlong, which ended with Yuan's execution of Ma- Hong Taiji's army suddenly through Mongol territories breached a section of the walls with a massive army which appeared right outside of Beijing's walls. Turns out, Hong had spent 1629 shifting his army westward into the Mongol border with Ming, then having bribed the local Ming commander slipped through with a massive army. Though the loyal Yuan- upon hearing of the disaster immediately raced back to the threatened capital with crack troops and repelled the Manchu army out of Beijing's walls, his reputation was ruined. The fact he had just executed his co- commander and he had seemingly "allowed" a Manchu army to slip through his defenses caused the outraged Ming emperor to cruelly execute him as a traitor in 1630. Thus, despite winning, the Ming cut off its own fighting arm.

Things did not fair better for the Ming after Yuan's execution. With the wildfire of rebellion raging around the Ming countryside, eventually, a charismatic rebel named Li Zicheng rose up in 1633, self-titled "Dashing Prince" (闯王, Chuǎng Wáng) he was but one of the many rebels against the Ming. However, his movement was allowed to snowball because the Manchus repeatedly distracted the Ming by raiding the Great Walls in 1629, 1634, 1638, and 1642. 

In the end, the killing blow did not came from outside of the walls but within. In the first months of 1644, Li Zicheng, having practically took control of his home province Shaanxi and declared himself the founder of a new dynasty called Shun, then marched eastward against the Ming capital in Beijing. His invasion route brought the Shun army along the Great Wall to neutralize its heavily fortified garrisons. Sensing the end of the dynasty is near and that heaven's favor had long fled the dynasty, series of garrisons along the wall quickly surrendered to Li's forces and joined the popular rebel army like a series of dominos. By spring of 1644, much of central China and nearly the entire lap of the inside of the Great Wall fell under Li's control with the majority of the Garrisons falling to Li without much resistance until there's just Beijing remaining before him. With all options exhausted, the last Ming's Chongzhen Emperor hanged himself as the Shun army entered Beijing on April 25, 1644.

Upon the loss of the Ming capital, the largest remaining Ming fighting force in North China at the time of Beijing's fall was Wu Sangui's 40,000-man frontier force at Shanhai Pass, the eastern end of the main Great Wall. He and his men were now caught between the rebels within the Great Wall and the Manchus without. After some deliberation, Wu Sangui decided to resist the new Shun regime, having heard that Li had ordered Wu's family executed. Wu Sangui wrote to the Manchus for help, if they assisted him in defeating the rebels. The Manchu prince-regent Dorgon (Hung Taiji had died in 1643) determined that this was the opportunity to claim the Mandate of Heaven for the Qing. Dorgon then demanded Wu's total submission to the Qing and opening up the Great Wall gates.

On May 27, as the Shun army approached the Shanhai Pass from the south, Wu Sangui opened the gates to let the Qing army through the pass from the north. The sudden appearance of the Manchu bannermen decisively routed the Shun forces. Having thus entered through the Great Wall, the Manchus seized Beijing on June 5. They eventually defeated both the rebel-founded Shun dynasty and the remaining Ming resistance, establishing Qing rule over all of China.

FROM QING TO MODERN CHINA

With the completion of the conquest of the whole of China the context of the Great Walls changed again. The Qing dynasty was similar to the Mongol-led Yuan in that both dynasties eventually united the people from beyond the steppe (in the case of the Manchus, the forests of north east China) and also that of the settled Han populace from within the Great Walls. After the consolidation of these peoples under one realm- and especially with the border of the Qing empire extended to far further margins, the walls fell into a state of protracted neglect. After all, now, within the borders of the realm there would be imperial peace, thus the guards that would have normally been pinned to these garrisons were rotated to Qing's other military projects. Over time, the conceptualization of these walls changed as well. Where as once these walls were seen as a steadfast bulwark of resistance (and a miserable tortuous existence for the soldiers) during the Qing these walls were seen as a barrier that separated the military caste of nomadic people from the Han peasantry and allow their traditional cultures to flourish in isolation.

Flag of the Eight Nations Alliance commemorating their victory in China.

During the 18th century, and definitely more during the 19th centuries, the Great Wall took on a great level of importance in the western imagination. After the humiliations of the Qing at the hands of the western empires, and the on rush of Westerners into Qing China, the walls became known across the world and became synonymous with China in the public imagination. 

Music: 《只此青绿》“Only This Lush Green” 

After the fall of the Qing dynasty, in 1933, Manchuria and northeastern China was overrun by Japanese expansion, the entrance of the Great Wall to Beijing for a time briefly again became the sight of a very anachronistic battle. There for several months poorly equipped Chinese soldiers (some equipped only with Dadaos at the time) were able to held off the much more technologically superior Japanese invaders at the foot of the Great Walls. One of the ways the defenders ferried troops from one stretch of the battlefield to another was with the rampart of these walls. There, the new boundary was set between the 2 country's forces for 4 years until the hellish chaos of the 2nd Sino- Japanese War broke out.

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