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

Communist country on the other side of the world all the people going to be friendly

And I didn't have a support crew with me on [dependent] on Farmers. [I] discovered very early on the farmers were my

great

allies even with very little [Chinese]

But a lot of sign language and smiling [I] got what I needed food water shelter without them

I couldn't have been successful Asean come on

I seea even if many is unkind understand why a foreigner should be so interested in the wall

Then this is no monument, but simply a part of the village and one with a perfectly practical use

I was asking my er the these holes in the wall. I thought they were nasty but in fact

Previously the farms were right up against the wall, so [they're] wooden

Beams going into the wall, but the great wall experts the cultural heritage protection authorities

requested the Farmers to

Destroy those buildings and move back in [order] in order to protect the national heritage if you want to know how many

Dynasty [Mason's] constructed their [wall] more than 400 years ago [what] you have to do is keep your eyes open

even today

Chinese Farmers build walls of the same way their ancestors did they tempt the earth in a wooden case [if]

temp put layer on layer

They even sing the traditional folk songs passed down from their forefathers

A house is not complete without a wall around it

[says] an old Chinese proverb

My friend Tran is building this wall to and closed his compound, so this is the final piece of work

and

This is embedded in Chinese

Architectural tradition

whether it's a compound

For a village or a kingdom it must be enclosed

completely safe

They built up most of the men wore just like this is a [rounder] [swore]

Imagine how many billion [birds] it took?

[Georgia] guns on each [Unger] Tower 10 sure

Busy Long-ago

Oh, I hated [husband] the singing is an important part of the work. It keeps all the rappers

And staff the beat

So another [Lauren] step going along the wall [get] into a rhythm

and

the actual content

or

I've been trying to 23 here is where this guy has [a] really [heavy] [accent]

[it's] a bit difficult, but that it's definitely a kind of wrap

[it] changes the words and occasionally hear them chuckle

So I think [he] gets a little dig in about those that are kind of falling behind in

Distance or maybe he can tell by the [third's] if someone is answered

This group of about twenty farmers mostly women took a day to erect about 27 meters of war

We don't know if their ancestors could have worked better or faster

But we do know they would have used the same materials and tools

except [for] the tractors carrying the clay

and the cell phones [by] [Dover]

[Scylla], Ola

[yeah]

On his Journey along the Walls of China

Williamses looking eastwards out of the [He-she] corridor and turning North along the great wall of the ming Dynasty

into the [great] [gloop] of the [Yellow] [River] the cradle of China's civilization

This has always been the Gateway for the Nomads to Enter China

Here the wind and weather have done their worst the wall and its towers can still be made out on the cracks of the river

The Garrison Forts with the outpost of this defensive outer warm today. They use is strictly [non-military]

[yeah]

[yeah]

[ok]

[I] love staying in the countryside

This building. It's made of thick blocks of limestone and on the roof this stuff when you come here winter

[no] good method for keeping you warm see this

[it's] not that it's called the Camp [Kng]

And they put the fuel and here light it can do the cooking here