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The Great Wall stretches
for 4,160 miles across North China. It is the only man-made
structure that can be seen from the moon with the naked eye.
Its construction started as far back as the Spring and
Autumn period (770-476 B.c.) and the Warring States period
(475-221 B.C.). Rival feudal kingdoms built walls around
their territories to keep out invading nomadic tribes from
the north. When Qin Shihuang unified China, he started to
link up and extend these walls. Prisoners of war, convicts,
soldiers, civilians and farmers provided the labor. Millions
died for this cause and many Chinese stories speak of parted
lovers and men dying of starvation and disease. Their bodies
were buried in the foundations of the wall or used to make
up its thickness. The Great Wall crosses loess plateaus,
mountains, deserts, rivers and valleys, passing through five
provinces and two autonomous regions. It is about 20 feet
wide and 26 feet high. Parts of the wall are so broad that
10 soldiers can walk abreast. Materials used were whatever
could be found near by-clay, stone, willow branches, reeds
and sand. Parts of this wall can still be seen in remote
parts of China. What most visitors see of the Wall now was
restored in the Ming dynasty, when stone slabs replaced clay
bricks. It took 100 years to rebuild and it is said that the
amount of material used in the present wall alone is enough
to circle the world at the equator five times.
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