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It's one of the world's greatest engineering wonders the great wall of China
They say it can even be seen from space
It's a military masterpiece that has witnessed hundreds of battles yet it still holds many mysteries
British writer and Historian William Lindsay has lived in China for 20 years exploring the great [wall] has become his lifetime obsession
Lindsay has spent thousands of days on has walked thousands of kilometers [and]
Is the great [war] really how many years did it take to build?
And why was it built to talk crap on [salary] or Roll to your quarters?
It's only a short trip from beijing to one of China's most popular attractions
Millions of tourists come here every year to see the stone dragon the great wall of China
Most of the people walking on the great war here today will go home and say I've been to the great wall of China
But the great [wall] is not a place it ranges across the sub-continental expanse of [North] China
And along its course
many of the locations seldom visited
And some virtually unknown
in 1987 [busy] fulfilled his childhood dream
He walked on the Chinese war two thousand seven hundred kilometers
Only a few pictures remain from this adventure because his films were repeatedly confiscated foreigners were barred from many parts of China
Those times have long changed
China has opened up to the world and an adventure has turned into a scholar
[Lindsay] now seeks out traces of the [great] [wall] of [China] right across the country
23 years after his first trip he sets off again
during the same
exploring 23 years later is really a testament to the
immensity of
What we call the [great] [wall] of [China]
[will] be [our] [hearts] in the last two-and-a-half decades. I explored the warm or 1700 days
[I've] discovered. It's the world's most famous building, but the least-known there's always something new to discover
there is
there is no single great warm there are lots of words in Northern China built by different dynasties for more than
2,000 years
William Lindsey is taking us to one of the most remote places
2300 Kilometer Drive, West of Beijing to the City of doing one
into the Gobi desert
[clearly] that 75 miles Northwest of don't want
And it's a nice sunny day in the gobi doesn't perfect conditions for exploring the great wall
In the shimmering heat the dark Ribbon along the Horizon at first looks like a mirage, but these really are the remains of a war
literally in the middle of nowhere
Well one of the most precious parts of the [great] [wall] of [China]. This is the hand war hell 2100 years ago
And [I'm] not the first traffic to come here. This is the silk Road
So merchants would come from the deserts in Central, Asia
entering [China] at this point and then
Proceed East to the Heartland of [China]
So it's going to take a closer look
Built over 2,000 years ago this wall looks completely different to the familiar Great [warley] efficient. It's not built of stone
But this construction material has kept its strong for Millennia read and gravel
But who [is] this war meant to protect so far from Civilization?
the Han Dynasty
Rulers wanted to open Their empire to trade with the West
So they secured control of the eastern end of what became known as the silk Road?
the Han Chinese
occupied the vital [if] [she] colony
That runs along the road between them more than steps and the [himalayan] hotels
It's a real border not just between peoples, but between lifestyle
the Nomads of the Step vignettes traditional round tent
They live entirely from their livestock [wandering] over the step they pitch there. Yes, wherever they find grazing land for their herds
after enduring long hard winters in the steps these nomadic warriors ransacked China's Northern provinces
Year after year they killed [road] stealing food and metals everything their lifestyle prevents the producing
The Chinese regarded their empire as the cradle of civilization
According to their confusion philosophy it was the cultural center of the world
Appeasing the Barbarians along the water by trading is out of the question
[all] was too expensive so the harm emperor decided to build a wall
How many people were involved in the construction of the harm or no one knows for sure?
Reliable sources quote the calculations presented to the emperor
If one soldier can build three [places] of war in one month than 300 and build three [leap] about one-and-a-Half kilometres
That means a thousand Li were about [500] [30] kilometers would take a hundred thousand men one month to complete
So far so good
and so many
Most of the soldiers were stationed at the towers the towers had a dual use that made the most effective defense
[the] Beacon town behind me was not only the perfect vantage
Point [four] guards on this frontier to watch for the enemy coming from the north [it] was a signaling station
So when the animal was cited this beacon would have been ignited
This is how it worked as soon as a guard spotted nomadic warriors
He transmitted smoke signals by Daylight, or Beacon fires at night
The alarm was communicated along the wall to [Garrison's] located in the Hinterland
How long is the ham war only recently have [Chinese] experts started to find?
