Take the great wll of the Qin for instance,records have it that almost one million corvee-la-borers(about 20% of all the manpower in the country then)were conscripted and dispatched to the working site for theproject. armymen, conscripted laborers and prisoners under the threat of swords and whips did all heavy jobs.
a stone stele inscribed in 1582-10th year of the Wanli reign periodof the Ming dynasty has it that the work was being carried out section by section within a certain time limit by the garrison army together with the laborers.to fulfil the assigned job,a mere section of about 240 meters had to be done by thousands of armymen and a great number of forced laborers.
Dancing up hills and down dales,crossing deserts and grasslands the wall were built in different ways according to the varied terrain and topography.when going over steepriges and peaks,pieces of stone and bricks had to be applied onto the faces of them,but when passing by streams or valleys,walls had to be built along abrupt banks or cliffs.
the engineering work done in the Ming dynasty used a lot of flagstones on the outside and filled the insides with bits of rock pieces of bricks,the wall built in this way was much better in quality than the ones of the previous dynasties,therfor, a greater part of the reconstructed wall in the Ming dynasty,extending from the shanhai pass to jiayu pass,has been up to now still in good conditions,the magnificent great wall,an earthwork with a length of well over 10,000 li,embodies the wisdom and strong will-power of the chinese people,the glory and greatness of the nation.
