[narrator] It's one of the world's
greatest engineering wonders. The Great Wall of China. They say it even can 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 Lindesay has lived in China for 20 years. Exploring the Great Wall
has become his lifetime obsession. Lindesay has spent
thousands of days on the wall, has walked
thousands of kilometers along it. How long is the Great Wall, really? How many years did it take to build,
and why was it built at all? [speaking Chinese] [speaking Chinese] [narrator] 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. [Lindesay] Most of the people
walking on the Great Wall here today will go home and say,
"I've been to the Great Wall of China." [group cheers in Chinese] But the Great Wall is not a place. It ranges across
the subcontinental expanse of north China, and along its course
many of the locations are seldom visited, and some are virtually unknown. [narrator] In 1987, Lindesay fulfilled
his childhood dream. He walked on the Chinese wall. 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 adventurer
has turned into a scholar. Lindesay now seeks out
traces of the Great Wall of China, right across the country. Twenty-three years after his first trip,
he sets off again. Doing the same exploring 23 years later is really testament to the immensity of what we call the Great Wall of China. [Lindesay speaking Chinese] [Lindesay]
In the last two and a half decades, I explored the wall more. One thousand seven hundred days. I've discovered
it's the world's most famous building but the least known. There is always something new to discover. There it is. [narrator] There is no single Great Wall. There are lots of walls in northern China, built by different dynasties
for more than 2,000 years. William Lindesay is taking us
to one of the most remote places, a 2,300-kilometer drive west of Beijing, to the city of Dunhuang. Into the Gobi Desert. [Lindesay] Well, I'm nearly there,
75 miles northwest of Dunhuang, and it's a nice, sunny day
in the Gobi Desert. Perfect conditions
for exploring the Great Wall. [narrator] In the shimmering heat
the dark ribbon along the horizon at first looks like a mirage. But these really are the remains
of a wall, literally in the middle of nowhere. Well, one of the most precious
parts of the Great Wall of China, this is the Han wall,
built 2,100 years ago. 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, let's go and take a closer look. [narrator] Built over 2,000 years ago, this wall looks completely different
to the familiar Great Wall near Beijing. It's not built of stone, but this construction material
has kept it strong for millennia: reed and gravel. But who was this wall 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 "Hexi Corridor" that runs along the Silk Road
between the northern steppes and the Himalayan foothills. It's a real border,
not just between peoples but between lifestyles. The nomads of the steppe live in yurts,
the traditional round tent. They live entirely from their livestock,
wandering over the steppe. They pitch their yurts wherever they find
grazing land for their herds. After enduring long, hard winters
in the steppes, these nomadic warriors
ransack China's northern provinces. Year after year, they kill and maraud,
stealing food and metals, everything their lifestyle
prevents them producing. The Chinese regarded their empire
as the cradle of civilization. According to their Confucian philosophy,
it was the cultural center of the world. Appeasing the barbarians along the border
by trading with them was out of the question. War was too expensive, so the Han emperor decided
to build a wall. How many people were involved
in the construction of the Han wall? No one knows for sure. Reliable sources quote the calculations
presented to the emperor. If one soldier can build
three paces of wall in one month, then 300 men can build three "Li,"
about one and a half kilometers. That means 1,000 Li,
or about 530 kilometers, would take 100,000 men
one month to complete. So far, so good... and so many. How did they feed so many men
in the middle of the desert? Just 13 kilometers to the east
of the Han wall remains, the ruins of a giant granary
rise from the sand. Huge amounts of grain were brought here
from the fertile regions of the empire. And even when the construction of the wall
was finished, border troops still benefited
from grain supplies stored here, at the edge of the desert. Most of the soldiers
were stationed at the towers. The towers had a dual use
that made them most effective for defense. The beacon tower behind me was not only the perfect vantage point
for guards on this frontier to watch for the enemy
coming from the north: it was a signaling station. So, when the enemy was sighted,
this beacon would have been ignited. [narrator] 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 garrisons located in the hinterland. How long is the Han wall? Only recently
have Chinese experts started to find out. We've joined
the local archaeological survey team, who are taking part in a national survey to locate
the line of the Han dynasty Great Wall. [narrator] The team
is heading out into the Gobi Desert. They need a whole summer
just to measure this section of the wall. At noon the temperature can climb
to over 40 degrees Celsius. Today the team is exploring a fortification that lies
in the hinterland of the Han wall. This could have been a garrison
for support troops. Today, the remains are hardly visible. [Lindesay speaking Chinese] This tower has a name.
