The Great Wall of China: Did the Benefits Outweigh the Costs?
For thousands years, the Mongols have been a big threat to the Chinese civilization. The Great Wall of China took about 2000 years to build and finish. It has been measured to be over 5,488 miles long. Due to the many threats and enemies of Chinese, the wall was built. In my opinion, the benefits of building the wall do outweigh the costs for many reasons surrounding the topic. The first benefit from building the wall was how it created jobs. More than a million chinese workers were put to work on the wall. So, all of the unemployed people in China now had a job where they could make money. This also gave jobs to other people because some of the people that went to work on the wall now have no one in their old job position. This means that possibly children or women took these places and everyone had a job. This is very beneficial to the people of China.
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This gave a sense of security to incoming traders from across the land. They felt safe to go beyond these walls and to trade inside. It also helped to increase the economy of China because of the increase of productivity and trade. The main purpose of the road was to protect trade on the silk road. This was the main location of where trade took place in China. The emperor even extended the wall to protect it far enough on the silk road. A China highlights website states that “In the Han Dynasty, the emperor's extended the Great Wall far into western’s China to protect the Silk Road trade” (Pkl). This proves how important it was for China to have these walls even it was at such a heavy
The Great Wall of China was crucial to the ancient Chinese merchants, because it protected the Silk Road. According to document D, “Wu Di assigned thousands of soldiers to Wall outposts and watchtowers to protect the merchants and caravans traveling along the trade routes,”( Document D). Since thousands of soldiers were stationed along the wall, attacking and robbing the merchants and traders would be difficult. Therefore, the wall insured that the merchants would be able to sell their products safely. Furthermore, the map on document A which illustrates trading routes and trading centers in relation to the wall proves that most merchants only traveled as far as the Dunhuang trading center, (Document A). This is because at the time the location of the Dunhuang trading center was about where the Great Wall ended. Therefore,
Building the Great Wall was not worth the cost. The Great Wall of China is a long series of walls on China’s border that was built to protect them from getting attacked. The Great Wall was built to keep out the Xiongnu and other groups that attacked them. The Xiongnu was the main group that attacked China. People want the Great Wall built because it protects the Chinese states and empires. I believe they are wrong because it cost a lot of money and labor, it didn't work, and there was a ton of harsh working.
These walls were enormous projects which provided protection and glorified china. (Background Essay). The construction of the Great Wall of China was counterproductive due to innumerable casualties, paying tribute to the Xiongnu in valuable silk on top of having the wall, and causing poor, peasant families to get up
For this reason, a wall was built, but in this process there were many major benefits with a few costs that came with them. Ultimately, the benefits outweigh the costs by expanding trade routes, protection and it being very cheap and fast. First of all, a benefit is that the Great Wall of China expanded trade routes. It helped with spreading trade when emperor Wu Di expanded the wall to the west and helped with trade in that area. Document D states, “He extended the Wall three hundred miles
The Great Wall was built by The Qin and the Han Dynasty. They built The Great Wall to keep out and protect China from the Mongols. The benefits of building The Great Wall of China did not outweigh the costs. In Document B, it showed that tribute was being paid by The Han. The Han was one of the the dynasties who first built The Great Wall. This shows that the benefits did not outweigh the costs because The Han still had tribute to pay to the Xiongnu Mongols and The Han dynasty still had to build and protect The Wall from the Mongols. In Document C, the text indicated that The Qin and The Han dynasties were peasants, and worked on The Great Wall while they got feed a little bit of food and suffered. The Qin and The Han were not treated well
The Great Wall of Ancient China: Did the Benefits Outweigh the Cost? The benefits of building a wall aren't outweighing the costs, According to Document C, "The Human Cost of the Great Wall", it states that Soldiers were forced to leave their families and villages for many years. This is important because it tells one of the struggles the soldiers had to go through.
Did you know that The Great Wall of China is 5,488 miles long? The Great Wall of China was built 221-206 CE. The wall was 33 feet tall.. Did the benefits outweigh the costs? Outweigh means be greater or more significant than.