Join the local archaeological survey ting
taking part in a national survey
to locate dynasty
A team is heading out into the [gobi] desert. They need a whole summer just to measure this section
At noon the temperature can decline to the 40 degrees celsius?
Today the team is exploring a fortification that lies in the hinterland of the [hardwar]
This could have been a Garrison for support Troops
Today the remains are hardly visible
Right here, and [that's] all you guys hear this tower has a name
it's called half Tower obviously because half the tower is missing the team here today to locate the
Fortifications with GPS and wondering how they're going to measure the height because it's so Crumbly, [Alaska]
needs a [Ma]
Their dog are high challenge you [were] you another Paula [only] all [touchy] you are so that?
You can get that [other] [players] are
Only used for year [and] [will] not cold weather are
So they don't have to have to climb up the tower to measure it. They have a device here
[right] here
Hey the laser rangefinder Connects the data
It will be a Few years before the results of the survey are
summarized and a figure can be given for the length of the harm war
The challenge opens a lot of your body are [organized] [or] so from here to the Jade gates is about
45 50 kilometers
And there are three sections of war that are quite visible
And in between there's virtually nothing although the archaeologists may find traces
Mr.. Young is very little reluctant to give a guesstimate of how many kilometers of hand wall standing
[GPS], team Leader, Mr.
[jung] has given William
directions to a place in the desert where the wall has a unique shape it's a 16 kilometres hike so william is buying provisions for
The trip but don't [want] market
well
Roll Mate would be very good chance in the desert
[yeah]
A lot of what he sees doesn't seem too useful for a desert trick, but he finally finds what he needs
successful shopping trip for 199 also put supply of High-energy foods
Delicious.
Next morning, and find the clock [Lindsay] sets off for the hike
also select
It's 14.4 K so it's about
99 miles or more he's not walking alone in the desert it would be too dangerous
With him is his Chinese friend
El cajon [sun] coming [up] that their GPS says they will reach the unique strip of wall in five hours
[yeah]
It's cool. No, but the Sparse vegetation is [tinder-dry] there hasn't been any rainfall here for months
[then] walking in the featureless landscape can see a solitary tree over
in 87
[I] just had a big [mouth] for the whole country
Basically my journey along the wall from the desert to the sea
Was like that
1700 miles not the ideal [Map] for [Hiking] across desert Grassland
It's nearly noon and the sun is burning, but finally they arrived at the place. They've been looking for there it is
right that
[lasted] [A]
great
Act brand for William it's already worth the trip even the five hours back amazing. Hey
Look at that fantastic
Of all the faces that the great wall of China house, this is the rarest of [them] [off]
This wall is made of wood
He has six layers of branches there
and
And in between minimal use of the gravel, so I'm really glad I've come here today well worth the 10 mile track
Leaving the doing one region and making his way D stand on the ancient silk Road Williams aiming for a town called [John] [Glenn]
The Historic site is five kilometers out of town
And the best view is from the sky
a giant castle guarding the [wall] built in 1539 by judging emperor of the Ming Dynasty
The main Emperor's contempt for the Nomads reached protest proportions with the demand that the character [g]
Standing for Barbarians should be written as small as possible
After the han Dynasty other dynasties rose and fell many of them built walls, but none of any significant length
Me emperor [genius] [ended] the Dragon throne in 1521
He renewed the [hun] tradition established in ancient times
Constructing a long wall of the Northern border with its westernmost point at the jog one pass
[Jaguar] translates as a barrier to the Pleasant Valley and Pleasant Valley means China
This gigantic fault is built in the foothills of the himalayas
In the courtyard the mighty walls form a kind of maze to stop invaders in their tracks
And there's a wonderful legend about its construction
To Avoid wastage of materials prior to construction of the fortress the architect was asked to calculate exactly how many bricks
required be computed
[999999] the 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, but the architect was too smart
He said no I factored that into the equation
That 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 good fortune
600 Years later the Leftover Brick still remains
[yeah]
[yeah]
Next to the fort is the starting point of the wall constructed by the [way]
This wall has nothing in common with the brick and stone
[it's] made of rammed the [loads] more than 400 years old and still in good shape and [its] still wide enough to walk
[yeah]
On his walks along the Walls [William] [Lindsay] soon Learned. He could count on receiving warm hospitality from the farmers among the wedding
Before coming to China my family and friends were very concerned in
1987 going to [China] the big