It's called "Half Tower." Obviously
because half the tower is missing. The team are here today
to locate the fortifications with GPS. I wonder how they'll measure the height,
because it's so crumbly. I'll ask him. [Lindesay and man speaking Chinese] [speaking Chinese] So, they don't have to climb up the tower
to measure it, they have a device here. [narrator] A laser rangefinder
collects the data. It'll be a few years before
the results of the survey are summarized, and a figure can be given
for the length of the Han wall. [speaking Chinese] So, from here to the Jade Gate
is about 45, 50 kilometers. And there are three sections of wall
that are quite visible. And in between there is virtually nothing, although the archaeologists
may find traces. Mr. Yang is very reluctant
to give a guesstimate of how many kilometers of Han wall
are standing. [narrator] GPS team-leader Mr. Yang
has given William directions to a place in the desert
where the wall has a unique shape. It's a 16-kilometer hike, so William is buying provisions
for the trip at Dunhuang market. Well, raw meat wouldn't be very good,
out in the desert. [narrator] A lot of what he sees
doesn't seem too useful for a desert trek, but he finally finds what he needs. Successful shopping trip. For 1.99 or so,
a good supply of high-energy foods. Mmm. Delicious. [narrator] Next morning at five o'clock,
Lindesay sets off for the hike. [Lindesay] Lots of satellites around. It's 14.4 kilometers. So, that's about... uh... nine...
nine miles or more. [narrator] He's not walking alone.
In the desert it would be too dangerous. With him is his Chinese friend
Piao Tiejun. [narrator] Their GPS says they will reach
the unique strip of wall in five hours. [Lindesay] Let's go. [narrator] It's cool now,
but the sparse vegetation is tinder dry. There hasn't been any rainfall here
for months. They're walking
in a featureless landscape. I can see a solitary tree over there. Shall we? Back in '87, I just had a big map
of the whole country. Basically, my journey along the wall,
from the desert to the sea, was like that. Seventeen hundred miles. Not the ideal map
for hiking across desert, grassland... [narrator] It's nearly noon,
and the sun is burning, but finally they arrive at the place
they've been looking for. [Lindesay] Hey, there it is. We made it. [laughing] Fantastic. Great. [laughing] Brilliant. [narrator] For William
it's already worth the trip, even the five hours back. [Lindesay] Amazing, eh? Oh, look at that. Fantastic! It's the best bit. [Lindesay] Of all the faces
that the Great Wall of China has, this is the rarest of them all. This wall is made of wood. See, there's 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 ten-mile trek. Yeah. [narrator] Leaving the Dunhuang region
and making his way east along the ancient Silk Road, William is aiming for a town
called Jiayuguan. 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 Jiajing,
emperor of the Ming dynasty. The Ming emperor's
contempt for the nomads reached grotesque proportions with the demand that the character "yi,"
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. Ming emperor Jiajing ascended
the Dragon Throne in 1521. He renewed the Han tradition,
established in ancient times, constructing a long wall
at the northern border, with its westernmost point
at the Jiayuguan pass. "Jiayuguan" translates
as "barrier to the pleasant valley," and "pleasant valley" means China. This gigantic fort 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. [Lindesay] To avoid wastage of materials,
prior to construction of the fortress, the architect was asked to calculate
exactly how many bricks were required. He computed 999,999. 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." Six hundred years later,
the leftover brick still remains. [narrator] Next to the fort
is the starting point of the wall, constructed by the Ming. This wall has nothing in common
with the brick-and-stone wall north of Beijing. It's made of rammed earth, and although it's more than 400 years old,
it's still in good shape, and it's still wide enough to walk on. Local shepherds, though,
don't pay much attention to the monument; they simply live with it and dig holes into it
as a shelter against the sun. [Lindesay speaking Chinese] [Lindesay laughs] [Lindesay speaking Chinese] These herders' dugouts provide great shelter
from the blazing sun, but they're all along this wall. What makes this place really special is we can appreciate that the question
"How long is the Great Wall of China?" is difficult to answer. Because we have two walls. Here is the Han dynasty wall and, in fact, the emperors of 13 dynasties authorized the construction
of border-defense projects, great walls. And they inherited walls
but not necessarily used them because they were probably
in the wrong place at the wrong time. The different policies
towards the northern nomads. So it's very rare, a very special place,
that we have two walls side by side: the Han wall and the Ming wall. [dog barking] [dog barking] [narrator] On his walks, William Lindesay soon learned
he could count on receiving warm hospitality
from the farmers along the way. [both speaking Chinese] [Lindesay] 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, are the people going to be friendly? And I didn't have a support crew with me.