The benefits did not outweigh the costs because many people died in the making of the Great Wall of China and the walls meant many sacrifices for the Chinese people. It was not fair for the Chinese people to have to sacrifice something to protect the Qin and Han. It said on the background essay that the recipe for building the dirt wall was simple but there were many deaths. As unbelievable as it sounds around 400,000 people died in the making of this wall and it is known as the longest cemetery on earth. It would took around 18 months to walk the entire wall just
To begin with, the wall protected the people of China. The wall was comprised thousands of watchtowers and they had pulley systems for raising fire signals, according to the map on Document A. Chao Cou (document b), an advisor to multiple Han emperors, was highly respected for his ideas about military defense and border security, also had recommended building the wall to protect the Chinese people from a threat.
Usually walls are put into places to avoid people to cross borders and keep peace but they destroy peace. Recently one could have heard in the News that Trump wants the Mexicans to pay for a wall between Mexico and the United States. This Wall should make it impossible for people to cross the border unofficially. As one could know from history classes, we had a wall in Germany for many years which was built by the winner countries of the second world war for a similar reason. Before the Wall, many people from East Germany tried to escape to West Germany where they had obviously better living conditions. It divided Germany in East and West Germany. Additionally, there was a part of Berlin, what was in the East German part, isolated from a huge wall that belonged to West Germany. This wall made it hard for the citizens of East Germany to visit West Germany. The Government of East Germany had other principles than the government of West Germany and it was not in the interest of the East German government to show their citizens how good their life could be in West Germany. After the falling of the Wall, it was possible for everyone to travel in Germany whenever they want without standing in line at the borders. But there was a big gap in wealth between East and West Germany. Even today the loans in West Germany are lower and the federal states have less money than the ones in West Germany. But in Berlin, one can visit ruins of the Berlin Wall which are colored and painted. As one could know from visiting Berlin, there is only a small part of the Wall left but at other parts, one could find the position of the wall with marked flagging on the ground. Additionally, one could buy a piece of the wall as a souvenir. Standing in front of the ruins of the Berlin wall inspires this realization: Peace is about breaking barriers not building them.
The first reason why the Great Wall was not worth the cost was because the wall was not very effective . The chin and Han dynasty's built the Great Wall to keep out invaders. People would walk around the spots where there wanot a wall built yet or a spot where guards were not on duty. ( Doc B ) The purpose was so that not as many guards would have to be on duty, but just as many guards were then as there were when the wall was not yet built. There were not guards protecting all spots of the wall, leaving it a blank opening for other enemies to enter. The wall was not just
According to a list compiled from various sources, “Heavy fighting against the Xiongnu... [Mongols occurred] during much of [the] 2nd century BCE” (Doc. E). From the source, it is clear that if a project does not perform its set purpose that so many people suffered to try to complete it, then it is not worth it. The Great Wall was built originally to keep out Mongols, and it could not do even that. Instead it forced people to suffer under horrible conditions while a useless 4,000-mile-long ornament was being built.
Altogether the wall was weak and easy to get through and was not needed to protect china from the Xiongnu. All of these facts add up to one conclusion, The great wall of china was not needed for china to be
One of the wonders of the world today is the Great Wall of China which was inspired by none other than the Qin Dynasty. Other dynasties put in dedication to having the Great Wall constructed but the Qin Dynasty played a significant role in coming up with the idea for it. The Great Wall of China would benefit China greatly because it would serve as defense against nomadic tribes. Apart from being protected by nomadic tribes, the Great Wall would be a benefit for China’s forever. Other countries
The Great Wall of China stretches about 5,500 miles long crossing deserts, mountains, grasslands, and plateaus. It took more than 2,000 years to build this incredible manmade structure. Many people died to build this wall. It displays the changes between the agricultural and nomadic civilizations. It proves that the superb structure was very important to military defense. It became a national symbol of the Chinese as a security for their country and its people. The Great Wall of China must be preserved at all cost because it is a historical symbol that made it possible for China and other nations across the world to prosper (UNESCO World Heritage Centre: The Great Wall).