I depended 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. [speaking Chinese] [narrator] Even if many of them
can't understand why a foreigner should be so interested in the wall. For them, this is no monument
but simply a part of their village and one with a perfectly practical use. I was asking him
why there are these holes in the wall. I thought they were nests,
but in fact... Um... Previously the farms
were right up against the wall, so there were 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 to protect the national heritage. [narrator] But when progress demands it,
in today's booming China, national heritage
still has to take a back seat. Railroads slice through the wall... [train whistle] ...and superhighways
make gigantic breaches in the ramparts. Occasionally, tunnels are built
through the old earth ramparts. If you want to know
how Ming dynasty masons constructed their wall
more than 400 years ago, all you have to do is keep your eyes open. Even today, Chinese farmers build walls
in the same way their ancestors did. They tamp the earth in a wooden casing. Tamp. 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 Chan is building this wall
to enclose his compound, so this is the final piece of work, and this is embedded
in Chinese architectural tradition. Whether it's a compound or a village
or a kingdom, it must be enclosed, completely safe. [all singing in Chinese] They built most of the Ming wall
just like this, as a rammed-earth wall. Imagine how many billion thuds it took. [Lindesay speaking Chinese] [speaking Chinese] The singing
is an important part of the work. It keeps all the rammers in step,
the beat. So, you know, they're all in step,
going along the wall there. They're getting into a rhythm. And the actual content? Oh. [laughs] I've been in China 23 years, but this guy has a really heavy accent. It's a bit difficult,
but it's definitely a kind of rap. He changes the words,
and occasionally you 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 thuds
if someone is out of tune. [narrator] This group of about 20 farmers,
mostly women, took a day
to erect about 27 meters of wall. 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. [speaking Chinese] On his journey along the walls of China,
William Lindesay is walking eastwards, out of the Hexi Corridor,
and turning north along the Great Wall of the Ming dynasty, into the great loop of the Yellow River,
the cradle of China's civilization. This has always been the gateway
for the nomads to enter China. Here, though wind and weather
have done their worst, the wall and its towers
can still be made out on the crags above the river. The garrison forts were the outposts
of this defensive outer wall. Today their use is strictly nonmilitary. But the wall's history lives on
in the tales and songs of the peasants. [man sings in Chinese] [singing continues] [men speaking Chinese] [people clapping] [pig grunting] Oh, I love staying in the countryside. This building,
it's made of thick blocks of limestone and on the roof there's turf. When you come here in winter, they've got a good method
for keeping you warm: see this? It's not a bed,
it's called a "kang." K-A-N-G. And they put the fuel under here,
light it, you can do the cooking here, and you've got a nice warm bed for the
night. So, I've got full board and lodging... Um... Breakfast tomorrow morning,
and dinner this evening and lunch coming up soon for less than ten dollars. [Lindesay speaking Chinese] I should apologize for the slurping. It's part and parcel of eating in China, considered the sound of an appreciation. [loud slurping] [narrator] The ingredients of the lunch
William is appreciating today are also the reason the nomads
raided the land of the Yellow River throughout the 16th century. In the year 1549,
the barbarians come to plunder. But the nomadic cavalry
are brought to a virtual standstill at the new border wall at Xuanfu. The wall stands fast. The nomadic troops
are unable to capture the Chinese granary. Does this mean defeat? The barbarians do not give up. They have a message for the Chinese: they will attack Beijing, the capital. By marching east, the nomad army
finds its way around the wall, thus avoiding the Ming emperor's
elaborate border fortifications. No one had suspected the nomads
could cross the natural barrier: the mountain range north of Beijing. Even today,
these mountains are difficult to cross, though for a different reason. Traffic jams. Lots of walls in China,
and this is the wall of trucks. So, we have a problem here. Uh... China's largest coalfield, and all of these trucks
hauling out the fuel. And, uh...
Lots of mountain ranges to cross. On a narrow road like this,
there only has to be a bit of a problem, one of the trucks overheating,
and the whole route is jammed. So, I hope it's just going to be
a few hours, and not a few days. And that is not a joke. [narrator] But after seven hours this 80-kilometer tailback
eases almost miraculously. The road over the pass is clear. Back in 1550, the nomads
did not meet with any serious opposition on their way south. They terrorized Beijing's suburbs
for three days. They demanded trading rights, leaving the Forbidden City untouched
before drawing back to the steppes. After a short period of trading, the Ming emperor started building
a wall of stone north of Beijing. Between the 1550s and 1644 it reached a length
of at least 1,200 kilometers: the "Stone Dragon," the Chinese Great Wall,
as the world knows it today. How many people were needed to build it? Official figures are rare, but in some inaccessible sections
of the wall there are still stone tablets engraved with texts that could give us
that information. I'm hoping this stone
is gonna tell me something about when this wall was built,
how many people were involved and mention some place-names. From here
the inscription looks very faint. But we have a ladder,
master artisan Mr. Hou, and with his simple tools
we're gonna copy the stone and produce a rubbing, which hopefully will reveal
the full content of the tablet. [narrator]
This ancient Chinese copying technique starts with gluing a sheet of paper
onto the tablet, simply with water. This is step number one. Step number two: "da-zi" translates literally
as "typing characters." So, he's using a brush, and he's hammering the paper
into the carvings. The higher parts of the paper
will be blackened. And the lower parts
that have gone into the characters and any design along the edges,
they will remain white. [narrator] After three hours
of sponging and drying, Mr. Hou presents his piece of art. It looks like a blueprint
or an old archive document. [Lindesay speaking Chinese] And he helps William translate
the ancient Chinese characters, which today hardly anybody can read. This stone is telling us
that two military officials, in charge of 1,100 families, put in the effort to build
250 yards of wall in the autumn of 1579. So, in terms of very simple arithmetic,
productivity... We are talking about
four persons per family, 4,500 people working
for eight to ten weeks in the autumn of 1579 to build that. [narrator] Whereas tamped-earth walls
were built by untrained serfs or peasants, this project required special knowledge: hundreds of master builders
and skilled engineers, thousands of stonecutters,
and tens of thousands of masons were recruited to build the wall. And another factor
led to the costs rising exponentially. Tamped-earth walls were built
using materials available on-site. The material for the new wall
had to be manufactured before use. The Chinese had devised
a network of brickkilns, set up near the construction sites. One of these sites
was found by local farmers and inspected by Professor Wang Xuanong, curator of the Great Wall Museum
in Shanhaiguan. [speaking Chinese] So, at this location
they discovered around 60 brickkilns, and it ranks
as the best production center of bricks preserved along the whole length
of the Great Wall. And it's estimated
that each kiln could fire 5,000 bricks. Now, given that there are 60 kilns
in this valley, the production of this center alone would be
equal to 300,000 bricks per month. Industrial-scale production. [narrator] Then as now,
mass production is one thing, but it's a different matter to transport
a product to where it's needed. Logistics. Now, a key question,
very interesting question, is: How did they move all the bricks up there? [Lindesay speaking Chinese] [narrator] Again,
there is almost no historical record to answer this question. But Professor Wang has his theories. [speaking Chinese] People may have carried
a few bricks on their backs like this, and also, it's been suggested
a herd of goats could have carried a lot of bricks
up there quite effectively. Two bricks on the back of a goat, and the bricks were joined together
with rope, so the goat is quite balanced
as it's moving up the mountain. [narrator]
Even without bricks on your back it's a hard slog up to the wall... but it's worth it. Hardly any tourists make it
to this isolated section. Every time I come up here on these trails, I spare a thought for the builders who had to heave, push,
all of this building material up here. All these blocks, all of these bricks. [narrator] The sometimes-bizarre route
taken by this wall has led many experts to believe that more
than just defensive considerations were in play here. For generations, the Chinese had followed
the practice of feng shui, the teachings of wind and water. Feng shui experts were probably consulted,
and obeyed, before the building of the wall, to make sure that the forces of nature
would work in its favor. Spending his days alone on the wall, Lindesay imagines how the soldiers must
have suffered here, cut off from the world,
enduring winds and foul weather, squeezed into bare and cramped quarters,
for months on end. Finally, this wall is a monument to the closed worldview
of the Ming Empire. It circumscribed their universe
and excluded everything that was foreign. Often, scratching around in this rubble,
you can find bits of pottery... Not sure what this stone is. This stone looks quite interesting.
It may be a brick. Let's have a look. It might be... Ah! Ah. [laughs] That is a... stone bomb, that would have been
packed with gunpowder, a mud seal, a fuse. And towers like this
were just packed with these, maybe 50 or 100, to be lobbed off the wall,
when the tower was attacked. That's a really good find. [narrator] Three hundred twenty kilometers
further east, we find another example of living history. [both speaking Chinese] This is Zhang Heshan. His ancestors built the wall here
440 years ago, and close-by,
towers have other family names like the Chen tower, the Wang tower
or the Luo tower. So, here we here have a family history
of the Great Wall, still living on,
440 years after it was built. [music and drumming] [narrator] Even today
they still worship their ancestors by celebrating ancient festivals. [speaking Chinese] [laughs] The pig was slaughtered yesterday,
so should be quite nice. Fresh pork. [narrator] It would have been
a rare moment of relaxation and abundance in a hard life. As the oldest member of his family, Mr. Zhang makes the sacrifice
to his ancestors and burns incense sticks. Then, the living generations
of the Zhang family bow to the dead and to their own great history. [man speaking Chinese] The village families had to look after
and feed the soldiers in the towers. Their takeaway food service
survives to this day. Zhang Heshan,
the farmer down in Chung-Ziu village, prepared some delicacies
for me to munch on up here after my hike, and it's amazing
to think that 400 years ago, guards garrisoned up on the wall
would be sent these by their families. So, let's have a look. It's a kind of pasty, kept fresh
in one of these large oak leaves, and you can see the leaf print
on the pastry. Well... Have a taste... Mmm. Full of chives. Kind of Chinese hamburger. Maybe the original Chinese takeaway,
for those up on the wall. [narrator] By 1644,
just short of 100 years of construction, the most impressive defensive wall
ever made by man was finished. However,
it was not one single "Great Wall." It comprised a system
of several defense lines, from the mountains to the sea. In 2009,
after a national survey of the Ming wall, Chinese officials announced
that the total length is 8,850 kilometers. This is the end at Shanhaiguan,
meaning "Mountain-Sea Pass." [Lindesay]
The Chinese liken the Ming Great Wall to a dragon snaking across their land, and here it comes to a geographical end at "Old Dragon's Head" at the Yellow Sea. Not far from this location, in 1644, the commander of Shanhaiguan
faced his biggest challenge. An event which led to the end of the Great Wall
functioning as a national defense. [narrator] Professor Wang
is taking William to the gates and walls, in the outskirts of Shanhaiguan. This is the place where
the Great Wall story came to an end. The construction of the Great Wall led to the financial and strategic
collapse of the Ming dynasty. Revolts broke out
everywhere in the empire. An army of rebel peasants
marched on Beijing, where they toppled the emperor. Then, on to Shanhaiguan,
the last stronghold of the Ming Empire. But a mighty army
had risen from the steppes, heading for the Middle Kingdom:
the Manchus. Caught in between: Wu Sangui. He was the general
in command of the fortress at Shanhaiguan. Now he was under siege. What could he do? This was a powerful garrison, but was it strong enough
to fight off attackers on two fronts? [Wang Xuanong speaking Chinese] Professor Wang Xuanong tells
William Lindesay the solution he found. So, trapped between two enemies, commander Wu Sangui
knew he couldn't defeat them both, so he came up with a plan: to offer an alliance treaty
with the Manchus in the north. And the two armies joined
and confronted the peasant-rebel army, and they defeated them. [narrator] "A wall is only as strong
as the men who guard it" Genghis Khan is supposed to have said. His successors from the steppes,
the Manchus, would have agreed with him. Eighty thousand Manchu soldiers
passed through this gate and entered the heartland of China. [narrator] The Manchus
founded a new dynasty, which, in effect,
ruled over the Middle Kingdom until 1912. They called themselves "Qing,"
meaning the "pure." And the Great Wall
was of no use anymore. But its story did not come to an end. Even today, nobody knows how long
all the great walls of China really are. There are still many more walls,
and stories, to be discovered. And William Lindesay
will not stop walking the Great Wall until he knows them all. I don't think, in future, so many people will be organized
in such a methodical way to create something
that was not just history, that not just fell apart, but is left as part of the geography
of China and the world. Certainly, in future,
there are going to be new wonders: communications, longer life,
exploring planets... But in terms of blood, sweat and tears, the Great Wall of China, I think,
is the ultimate, and that's why
I'm continuing to understand it.
